Episode 11 Animal Park

Hello and welcome to Animal Park. I'm Kate Humble.

And I'm Ben Fogle, and this WAS Hamish,

-before he disappeared into my jacket.

-This is Scamp.

They're ferrets. There are ten of them here at Longleat, and very entertaining they are.

They seem to want to... There's one there, recording sound.

-If you can't hear us, blame the ferrets.

-What are you doing?

All I can see is a little tail sticking out.

-We're always invaded when we come in here.

-We are. They've all left me now.

We've got lots of stories about the animals

and the house here at Longleat. Here's what's coming up today.

The lion cubs have been playing too rough, and now both of them have injured a leg.

The farmer went to market

to buy some little pigs, but can he train them to play football?

1-0.

And don't be fooled by their comical appearance. Hippos are deadly.

But first we're going up to lion country, where Kabir's two daughters are growing fast.

Malaika is now four and a half months old, while her half sister, Jasira, is six weeks younger.

At this age, they're concentrating on the skills

every lion needs to survive - hunting, stalking and fighting.

Keeper Bob Trollope is spending a lot of time watching them

because learning to be a lion can be a dangerous business.

We do like to keep an eye on them when they're fed because Kabir can be a bit aggressive over food.

He is a very powerful animal, plus the fact he's ten times bigger

than the little ones at the moment.

Even if he just sat on them, he'd do a lot of damage.

At feeding time, it's important to Kabir to feel that he's got

the lion's share, though, of course, there's always plenty for everyone.

Our cubs are such great time-wasters.

We spend hours just watching them.

It's great to watch them because they're

picking up the skills they would use in later life in the wild.

They're in deepest Wiltshire at the moment so they don't actually need those skills.

But they are great time-wasters.

It just amazes you how bold

and courageous they can be.

Something as...

normal to us as a tree

is a mountain for them to climb.

They will chase each other around, jump on each other.

Greatest thing to play with at the moment is Mum's tail.

It is great fun. They do what any small kitten would do at home -

play with virtually anything.

But these kittens already weigh four times more than a fully-grown cat,

and all this play is really part of their education.

The mums - Luna and Yendi - help the cubs practise their fighting skills.

They play quite rough at times.

I've just noticed that Malaika has got a bit of a limp.

Do you intervene too soon or let nature take its course

and heal naturally? Why intervene?

You might put her through more stress

by getting in and catching her and having a look around.

They are designed to take a certain amount of, um...

..punishment from the bigger lions.

Bob needs to keep Malaika under close observation

because that limp could be nothing, or it might be a serious problem.

We'll be back to find out later on.

Out in Africa, the lion might be the king of the beasts, but he's not the most dangerous.

Every year, more people are killed by another, far more frightening creature.

Surprisingly, it's a herbivore.

I have to confess I'm feeling a little bit nervous.

I'm here with head of section Mark Tye in the hippo field, and the hippos, several tonnes

of what is supposed to be the most dangerous animal in Africa standing only a few metres away, Mark.

Is this a good idea?

Probably not!

But we'll have a go at it anyway!

We've come to feed them.

We rarely see them out. Usually, they're either in the wallow or in the lake.

We're lucky today, it's quite a sunny day, and the weather's

warming up a bit, so they are coming out to graze in the field more now.

But they are still being fed by us, so they are quite keen to come over and get something to eat.

-OK. Given that they might get angry if they're not fed, I think I better start. Hay.

-Yep.

Pull that out. There we go.

-Half a bale.

-OK.

What do you do, just spread this out?

-We shake this up in a line along here.

-OK.

Right.

There we go. That's fairly well...

shaken up now.

We do have to shake it up well because they are quite fussy eaters.

-Any bad, lumpy hay they tend to just tread into the ground.

-Really?

They're a pair of madams really.

I have to say...

You're getting nervous!

I'm slightly speechless only because you hear so many stories about hippos.

Even though they only eat grass, and they're not going to attack us

to feed on us, but what I've been told is that you never get between a hippo and the water.

-Which is exactly where we are.

-Yeah.

It is probably the worst place to be

because if a hippo gets frightened, its safety net is water.

So it will always run to water for itself to feel safe, and if anything gets in its way, too bad.

Just get trampled into the mud..

-Plain and simple.

-But presumably we're not being stupid here.

They know this routine, they know you...

And also we've got the vehicle right next to us, which obviously we can get into.

Sometimes, when it's in the middle of winter, they do get extremely close, and that can be a bit of fun.

When you have to rely on the other person to tell you when to run,

you literally put the food out without looking.

Just quickly doing it.

They're fantastic to look at.

I'll just get this other food so we don't hold them up too much longer.

So, they get... Is it horse nuts?

Yes. They get about 12 kilos of horse cubes.

It's half a bale of hay and a few bananas and a bit of cabbage as well.

For an animal of that size, they don't eat very much.

That's true actually. Shall I sprinkle these...?

-Just sprinkle that along the top of the hay.

-OK.

How many tonnes are they?

It's difficult to know an accurate figure,

but we've always thought between two and a half and three tonnes each.

They are quite big. When you look at them, one them's stomachs is

-dragging along the floor.

-Yeah.

You do look at them and the thought of them being fast is ridiculous.

They've got short legs and enormous bodies.

Is it true they can run up to...?

25mph, easily. Very easily.

-Through thick mud as well, which is quite scary.

-That is scary.

Right. That's all out.

Should we get back in the vehicle?

Yeah. They won't come much closer with us here, so if we get back in and pull up the road a bit

-then they'll probably come on over and eat.

-OK.

We'll get out of their way, and join us in a little bit to see Spot and Sonya having their lunch.

Quite a few of the people who work at Longleat live in the nearby village of Horningsham,

where many of the properties are still owned by the estate.

At Mill Farm, Steve Crossman has raised cattle for over 22 years.

He's an active member of the local community, and, for the past five years,

he's been in charge of fundraising for the village fair,

an event attended by Lord Bath himself.

Every year, Steve tries to come up with something innovative, and

one notorious fundraiser included stripping off for a nude calendar.

But Steve's putting his pin-up days behind him, and this year he's going back to a farming theme.

We decided to have a guess-the-weight competition this year, and it would be pigs.

That's the latest scam. We think piglets will be a success because everybody loves piglets,

so on the day they'll have their own pen and no doubt they'll be entertaining, as well as

bringing some money into the village, hopefully.

Steve thinks he's onto a winner, but he's not sure how Charlie, his three-year-old sheepdog, will react.

It will be interesting when the pigs arrive. He's never

seen a pig, as far as I'm aware.

So what his reaction will be, I'm not sure.

But it'll amusing, knowing Charlie.

21, 21, 22...

The guess-the-weight competition is only a few weeks away,

so, in a bid to find the perfect piglets,

Steve's visiting Salisbury market,

where over 500 animals are auctioned every week.

When it comes to cows, Steve's got a wealth of experience, but he's a novice at picking prime porkers.

There's always that element of risk. I'm not a pig farmer, I know very little about pigs.

I know what they're meant to look like.

I was always told never to buy a pig with too much hair on it.

I'm not 100% certain what the reason is behind that,

but that was one thing I've been told to look out for.

There are over 70 different breeds of pig in the world, and several types are up for auction here.

The biggest breed in Britain is the large white,

which can reach up to seven feet long and weigh nearly half a ton.

Steve's looking for something much smaller, like these Landrace piglets, a common commercial breed.

They're a nice even bunch. They're obviously being weaned.

They'd fit into my little pig sty just right.

So, um...

strong possibly is I might be looking at this.

Rather than just one pig, Steve wants the public

to guess the weight of a whole litter for his competition.

But right now, he needs to see off the competition here.

I think I've spotted one of my main competitors if there is such a thing.

The chap behind me, over my left-hand shoulder in the pen, with the cap on,

he's been in and out of every pen, so he does look as if he's obviously a very interested party.

He might be my main competition, so think I'll have to put the squeeze on him in a minute, get rid of him!

INAUDIBLE

And a half. 27 and a half...

All done at 28.

Yep. Good move.

A little bit more than I wanted to pay for them.

But competition was hotter than I expected.

Been a successful day. Happy with that.

Steve's got his eight piglets for £28 apiece.

But now he has to get them home.

They're funny little things. They're very difficult.

Very difficult to manoeuvre.

We've got to work out a route for them which is easy for them

and easy for me to remember where they're going to!

Come on, piglets.

Currently light on their trotters, the piglets only weigh around four stone each,

but Steve will fatten them up by the time of the village fair.

Go on, piggers, get on.

Go on. Go on.

Go on. Get on. Whoa.

Well, this is going very well.

Look at this. There you go, easy as that.

In you go, pigs.

Look at that.

Marvellous.

I'm a natural pig farmer. There you go, see.

Dead easy.

Steve's happy, but how will Charlie the sheepdog get on with the little piggies back at the farm?

We'll find out later on.

I'm up at the hippo field with head of section, Mark Tye, and earlier, I thought

we took our life into our hands and got out with the hippos very close by and spread out their food.

We've just pulled away a little bit to give them a bit of space.

-Who's this who's come up to the food first, Mark?

-This is Sonya.

She's the larger of the two, and as you can see, she positioning herself over the top of the food.

She is looking quite proprietorial.

-"This is mine, and you're not getting near it."

-Very much so.

Poor old Spot's just standing there going, "Right.

"How am I going to get round this one?"

Also the fact she is slightly more nervous.

-Of us?

-Yes. So she's a bit reluctant to come forwards,

although she is looking like she'll squeeze round now.

A little bit shier, but, having said that, neither of them are to be trusted.

We've had certain times in the past where you think

you're far enough away from them, and then you realise you're not.

-Really?

-They move so quickly.

They are extremely wild. There's nothing tame about these two at all.

Even though they've been in captivity for 30 years, they are most definitely not at all tame.

They came here aged two years old and were put into this environment.

And other than seeing people around, people putting their food down, they've very rarely been locked away

for anything, because we have the mud wallows, which is much better for them than any concrete house.

So it is a wild, natural sort of state they live in.

The boat's going past here making quite a noise.

They look completely unconcerned by that, so they've obviously got used to that.

Yes, they've got used to the boat,

-although they don't like the boat if it gets too close to them.

-Yep.

The sea lions they've had to put up with.

Yes. That's something you'd never get in the wild -

hippos and sea lions in the same environment. But they get on OK?

Yes. It started off I think it was in the late '80s with Lindy, I believe, who, when she was a baby,

decided that hippos were good fun to play on.

They were like a mobile island that she could stop on around the lake.

And all the others have picked it up.

Initially, the hippos didn't like it and got stroppy.

In the end, they probably thought, "There's not a lot I can do about it,"

so they just put up with it.

I love their kind of mud lines around the middle there.

Presumably, in the hotter weather they spend more time completely covered in mud, do they?

In the summer when it's hotter, they spend most of their time in the water.

They literally stay in the water in the lake all day long and come out at night to feed in the field.

They use the wallow more in the winter.

The wallows they make over there, they can just completely submerge themselves

and sometimes you don't even know they're in there

-and all you see is just ears and eyelids and that's it.

-Popping out.

They're great. Thank you very, very much indeed.

A great treat.

We shall leave Spot and Sonya to enjoy the rest of their meal.

Back in Lion Country, the keepers have been watching Malaika, the eldest cub, closely.

It's been a day since she was spotted with a limp,

and now Bob Trollope has been able to get a close look.

There's a small cut on Malaika's shoulder.

In fact, it's already begun to heal

so the best bet is to just leave it alone.

Meanwhile, Malaika's younger sister, Jasira, is also causing some alarm.

She may be a little too bold for her own good.

Jasira's very good at climbing trees

and not very good at getting down them at the moment.

To Mum, that would be just a simple bound down.

But not to Jasira.

She is the most adventurous one out of the two

and she's into everything. Climbing up trees and logs and things

is all part of her learning process.

She's learning now that it's easier to get up than it is to get down.

To us, I suppose, it's just a little jump

but to something that small, it's quite a way.

It must be a good eight, nine, ten feet off the ground.

If she fell, obviously, she could do a lot of damage to herself.

But if she just...

used a bit of common sense

and reversed down, it would be a lot easier.

When a cat gets stuck up a tree, it's traditional to phone for help.

I'd love to call the fire brigade up just to get her down to see what their faces look like.

But I don't think we'd be allowed to.

Having completed today's exercise in tree climbing,

Jasira is now practising the art of stalking prey.

As you can see, she's sort of stalking Dad

before trying to take him down.

Hunting techniques, this is.

She's just sort of grabbed a mouthful of...

belly hair or mane.

He's quite relaxed about it.

He'll give her a bit of a growl but that'd be about it.

Out of the two, Jasira is much more courageous than Malaika

and she doesn't mind to go out there and give

Kabir a tug on the mane or play with his tail, where Malaika's a little bit more

guarded against it, a bit more, "I don't know whether I should or not."

A couple of days later, just when Malaika's leg had got better,

Jasira was spotted limping.

Unlike her sister, there was no visible injury to the leg,

and the problem was slow to improve.

So the next time vet Duncan Williams was doing the rounds, Bob called him in.

GROWLING

Oh, shush, shush, shush.

It's the one between...

-GROWLING DROWNS SPEECH

-Oh, shush!

The family has been shut in the lion house.

Kabir's not happy about it, but it's best for Jasira.

I was wondering - it's hard to tell with them -

whether she's got a little bit of swelling on that joint.

I suppose overenthusiastic playing, a bit of boisterous...

So how long's it been going on, Bob?

Three or four days.

Initially, she had a limp

and then the following day she was just holding it up,

didn't want to sort of move about on it much.

In the ideal world, we'd have her in at X-ray it and see what's what.

We can't do that because of having to separate her from Mum.

We'd have to take her to the surgery, knock her out

and transport her, so it's quite an undertaking.

She's pretty lame on

left fore.

I think it's probably just a sort of

soft tissue injury as opposed to a fractured leg

or anything like that, because she is improving after a couple of days.

She's putting a lot more weight on it than when it first happened,

so I think it's a sort of...like a sprain or something like that.

Bob's already done the right thing by keeping her, cage rest,

so she's not putting too much pressure on it.

She's not having to go outside and keep up with her mother.

She's using the bad leg now when she's playing there

so I don't think it can be too serious.

So, for now, Duncan's going to leave a course

of anti-inflammatory medication for Bob to give Jasira.

If her leg isn't better in a couple of days, they'll have to consider more serious measures.

We'll be back later to see what happens.

A few weeks ago, I was up in the park trying to

figure out how many of their seven female pygmy goats were pregnant.

It was hard to tell by eye.

But today, on his rounds, Duncan the vet has brought along some hi-tech equipment.

I'm up at the giraffery where head of section Andy Hayton, senior warden Bev Evans,

and safari park vet Duncan Williams are scanning the pygmy goats to find out if they're pregnant.

Judging by the noises, I think they are.

Duncan, have you just spotted that...

-Yes.

-..there is...

-Is that it there?

-You see there?

That's it - the spinal cord.

Right.

What sort of age do you think that is?

Well, this is probably about four months now.

Probably due in about a month, five weeks' time.

Bev, I know that this was a pygmy goat that you weren't actually sure whether or not she was pregnant.

-That must be pretty good news for you.

-Definitely.

Are there any preparations to do?

Just keep an eye on their weight, feed them closer to the time,

make sure their udders are coming down OK, make sure they're in good health,

-and then just let them get on with it, really.

-Fantastic.

Duncan, is this important to get a scan and just check on health?

You saw the spinal cord there. Is there anything else you can check?

One thing Andy wanted to know really was how many babies there are.

Unfortunately, we're scanning them a little bit too late to do that.

See? The baby's actually too big for the screen.

-So there could be another?

-That's right.

If we'd done them earlier, the whole uterus would've filled the screen

and we would've seen two individual...or whatever.

So I could look around, find another baby,

but it might be this one from a different angle.

So I couldn't say for sure, at this stage, if there's more than one.

Andy, obviously one of the things, if we'd done it a bit earlier, we'd be able to tell if there were twins.

But it's possible that they could have triplets. Is that right?

Well, you can in sheep.

I know that can incur problems for Mum looking after them.

-As they can't produce enough milk.

-Exactly, yes.

It's just another tool in our back pocket to make sure that we look after these things properly.

See those lumps there and the movement there?

That is definitely a pregnancy.

I think that's the foetus again.

-Right, this is, um...

-This is G.

This is the last of our patients, is it?

-Why G?

-Well, we have Ali and G, so it's Ali G.

VET: That could be the foetus's heart, see that?

Pumping over there?

It's gone out of focus, but there was definitely...

-Yeah.

-Do you know what part of the body that is?

Probably just a back leg. You can see both legs there.

The black stuff's the fluid around the baby, you know...

-Amniotic fluid?

-That's right.

I remember that from biology. So that's positive for all of them?

-All seven, yes.

-Well, congratulations, if I can say that.

You've got a real smile on your face, a real proud smile.

-They're your little babies, really.

-Yeah, kind of.

Thanks very much, guys.

And we'll keep you posted on the progress of the pygmy goats.

Now it's time to meet the ancestors.

Over the course of this series, Alexander Thynne, the seventh Marquess of Bath, has volunteered

to lead us back through the branches of his family tree, to visit some of his most influential forebears.

It's a task for which Lord Bath is well qualified.

Not only has he lived here most of his 74 years, surrounded by family lore and legend,

but he's also recently published his own memoirs

featuring many stories of the ancient Thynne dynasty.

Today we're going back four and half centuries, to when it all began.

It was John Thynne who first brought the family to Longleat.

He was born the son of a common farmer, and ended the master of one of the grandest palaces in Europe.

And in Tudor times, you didn't get on by being Mr Nice Guy.

"John Thynne was a typical specimen of the new Protestant breed of rapaciously acquisitive,

"ruthlessly determined, shrewdly self-interested men on the make within the Tudor court."

John left the Shropshire farm of his birth

to seek his fortune at court.

He got a job working for the Duke of Somerset, who himself

had achieved power and wealth as the brother of Jane Seymour, one of Henry VIII's wives.

By the time Elizabeth I came to the throne,

John Thynne was also a wealthy man.

"Sir John may have been an uncouth, domineering, formidable rogue of ill-gotten wealth, shrewdly cunning

"and essentially ruthless, but he was now emerging as an eminent Elizabethan."

He was nicknamed John The Builder.

One of his most lavish projects was to oversee the construction

of a sumptuous new palace in London

for his master, the Duke of Somerset.

But before Somerset House was even finished,

both of them were arrested and thrown into the Tower of London.

In Tudor times, the politics of court was a deadly business.

His enemies said enough things for him to be thrown into the Tower for embezzlement.

They executed the other one, Somerset, and they let him off.

And he was a rich man.

After that, Sir John spent a lot less time in London,

and devoted more of his energies to his country estate, Longleat.

Originally, there was a priory here, but Henry VIII confiscated it

at the time of the Protestant Reformation

and sold the property off to the highest bidder.

Sir John bought the priory and the surrounding 60 acres for just £53.

A few years later, the old church buildings were

destroyed in an accidental fire, but they'd never been good enough for Sir John anyway.

He was becoming wealthy very quickly,

and then I think he learnt the lesson that, um...

court was a dangerous place where you tended to lose your head if you stayed there too long,

so, having bought the plot of land here at Longleat,

he retired here and spent the rest of his life,

from his mid-fifties onwards, building this palace.

It was the first Renaissance palace, or it could be called that, in England.

So John The Builder was again planning a very grand house,

despite the fact that, in Tudor times, ambition could so easily cause a chap to lose his head.

We'll find out what happened later on.

I'm in Pets Corner with my favourite bird, and almost my favourite keeper, Rob.

Thank you very much. Why "almost"?

Now, Nelson isn't usually to be found in this part of Pets Corner, is she?

No, we've created a new play frame for her.

She used to spend her days on the back of our parrot show seating,

and although it's nice for her there, we given her some nice perches...

She likes it on the seating, but she's sat on metal railings a lot of the time.

It's her choice, because she can go where she wants.

But we wanted her to be sitting on these nice thick branches and giving her a variety of things to do.

And also, this is near our entrance to Pets Corner, so she's an instant hit because she's so popular.

She is gorgeous. Remind me what sort of parrot she is?

She's a Moluccan cockatoo, sometimes known as a salmon-crested

because of these beautiful salmon-coloured feathers here.

But she originated from the Moluccan islands just above Australia.

That's what gives her her name.

She was called Nelson accidentally!

I was going to say, a SHE called Nelson! What happened?

Before she came to Longleat, her previous owners didn't know the sex of her, because with parrots,

you can't sex them by looking at them, so they assumed it was a boy and called it Nelson.

It sticks, and we call her Nelly, really.

And she is particularly soppy and friendly, isn't she?

Very. She loves attention. She does get a bit overcrowded.

Sometimes when she's been on the seat

and she gets overcrowded by the little ones,

this is also a good idea, it gives her space.

We can put a barrier across

and choose who comes and sees her during the day.

Well, it's great to see that she has got her own area all of her own.

It's been a long time coming, hasn't it?

Rob, thank you very much indeed.

We've got lots more coming up on today's programme, haven't we, Nelson?

There are babies on the way for the eland antelope, but Mum's got a problem.

Down in Wallaby Wood, the youngsters are popping up everywhere.

And Bob has to rely on bribery to get a close look at Jasira's bad leg.

Back at Mill Farm, the piglets Steve Crossman bought

for his "Guess the Weight" competition at the village fair

have had a couple of days to settle in.

Charlie's very taken with them, if slightly wary.

Every morning he goes in, and...

they've got a friendship going, to be honest.

It's quite nice. Quite strange, really.

I'll open the door and he can go on in and see if he can rouse them.

He's never quite sure what to make of 'em.

Go on!

"I'm not too sure what they are, they're not too sure what I am."

Go on, Chas.

Go on, off you go. Go on!

Here we go.

Charlie doesn't try and scare 'em or do anything, and they...

and they sort of...hoover Charlie with their noses and little snouts.

I don't think he understands or even knows what they are.

He can't quite make 'em out.

Cos pigs tend to...

They're quite quiet, and all of a sudden, they'll grunt or moo quite quickly.

I suppose Charlie's natural instinct is to herd 'em.

But he ain't quite sussed out what to do with a pig yet.

Charlie may be confused, but the pigs probably aren't.

These highly intelligent creatures are rated by many scientists

as the third brainiest in the whole animal kingdom.

Only primates and dolphins are brighter.

To stay healthy and keep on growing, pigs need both mental and physical stimulation,

so many pig farmers use enrichment techniques, like those used by

keepers at the safari park, to keep their animals alert and lively.

It's given Steve an idea.

I understand that the pot-bellied pigs at Pets Corner

are given various activities and things to play with,

so I'll probably pop down and have a chat with Darren and find out what he uses,

and see if anything would fit in more of a commercial setting.

The head of Pets Corner, Darren Beasley, looks after lots of animals,

but Bruno and Blossom, the Chinese pot-bellied pigs, are two of his favourites.

Darren's cared for them since they were piglets.

I love pigs. You can relate to these.

You can talk to 'em.

They're like dogs, dogs and cats.

I'm sure if they were not quite so smelly and a bit smaller, I'd have one running around the house.

When you get home, he'd bring the paper and your slippers.

Over the years, Darren has found all manner of activities to keep

the pigs occupied, teaching them everything from football to fetch.

Steve is hoping for some advice.

-Morning, Darren.

-Hello, Steve. All right?

I am.

So this is the famous pigs?

This is them. This is Bruno and Blossom. The terrible twosome.

If you want to do a bit of enrichment for your pigs like we do with ours,

there are a few things we could do.

The easiest thing is firstly to think like a pig.

-That's easy, my wife says!

-I smell like a pig!

You might smell like it, and I think like it. They rely on their noses,

so we use the fact that they like smelling stuff,

so I use a little titbit that smells nice as a reward.

We just try and think of things to challenge them. Bruno, come here!

Bruno! Here. Come here.

He hung his boots up a long time ago. We haven't done this for a long time.

Bruno, can you heel? Heel!

How long did it take you to manage him to do that?

That was a few weeks, but it's persistent.

You've got to do it all the time.

Bruno, sit! Bruno, sit.

The idea is, it's challenging that noggin. It's challenging that brain.

You obviously spend a lot of time training them.

Mine won't have the contact that these pigs have had,

but what can I put in there that will stimulate them and make their days a bit more interesting?

This is the most basic form of enrichment, a bit of plant life, a bit of rotten log or something.

If you chuck it into their pen or enclosure,

they'll chew it up, root around in it and love it.

They'll eat it or they might just chew the bark off.

It's good for their teeth and tummies at the same time.

A tyre or a lump of wood or a bit of rotten log,

something that smells different.

Anything you can do in the enclosure that breaks up that routine

of the day and gets the brain active will help them pile on the pounds.

Thank you very much indeed.

-Cheers, mate.

-I shall go home and experiment.

Each year about a quarter of a million visitors take the tour of Longleat House,

and the staff are keen that everything should be displayed in tip-top condition.

But with over a hundred rooms to look after,

it's a challenge just to keep it all clean,

especially when so many things here are so valuable, and so delicate.

I'm on my way to the Music Room in Longleat House

to meet house steward Ken Windess and his wife, cleaning supervisor June Windess,

to help out with the cleaning process of the more delicate items in the house.

-Hi, Ken, how are you?

-Not so bad, Ben, thank you.

-I assume it's chandeliers that we're cleaning today?

-Yes, very much so.

And it literally involves taking it apart?

-Yeah, there's one of the pieces.

-Shall I take that?

-Yes, please.

-I assume it's a fragile piece.

-What's that made of?

-That's crystal.

And how many pieces of crystal are there on that chandelier?

-Upwards of 400 pieces on there.

-And every single piece has to come off?

-It does.

How often do you do this?

We do this annually if we can.

It depends on our workload, but we do it yearly if we can.

And how many chandeliers in the house?

There's four chandeliers in the house.

-That's a lot of cleaning.

-It is.

Can I ask how old this one is?

It's comparatively young. It only came into the house in 1982.

Lady Virginia,

the late Marquis's wife, had it installed.

I'll take this on to its next process. Hi, June.

Hello, Ben.

I assume this is what has to happen next?

Yes, what we do is take it,

-keeping it flat.

-I can see that it's covered in dust.

Yes. In here we have a solution of warm water and vinegar.

Is vinegar a good cleaning agent?

Vinegar cuts through grease and dust very good, and it leaves a nice sparkle.

The only thing we have to be careful with

is that we must rinse it off very well,

otherwise it could tarnish the wires holding the crystals together.

Is every individual piece the same?

No, they're all different,

so we learnt from an early stage to have a graph.

So is every individual piece unique?

Yes, every piece is different in some way.

You have an oblong there, a round there, and a teardrop.

You've got another round, but a different top to it.

Then you've got another one. And then a different shape again there.

So you're not putting it into the substance itself?

No, just gently wipe over, and then put them into the rinse bowl

and give them a really good rinse,

because it makes the crystal sparkle and stops the wires tarnishing.

-What's the next stage?

-Onto the paper towel.

Shall I do that? I'm always the first to volunteer for the drying.

Everyone either loves the cleaning process or the drying.

-I don't like getting my hands wet. Shall I dab it?

-Pat it dry, yes.

Is it important to get all the moisture off?

The wires should be all right, but as long as we've got the vinegar off so it doesn't tarnish.

We always know when we've got it nice, cos you can see the sparkle.

Let's see if we can see that.

-See?

-Oh, look at that.

That's looking great.

-So that's gone full circle now.

-That's ready.

Shall I take that back without putting my grubby paw prints on it?

Ken, you were observing from a distance.

Shall I pass that back to you?

And you'll clip that back into place?

That's going back into place, from whence it came.

Back up in the lion's den, Jasira, the youngest cub, was seen limping,

and has been on a course of anti-inflammatory medication for a couple of days now.

Keeper Bob Trollope has an easy way to administer the dose.

What's this?

Oh, yes, you're up for it, aren't you?

If I can get a little chunk.

Don't give her too much to start with, cos I want to make sure...

Come on, darling. Good girl.

Just put a bit in and see if she wants it.

Oh, yeah. Good girl.

All the lions have been trained from an early age

to take meat chunks for just this purpose.

It's the lion equivalent of the old spoonful-of-sugar trick.

Good girl.

Up, up.

It's obviously better than having to inject them or dart them.

It's something that we do on a regular basis anyway,

not only this sort of medication, but deworm her and things like that.

It's such an easy way, and they get pleasure out of it rather than being stressed, so we're happy in a way.

If we can get them at an early age like this to do that, then in later life when they're that age,

it works wonders.

Stand up. Good girl.

Now we can see your feet.

And that one. Come on. Good girl.

There you are.

Come on, let's have a look. Oh.

There's obviously no pain in her foot.

We're lucky that they are quite quiet.

Come on, good girl.

That's it. Let's see if there's anything on there. ..Is there? No.

Good girl. Good girl.

Today Jasira is being very trusting, so Bob can get a close look at that injured leg and foot.

Quite good. We've been able to see the pad, so we know it's not in the pad.

And she didn't seem too worried about me poking about on various parts of her leg.

When you get the chance, you've got to take it.

She's really up for it.

The fact that they are quiet and we can do this while...

that's it. Stand up a bit more.

Does that hurt?

Bob's pleased with what he's seen of Jasira's leg, but she's not all better yet.

What we just gave her is an anti-inflammatory.

Obviously, if there's

a sprain or strain, then there'll be some swelling.

That's probably through a knock or bump or something from one of the others.

She might have just jumped about and hurt herself.

Obviously, if that doesn't change in a few days, we'll have to get Duncan back in

and I imagine there'll have to be some sort of X-ray or whatever.

But we don't want to do that.

We'll find out what happens to Jasira later in the series.

There were great expectations last year, when a new eland bull

was brought in to join Longleat's herd of seven females.

The eland is Africa's biggest antelope.

When fully grown, the male can be six foot tall at the shoulder.

Unfortunately, their new bull, named Zambezi, was still quite young and nowhere near that height.

So although he was sexually mature, doubts were soon cast about his ability to do the business.

To cut a long story short, he just couldn't reach.

But a summer on the Longleat grass must have done the trick,

because we've heard that one of the females, Saphie, is now pregnant.

However, there was bad news too.

Kate's gone to investigate.

I'm out with safari park vet Duncan Williams and keeper Kevin Knibbs.

Kevin, I gather that there's a problem with one of the eland.

Yeah, we've noticed that one of the eland, Saphie, has a bit of a limp.

She's been limping for a couple of days. It's a bit better

but we've got Duncan in just to make sure it's nothing major.

Can you spot which one she is of these five here?

Yeah, she's actually the one right at the very back there.

-She's just put her head down.

-The one that's completely hidden from us!

Which foot are we looking at, Kev?

It's back right, mostly.

Oh, OK. It doesn't look too swollen from here, does it?

No, no. But she kind of walks a little bit funny.

-Right.

-A definite pronounced limp.

-Now, she's pregnant, is that right?

We believe so. She looks very heavily pregnant.

OK. Um, and is pregnancy

something that can make an animal walk in a slightly awkward way?

Like a heavily-pregnant woman often gets a bit wobbly and, er...

That's right. I think late pregnancy, they're certainly more prone to lamenesses.

The other issue, of course,

is that if it is an abscess or something in her foot,

we're pretty reluctant to knock her out

-while she's heavily pregnant.

-Of course.

What's the next stage, really?

What can you do to best ascertain what's wrong and what the best course of action is?

Well, you can see, she's not really showing the problems too much.

She's putting weight on it. But I'd like to see her walking.

If we can see her walking, Kev, walk past us, and just see how bad it is.

I think that would be the next step.

-Yeah.

-OK, so shall we pile into the car and let her out?

Is that best? Let her out into the park and then we can see what she's doing.

When we're in position, Tim Yeo opens the gate.

Now the eland should just walk out calmly, right past our windows.

She's always been the last one to come out.

When did you first notice it, Kev?

-Er, about two days ago.

-OK.

It was a lot worse than what it is now.

You know, this looks a lot better.

-Oh, it's got better itself?

-Definitely, yeah.

-Oh, OK.

She looks sort of a bit uneasy on it, doesn't she?

So it's definitely tender.

It's good news that it's getting better without any treatment.

But I think, as a precaution, if we give her a dart with the antibiotic - dissolve it

with the anti-inflammatory, like we've done in the past - we'll cover all options,

just in case there's an infection.

But I'd imagine, if it's getting better on its own, she's probably sprained it or something.

Or, like Kate was saying earlier, she's just uncomfortable from a heavy pregnancy.

-OK.

-OK, well, we'll keep our fingers crossed for the pregnancy, hope that

the antibiotics does the trick, and she remains comfortable and happy for the rest of her pregnancy.

Thank you both very much indeed.

Longleat House was designed to make a big impression.

That was important to Sir John Thynne

when he started building work in 1568, during the reign of Elizabeth I.

Today, Alexander Thynne, Lord Bath,

is the 13th generation of his descendants to live here.

In his memoirs, he's written about Sir John's architectural ambitions.

"It was a daring enterprise, in that it set out to build something

"in a style that had never yet been ventured upon British soil."

He was a member of the court,

he was...seeing his rivals... starting on

having grandiose buildings.

He was a newcomer and wanted a more grandiose building than they had.

So he made it his business

to see that the finest palace that had ever gone up in England outside royalty was his.

He was definitely a nouveau riche of that time and proudly

being a vigorous entrepreneur and a vigorous controller of everything.

News of the splendour of Longleat soon reached the court, and Queen Elizabeth I

decided to visit on one of her Royal Progresses through the West Country.

Fearing the expense of entertaining her, Sir John tried to put her off with a series of excuses.

There were diseases in the household.

There were, er...

Poachers were dangerous.

Every kind of excuse was put up there.

And for a while, she swallowed them.

But in the end, she just felt that she was being...

made a monkey of. So insisted, gave some very fierce words.

I think he probably knew from experience that if she felt things

were too good, she might sort of say, "Well, you owe that to me."

Um, but, er...she did get her way in the end

and then was lavish in her praise for his preparations for the visit.

Elizabeth was impressed, but kindly allowed Sir John to keep his fine house.

Through the centuries since, Longleat has continued to impress its many visitors,

whether they be kings, queens,

or experts on historic architecture, like Nick Molyneux from English Heritage.

I always am excited arriving here.

I think the arrival down the drive

is one of the great experiences of English country houses.

The approach that the visitor has today, as you come over the hill,

look down into the valley and see the house sitting there in this fantastic landscape.

Then you remember it's not a 18th-century country house,

as you first think it is, it's actually 16th-century.

And it's a very, very grand house for its date.

Um...and then, you come inside and this space is just a "Wow!"

For me, the great hall is one of the great spaces of its period in England.

Sir John did much of the design work himself.

And that's one of the enigmas of Longleat, that a man who started as

an uneducated farm boy could produce a building as significant as this.

So how do you rate Longleat amongst all the other European architecture that was going up?

For its period, it's one of the great houses of Europe,

certainly of England.

And, of course, Sir John was employing some of the best stonemasons around.

Although, as we know, he was quite keen

to have his own hand in designing the place as well.

One of the great features of the house - is the fact

that it's got a symmetrical facade,

which was a very new idea when he was here building.

Yes, well, I like the way, though, that once you get up to the roof

that it sort of certainly begins to get an originality

that isn't in the other houses. Individualism creeps in.

As we know, Lord Bath is particularly keen on individualism,

so he's recently created a private terrace garden on the roof.

Here, over 60 feet above the ground, on top of a house that boasts 99 chimneys,

the scale of Sir John's ambition becomes clear.

It could be called the first Renaissance house in Britain, or I don't know which one...

The first Renaissance palace.

Palace is fair - and certainly the best surviving one. We've lost one of the two of the royal ones.

Sir John Thynne died in 1580, aged 65, leaving 18 children to carry on the dynasty.

And the tradition of innovation continues today.

When Longleat opened to the public in 1949,

it was the first private stately home to do so in Britain.

And have a tradition of "got to be the first".

It's quite a good one - a difficult one - but it's good to have that prompting.

-I thought you carried on in that tradition.

-Yes, we have.

It's a difficult one to keep up now, but I think we've done not too bad on that tradition.

Lord Bath will be back with more tales of his illustrious ancestors later in the series.

Back down at Mill Farm,

Steve Crossman is putting Darren's Pets Corner ideas into practice, to keep his pigs stimulated.

Right, we'll pop this in and see how pigs react to it.

He's using a specially adapted feed ball, which makes the pigs work harder for their food.

Whether or not they'll be interested in it... I'll pop it down.

Pigs are known to fight and bully each other if they get bored,

so enrichment like this is important to keep them occupied.

You can see, the way they all came round it straightaway, and started playing,

they do need stimulation.

Nobody just wants to sit and eat and do nothing all day.

Not most people anyway, but even animals like to have something to do.

And you can see that the pigs are now really giving it some stick on this.

They've taken to the feed ball so well, it's given Steve an idea.

Can piglets be taught the beautiful game?

Right, we're going to try with a ball now.

I'll chip it in the back of the pen.

And as the team come out for the big game of football...

Here they come! Lead on.

..Oh, sorry, pigs!

On you go there, pigs.

There's the captain of West Ham.

Charlie's the referee, dressed in black.

Ooh!

One's had enough. He's tired out.

We've worn him out already.

Come on, Charlie, out the way.

One-nil! And the youngster's done it.

One-nil to the males.

Pigs, nil.

That's the end of their bacon.

Kate and I have come up to Wallaby Wood with head of section Andy Hayton,

to meet some of the 26 Bennett's wallabies that live here. That's not quite the right number, is it?

-There are a few more.

-Increasing every day. We're getting joeys popping their heads out the pouches.

Spring's on the way.

-So how long do they spend in the pouch before they're fully independent?

-Um...

It's about six months that they'll keep going back in the pouch.

But you see the poor old mums in mid-summer, and they've got this huge thing diving in the pouch,

and they're kind of wobbling around!

-I think the mums are glad to get rid of them after a while.

-I'll bet!

They can stop themselves breeding as well - if their diet's poor or there's a drought...

-They don't look short of food here!

-No, absolutely not. This is still their winter diet.

We give them a pelleted food - same as the majority of the animals here - for their supplementary diet.

And we give them some greens for winter when there's not much grass.

-But these things are quality little lawn-mowers.

-Are they?

-Really?

-Yeah.

-They just graze in the summertime?

-Yeah, it's like a golf course in here.

-We should all have one for our gardens.

-Yeah, absolutely!

We cut their food down in summer, because there's green grass here.

-They certainly look very healthy.

-They do.

-All I can hear is munching round me.

Well, Andy, thank you very much. That's all we've got time for on today's programme,

but we've got lots more coming up on the next Animal Park.

There's a murder mystery to solve on Meerkat Mountain,

with a twist in the plot that's stranger than fiction.

Down on the farm, the student vet is going to find out what's what at lambing time.

And we'll see what happens when everyone at Longleat is told

that a lion has escaped, and is running loose somewhere on the estate.

So don't miss the next Animal Park.

Subtitles by Red Bee Media Ltd, 2006