Genealogy Chat

While on the subject of 'All Things Great and Smelly,' if you want to go to PC World in Canterbury, I suggest you go before the warm weather starts, as they are near a Sewage Farm, and when it warms up they get rather pongy.

In Australia they love poo and on a visit to the largest Rocking Horse where wooden toys are made there gift shop had Rocking horse poo in bags (sawdust) and the kids loved it and a sweet factory sold loads of bags of choc poo.

David My family went to the Tring Museum recently. It's a branch of the Natural History Museum and is based on the Walter Rothschild collection of stuffed animals. They had a room devoted to poo, with realistic clay for children to make their own poo models, plus some smelly exhibits to identify. Nice! However I did learn that the reason sheep eat grass and produce pellets and that cows eat grass too but produce cow pats (who'd want to pat THEM?!) is that cows drink a lot more water than sheep. Oh and koala bears need a bacterium in their guts to help them digest eucalyptus leaves. They aren't born with this, so the mummy koala makes them eat some of her poo to get it. There, folks, you learn something new every day. You never know when it might come in useful! nell

THERE was a real pong at Wildwood when the Herne Common wildlife park held a holiday theme day on the subject of all droppings great and smelly. The Wonderful World of Poo featured faeces from a variety of examples of the animal kingdom. Youngsters discovered that once food is passed through the mouth, 100 million micro creatures that live inside us help it on its digestive journey. The stomach contents of an omnivore, a herbivore, a carnivore and a rodent showed what that process looked like at the midway stage. The children were invited to smell the dietary difference. Further fascinating faecal facts included that of the caterpillar that shoots its droppings the human equivalent of 76 metres. Kangaroo poo, however, is so dry and odourless you can buy it as jewellery on the internet. Wildwood education officer Anne Riddell said: 'It went down very well. We had about 60 children pass through. 'One boy, who had seen it advertised, even chose it as the venue for his birthday outing.' From KM Caterbury EXTRA April 15 2005

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