Pet mad Kate Baskeyfield is never happier than when she's among her menagerie at home in Furlong Drive, Yarnfield. Here, the 23-year-old, who lives with her parents and 11 pets, talks to Tamzin Hindmarch about her extraordinary array of animals.

WITH so many mouths to feed it's no wonder that caring for her array of animals has become Kate's full-time job.

Fortunately it's one she loves, having completed a course in animal care at Hampshire's Sparsholt College in 2004 and secured her first job at The British Wildlife Rescue Centre at Amerton Farm, near Stafford.

She says: "I was assistant manager of a boarding kennels but I was made redundant.

"One day while I was working there, a lady brought in a water dragon which had been left on her doorstep. I took it home with me and called her Lola.

"She was really ill, so she has no toes, the end of her tail is missing, and because she had mouth rot, her mouth is uneven.

"Also, because she been badly kept, she hadn't been shedding her skin, so she was brown. Now she's bright green. In fact, she's the greenest water dragon I've ever seen."

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Kate's next job was at a pig farm, where she soon found herself saving the bacon of a bad-tempered orphaned oink called Grunt, who now lives in her back garden.

"Pigs are supposed to be sociable, but this piglet didn't like other pigs," says Kate. "He was always following me around, so my boss said I could have him as my Christmas bonus. He must be three-years-old now and is still just as grumpy, but he's a happy sort of grumpy."

Adding to her collection, Kate has three white tree frogs called Mark, John and Ringo, who live in a huge vivarium in her bedroom, together with her two sugar gliders.

"The sugar gliders are a kind of Australian marsupial that looks a bit like a chipmunk. They are nocturnal and, unlike reptiles, will interact with you," she says.

"I can't decide what to call them. It's between The Two Ronnies and Ant and Dec."

Kate came across a Bosc Monitor, an African lizard, while shopping in a pet store one afternoon. And completing Kate's collection of creatures are more conventional pets – two dogs and a puppy.

"Afrika is a German Shepherd and Jen is a Cyprus poodle," she says. "They came with the family when we moved here from Cyprus and are both old now. Jen mostly sleeps on my bed and Afrika is a bit dim.

"I'd like to start entering competitions though, so I got Molly, a German Shepherd puppy, last August.

"Looking after all these animals is time-consuming, but what else would I be doing? When I come home, they're all there waiting for me."