Meet your new roommate

You may have heard about our newest addition to the farmyard, Auggie the pig. He is a cutie! Originally, he had been living elsewhere on grounds while he was in quarantine (which just means he is kept away from the other animals while we monitor him to make sure he is healthy). Once he was ready to move to his permanent home in the farmyard, it was time to introduce him to his new roommate, Miss Piggy.

We decided to record the initial meeting between Miss Piggy and Auggie. It is normal for pigs to fight when they are first introduced. They have to figure out who is going to be the "boss." The keepers first experienced this type of difficult interaction when Miss Piggy met our last pig, Squealer. Although it was hard to watch Auggie go through the same introduction, we know from experience that it is best to just let the pigs hash it out. If we tried to separate them every time they weren't getting along, then the fighting would escalate each time we tried to re-introduce them. However, by keeping them together and monitoring them closely for the first week, they will eventually work through the initial rivalry and eventually become companions.

Although Auggie is much smaller than Miss Piggy, he is also faster! Which means, fortunately, he did not sustain any injuries during the introduction. We are pleased to tell you that now, about 2 weeks since their introduction, they are sleeping side-by-side in their hay at night and are getting along quite well!!

You can hear some of the commentary from the video, which is an array of different keepers talking while they watch the introduction take place. All of the keepers working that day, along with Sherry and her daughter, were monitoring the pigs while they were first introduced. You may be able to hear Sherry mention the word piloerection, which is one of Larry's "Big Words of the Month." You can also hear Sherry say at the end of the video that Kent would need to check on them every 15 minutes while he was cleaning the farmyard that morning.

Christmas 2009

So, it's not over yet, but Christmas 2009 has not been so bad. It's not perfect- there wouldn't be much to say if it was. I got in around 6:30, and slept pretty well so that's a plus from previous years. There is heat in the building, which is excellent because there were some issues yesterday. I go to check on Nimbus, and she seems well. She takes her meds pretty good but leave a present on my pants, as seen below.







I get the rest of the treatments ready- lots of ferret meds and opossum stuff to get ready. I got more of the efa cap oil for the opossums on my sweatshirt than in the opossum food. I pull two more pills out to actually get some for the opossums...I believe my sweatshirt is ruined though.



Around 7:30 volunteer Ashlyn and her family show up to help before they hit the road to visit family in South Carolina for Christmas. (She emailed me yesterday and asked if I wanted her to come in and do the education animal holding rooms). I missed the shot of her husband inside the rabbit cage, and you cannot see her daughter locked in the cages with the ferrets. Ashlyn is laughing because she hasn't dropped and broken the dishes yet (usually I break dishes, but not this year- thanks Ashlyn for covering me on this one).

In the Farmyard, Auggie and Miss Piggy are fine, although they want to come out and eat. It's not raining, so out they went.

Donald came in to help also, yay! He helped doing most of the Farmyard all by himself. I got a radio call from him when I was at lemurs that Lightning was running around -he had slipped out of his halter. So, let me also thank Donald as it was not I who let an animal accidentally roam free this year.

We caught up Lightning and finished up the Farmyard. The gate to Scout's (our Muscovy Duck) yard is broken- I think this is new. It will need to get fixed, but not today. We almost squeaked by without get rained on, but alas, we're soaked. I wasn't using the water-proof, drop-proof camera that Erin usually uses so I have no more photos to share.

Nothing that horrible has happened yet. All the animals seem fine, except one dead feeder-fish (these are the fish we keep on grounds to feed our water and garter snakes).

If you want to read about past Christmas' at the Museum, click here. I hope everyone is having a relaxing and fun time with family or friends, or enjoying time by themselves on this Christmas. I am off to see an old friend and then be back later for PM treatments and feedings and checks.

Opossums, vultures, and me.

The 3rd floor of the museum, where almost every department had a ton of stuff in storage, is going to be redone and turned into offices. This means all the stuff had to move, prompting departments to do big clean ups and sorting and such.

Many items that hadn't been used in a long time were up for grabs, and I, who love to scavenge, was able to fill a couple of cartloads of things for the animal department! (Others in the animal department are not quite as excited, given my finds usually tend to clutter up the halls).

My most excellent find were these bins (which held bird nests, beakers, and a lot of other stuff our Science Education Resource Center used to use a long time ago)

I also scavenged the following... which I'll find some way to use in our animal enrichment program!

QuikPost: female red wolf...Issues again.

The Keepers noticed some blood on our female red wolf yesterday. (#1227) If you look closely you can see some blood on her chest. She is acting totally fine and we don't notice anything today. Since she is acting fine, we'll wait until Monday and have our Vet, Dr Vanderford, check her out. Seems like something is always going on with our girl! Click here to read about her and our wolves' physicals this past October.

Christmas is coming

I work every Christmas and let the Keepers have off. I reviewed the log books a couple days ago to make sure I was prepared- this way I could ask questions ahead of time. It made Kristen smile to do this with me (really, she was laughing at me I think).

Something always happens on the 25th, nothing too horrible, but usually provides some laughs or eye rolling. I'll try and post some picture on Friday so you can see what's happening here on Christmas 2009. Click on the links below to read about past Christmas'.


Christmas 2008

Christmas 2007

Where's Nimbus?

If you've been up through the farmyard before, you've probably seen our outside bunny, Nimbus. There have been several posts about her already. This is unsurprising, as she's the cutest perky-eared bunny on the planet (Bugsy, our other rabbit, is the cutest lop eared or floppy eared bunny). If you've been to the farmyard lately, you probably have wondered where she went.

Last Saturday when I went into clean Nimbus' cage, I saw that she was lying in a weird way. She usually lies down like this:

But she was lying like this, with her legs out to the side:

When I went to move her, she was having trouble getting her feet beneath her. I was pretty worried. When we see an animal lying with their legs to the side when they usually don't, that usually means something is wrong with their back. Rabbits especially have sensitive backs that get hurt pretty easily. I brought her down to the building, and she went for x-rays on Tuesday. Luckily her back is just fine. The prognosis is that she has arthritis in many of her joints. We got Nimbus when she was already full grown, so we don't know how old she is exactly, but while back Dr. English, our eye specialist, said that based on her eyes, he thought she was an older bunny.

She started on some pain meds, and today she seems to be doing better. She was lying like she normally does this morning.

That's a good sign! She'll stay in the building for a while longer until we're %100 sure that she's doing well enough to return to the farmyard. However, she really doesn't like taking her pain meds. I was having a hard time getting her to cooperate the other day, so I asked Sherry to help me. She was having a really hard time too, and it was really funny to watch her try (Nimbus kept moving and boxing at the syringe, so the syringe was going everywhere, like up Nimbus' nose). Luckily I had a camera in my pocket, but AS SOON as I started filming, Nimbus started to cooperate. Of course.

Big Word of the Month: Osteology

Osteology is the scientific study of bones. The skeletal remains of an animal contain many clues about the life of the organism. Diet, disease, and activities all leave tell-tale marks on the framework of the body. Here in the animal department, Keeper Katy is particularly interested in osteological subjects. She is currently working to clean up this group of bones that she and Keeper Jill recently excavated. Before I tell you more about them, I thought it might be interesting for the readers to do some digital osteology and try to determine from what animal this skeleton comes. If you have a guess, write a comment below and tell us what your evidence is for your guess. I'll tell you more information soon.

Sneak Peak

So, we're short staffed again: vacation, sickness, babysitting...and I'm in on my day off. Oh Well.
I don't keep a camera in pocket so I cannot, yet again, show you what's going on around here: ERIN- HAVE YOU GONE HOME AGAIN WITH THE CAMERA?!? (To be fair to Erin, I could grab another camera). So, for you faithful Blog readers, here's the deal. We might be getting a new bear. I'll know more in the next week or two, but here's a photo of our possible new Museum Member:








She's about 80 pounds and was born this past February and is looking like she won't be a good candidate for release to the wild. More info about her situation when I learn more details.

What are you talking about!?

I have often thought of the types of things we (the keepers) say on a daily basis that sound completely normal to us, but would probably sound quite bizarre out of context to another person. The topics of our conversations are obviously very relevant to our jobs, but many of our random one-liner sentences are kind of funny and/or disturbing when heard by themselves! I asked the keepers to help me out by keeping a list of these one-liners as they remember them from the past or hear them in the future. I already have a list just from the brainstroming today, so I figured I would share these with you. And, apparently we talk about poop a lot! I will share more one-liners with you in the future as the keepers continue to add to the list. Erin also suggested that I take some of the great quotes from our weekly meeting notes (thanks Erin!). I will put the actual context/reference of the sentences in parenthesis after each quote.

"My favorite is when she falls asleep on the potty." (talking about Wendy woodchuck falling asleep in weird positions while she's hibernating)

"Did you check Nimbus butt?" (Nimbus the bunny gets her butt checked for loose stool)

"I need a fecal." (says one keeper to another to get a poop sample of an animal)

"Is this poop or papaya?" (bunny poop and papaya seeds look very similar. Sometimes we put papaya seeds in Kristen's chair to make her ask... haha)

"Maybe it was just a loaded diaper." (actually said by one of the facilities guys when Katy and I were trying to figure out the source of a bad smell in Carolina Wildlife the other day)

"Owls either love foam or hate foam." (said by Cassidy in a meeting when we were talking about how the owls are shredding their new foam perches)

"We could just put the poop behind the dinosaur butt!!!" (says Kristen during a meeting when we are discussing scooping the bear cliff and how difficult it is to haul the heavy bags away)

"Wait, the bear's built like a bucket?" (said by Katy in a meeting, but she has no idea why)

"My glasses fell in bear poo." (No explanation needed... that's just disgusting)

"To get a woodchuck off the side of the road, roll down your window and say,"Get out of the way, you're too close!" (via Larry's friend, who has a degree from Woodchuck School.... and was in response to Katy's original question of, "What do you do if a woodchuck is on the side of the road and you're afraid it's going to run out in front of a car?")

"Peek poo season." (Said in a meeting during the Fall when we had to scoop the bear yard more often)

And, last but not least...

"I still have my poo Bugsy sign." (says Katy to Sherry in reference to a chart she had made so that we could record the consistency of Bugsy's poop)... see the picture of the poo sign below!

QuikPost: Ready for the Dark

They're looking pretty cheery for a dark cold morning in the building. The Keepers from left to right: Kristen, Larry, Katy, Marilyn.

At 6 PM last night the power to the building was turned off as expected for the upgrade. Everything went well and the generators were refilled with gas at 9 PM and 2 AM so they were still running this AM when the day started. Our freezers are cold and our reptiles are warm so we're in pretty good shape.

If things continue to run smoothly we'll have power back tonight!

Power Outage: What To Do.

Thanks for the comments and thoughts about what needs to get done when the power goes out at the Museum. From reading your comments on the last post, I think you got the picture of what's needed. While it's true in the real world wild animals don't need power, it's not the same for the captive critters, or critter care-takers. Many animals do just fine, and many exhibits do just fine too, but there's still a lot to take care of.

There's a sheet in the Keeper Manual that can help: The Four Fs of power outages. Fish, fridges, freezers, and fences. These are the main things we think about:

1. 1. Fish: moving water provides oxygen for them. Without power running the pumps, the fish don't get what the need to breath. We have battery powered aerators that we use when the power goes out.

2. Fences: There are electric fences for the bears, wolves, and lemurs in Explore the Wild. Power won't be out there on Monday, but it's something we have to deal with if the electric wires on the fences are down.

3. Freezers: We keep food that needs storing- thousands of dollars in in mice, rats, bird of prey diet, and more. When power goes out for short periods, we just don't open the doors (also, we make sure we completely fill the freezers ahead of time so they hold in the cold better). We'll make sure to run our freezers off a generator.


4. Fridges: Besides food, we keep some medicines in our refrigerators. (Katy knows that when the lemur TB tests come in we want to make sure we "save the meds" in case of a power outage because it is expensive and difficult to get). We need to make sure we open our doors as little as possible, but we'll run what's needed off a generators too.

(These aren't enough extension cords...I have to keep gathering more from around the Museum).

These Four Fs are not everything. (I think I'll change the sheet to 6 Fs...)

The fifth F should be Freezing: Temperature in general is a big deal for some animals. Our reptiles need heat to stay healthy, and live! I'm hoping that the temperature in the building will hold, but if it is going to be super cold on Sunday/Monday, we'll run some heaters off the generator as well. The power won't be out at lemurs, but they are another group of animals that we have to make sure stay warm enough.


The sixth fifth F should be Flashlights, or Fbatteries, as we use them a lot when the power goes out. We always keep a lot of batteries on grounds for the aerators, but I'll make sure we have extras as the Keepers will have to take care of the indoor animals in the dark.

There's also a difference between the power going out for one hour, or one day, or one week. I'll tell you some other time about what we did in the 2002 December Ice Storm or after Hurricane Fran when power was out for five days!

Preparing for Power Outage

Usually we prepare for the power going out due to weather. Not this time.
A big panel (yes, that's the technical term) needs to be upgraded and we're going to be without power for a day+ in the animal department.
There's lots to think about.
Can you add your ideas to the comment section please.

WHAT WOULD YOU BE THINKING ABOUT IF YOU WERE ME?


(I'll share what were doing a few days from now, but I am curious to see what our readers are thinking about).

new baby alligator

This is our new alligator to be used for education programs. He/she lives behind the scenes, so I thought I would give you a sneak peak. This little one hatched in September 2008.
You can see he/she fits in my hand quite easily and is not much bigger than a dollar bill.
You can see our new exhibit alligators in Carolina Wildlife. These three 'gators were hatched in September 2007 and are much bigger than this little one.
The four of them arrived this past Monday after our last four alligators grew to big for us and were returned home to Florida this past Saturday by Larry.

Creature Feature: 1 3/4 wing barred owl

This is 1 3/4 Wing Barred Owl. She came to the museum in August of 1989, and was already an adult, so she is over 20 years old! When she arrived, she already had part of her left wing missing because it was fractured and had to be removed. The rest of the fractured wing healed incorrectly, and is kind of twisted. With this type of injury, she would obviously never be able to fly properly or live in the wild, so she came to live with us instead. She used to live outside in an exhibit enclosure, but she now lives on exhibit in Carolina Wildlife inside the museum.



When the museum acquired her, she also had signs of cornea degeneration and cataracts present in her left eye. This was something that, as long as she was not showing signs of pain, it was best for us to leave alone. Previously, I did a Creature Feature on our screech owl, who also had a bad eye. We finally had to remove the screech owl's eye because of pain, but surgery is the last option when it comes to birds of prey. They tend to get stressed out very easily, and the chances of a bad outcome from surgery increases when anesthesia is added to the equation. So, we had her eye checked (along with several of our other animals with eye problems) once a year by Dr. English, an eye specialist (read the spotlight post on Dr. English here). Although the eye worsened over the years, she never showed signs of pain (which we monitor through appetite, stable weight, and overall behavior) to warrant a risky surgery. In December of 2006, her left eye ruptured and has not been an issue since.



We have four barred owls in our Carolina Wildlife exhibit (all of which have wing or eye injuries), but many people don't even tend to notice the other three barred owls perching high in the exhibit. 1 3/4 Wing Barred Owl always perches very low to the ground, so she is typically the first barred owl that the visitors see. Sometimes they get so interested in her that they never think to look up and see the three barred owls that are staring at them!

The picture above is of Keeper Jill sitting with 1 3/4 Wing Barred Owl (that's about as high as she ever perches). All of the keepers have different animals or species that they do operant conditioning with . You've already seen me training Chummix the goat, but Jill is working on de-sensitization (or "de-sens" for short) with the barred owls. Even though the barred owls have been here for several years, they are still not comfortable with our presence in their exhibit, or us handling them. So everyday occurances, such as cleaning their exhibit, make them stressed out. So Jill's job is to literally get the barred owls accustomed to her presence... which means sitting in the doorway and doing nothing! We like to give Jill a hard time about this form of operant conditioning, since she gets out of working by sitting in a doorway for hours.

But I'm sure that will be discussed more in a later spotlight post about Jill! Meanwhile, 1 3/4 Wing Barred Owl is really the only bird that Jill has had success with thus far. She has even started eating her mice in front of Jill, which is a pretty good accomplishment! Eventually, Jill will work up to getting 1 3/4 Wing Barred Owl to take mice directly from tongs as Jill holds them. Once she get's there, she may actually be able start the training process!

Pumpkins!

Around the Animal Department, October's arrival meant only 1 thing: extra candy on the free table! It meant good things for the animals too, although we definitely don't give them candy. They get a share in the post-Halloween jackpot in the form of pumpkins. Every year we get generous donations from people who give us their uncarved, unpainted pumpkins so we can give them to the animals. This year we got a very very generous donation and found ourselves overly plump with pumpkins. Some of our animals eat them, some of our animals try to eat them, some of our animals play with them, while some of our animals actively ignore them. It's a fun time for everyone, and if not good nutrition for those who don't eat them, then definitely great enrichment! Thank you to all who donated pumpkins this year or in years past, but we definitely no longer need any more this year (have I mentioned that we got a ton?!).

I put together a video of the various pumpkins shenanigans that occured. I really hope you enjoy it as much as everyone enjoyed their pumpkins!

QuikPost

Our guys just joined a big crowd of fellow gators. Ed turned out to be
an Edwina. See more pics of the St. Augustine Alligator farm.

QuikPost from the road

The gators are approaching home.

Alligators on their way

Larry should be on his way to Florida right now with the 'gators. They should reach home (they were on loan to us) around 3:00 this afternoon. That's them stacked on top of each other in four under-bed storage containers. We label each container, secure them with additional duct tape and wedge them in the van so they won't move too much, When Kent and I were packing them up this morning, around 5:00, one of them actually "chirped". We were both shocked, as these alligators should have grown out of this as it is something only babies do - they chirp for their mom (crocodilians are the only reptiles that exhibit what humans would call some sort of parental care. It's really interesting, but that's another post).

I made sure I put my camera in my pocket last night so I would have a photo to show you. Someone commented in my post "I'm home sick" that they wanted to see a photo. I can only assume that you meant of my cat throwing up hairballs (rather than me lying sick in bed) so here he is. You'll have to wait to see a photo of my other cat- this one's big brother (my 20 pounder).

QuickPost: baby photos

I went to grab the waterproof camera- the one that Erin refers to as hers or the one she suckered me in to buying- so I could take some photos that people had been asking for. I couldn't find it. I bet Erin went away on vacation and left it in her pocket. So, instead of showing you the photos of my hair-balled cat who I was home sick with, or our new pig shelter, or the keepers hard at work, I am stuck showing you baby photos. Auggie baby photos. Enjoy.

Meet Auggie

This is Auggie, a three month old pot bellied pig. He arrived Saturday weighing a hefty 20 pounds. He'll spend 30 days in quarantine, and then we'll introduce him to Miss Piggy. We'll continue to post photos on the Blog so you can keep up with him prior to his arrival in the Farmyard in mid December.

Alligators heading out.

Our alligators have gotten too big for our housing and it's time for them to go home. They are on loan to us from the St. Augustine Alligator Farm in Florida.

Larry is going to begin his Thanksgiving vacation on November 21 by driving our four alligators to Florida. (It's always interesting to mix work and family: The last driving trip I made I stayed at my parents house while I picked up a wolf!)

It's taken a bit of maneuvering, and lots of phone calls and emails to get the appropriate permits and schedules to get our current 'gators back to FL and get our new gators in from SC.

I'll be heading to SC on Monday November 23 to pick up our new alligators from Alligator Adventure. They will be smaller, and when they get too big, we'll swap them for smaller ones.

Come say goodbye to our 'gators and look forward to welcoming our new ones in!

A new look

Well, I know it's been a while since I have done a blog post. But, I am finally back from my long hiatus, and wanted to update you on the improvements we have made to our farmyard. One of the last posts I did was about remodeling our education holding room, but we were also improving the outside areas at the same time.

Although it's not completed yet, all of the farmyard barns are being re-painted (in the same color as before, but a fresh coat of paint can make a lot of difference!). We also put signs at all of the exhibits to give our visitors information about the animals. Along with signs at the exhibits, we added two "Notes From The Keepers" chalk boards that are hung up on the walls of the donkey and steer barn. These chalk boards allow the keepers to leave notes for the visitors about what is going on with the animals on any given day. We put new information on these boards regularly to keep everyone informed about a sick animal or other interesting facts.

Next, we extended our sheep and donkey exhibit yards to give them more space, along with natural shade by including some trees in the extensions. Finally, we did new landscaping around the visitor areas of the farmyard. This is probably the biggest and most noticeable change. The new landscaping definitely adds more color to the farmyard, and gives it a "softer" look. I have heard good things from the visitors about the landscaping in particular! Lastly, we installed some hand sanitizers on a couple of barn walls.

This is the view of the farmyard when you first walk in. As you can see, there's a lot of greenery to greet you!

This is a photo of the side of the donkey barn. Notice the chalk board on the wall, along with the hand sanitizer hanging to the left of the chalk board. (Take a look at the barn in the last photo and compare it to the donkey barn. The barn in the last photo has already been painted, so it's a little darker than the donkey barn.)

This is a look at the new extension in the sheep yard from inside their exhibit yard.

And this is a photo of one of the new signs.

Come take a look at all of the improvements the next time you're here and tell us what you think. They look even better in person!

QuikPost: Stormy weather

I came in from the wet, cold weather to find that Mudsy was having a tropical day in his exhibit. He is basking under the heat/UV lamp at a balmy 85 degrees. I'm a little jealous.

From the Wet Pocket of the Keeper

Or: Rain

Or: It's still raining

Or: It's STILL RAINING!

Have you been outside today?!? Don't go if you haven't. Seriously, stay inside with some pie and coffee. You can trust me because I've pretty much spent the whole day in the great outdoors and the slosh of my shoe speaks for itself. I'm not completely complaining: it could be colder. And there's something melancholy about a day like today that I kind of like. I'm also not complaining because misery loves company, and today I just have to say something about my miserable company! Wait, I said that wrong...

Sherry has talked about Donald before, and today I want to second everything she said in that post. He was the guy braving the relentless rain with me today in the farmyard, with wet shoes, a failing poncho, and a cheery outlook. It was much appreciated, and I made him take a few extra seconds in the rain to take a picture with me with my waterproof camera! Thanks Donald!

I'm home sick

I know you don't really care that I am home sick, but I am lying in bed and I found it amusing that I am coughing up stuff you don't want to know about, my daughter is lying next to me doing the same, and one of my cats is busy gagging from hairballs.
I have to go clean it up now.

I'm back: On the list today, once I can stand:

• call the electrician for some work at the bear house
• call the contractor(s) to get bids on building the new owl cage
• flesh out the details on the alligator transfers (and tell you about it)
  
• clean up whatever other hairballs my cat needs to get rid of
• sleep
  

Rough week...it's been busy

It's been busy in the animal department. Keepers have been out and extra "animal things" have been popping up. As you know, good things don't often pop up. Here's a quick review for you:

Larry posted about euthanasia recently so death is in the air. One of our corn snakes had a tumor- it was growing so quickly you could see it change daily. Surgery was attempted to remove it, but the tumor had already spread to several organs and the snake had to be euthanized last Thursday. Then, Sunday, our milk snake (named "2%") who had been battling illness was found dead.

Katy took our red tail hawk, Misha, in for x-rays yesterday, along with the spotted salamander. The salamander has a broken leg, and it seems like Misha is just old and arthritic (we'll start him on some meds).

I've been working on our alligator transfers (I'll write about this later), updating lots of permits, and contacting contractors for a variety of projects and repair work that needs to happen.

Things should settle down and you'll hear again from the Keepers soon. Thanks for being patient with our lack of posting during this busy time.

Big Word of the Month: Euthanasia

The big word of the month is a hard one to talk about. Euthanasia comes from Greek and means "good death". I doubt any two people can agree on what exactly a good death is, yet it is a discussion we have to have in the Animal Department from time to time. When an animal is ill and our veterinarians have run out of treatment strategies we have to consider quality of life issues. Deciding when an animal is suffering too much is not a precise, scientific process. Ultimately, we all have to rely on our experiences and feelings.

One of the earliest posts we made on this blog was about our beloved steer Moo. At the time we discussed how to deal with difficult issues on the blog and whether it might be better to not include them. We all agreed that if we were to give our readers an accurate picture of our department we needed to not gloss over the hard things. Most recently, we lost our grumpy friend Squealer (we all called him "Pig") and once again had to report some bad news.

When we shared our difficult decision to euthanize a red wolf people asked about how they could best memorialize him. Sherry wrote a followup post with some ideas. The only thing I would add to her post is that we animal keepers would be happy to hear from you in person. You can say hello if you see us working or ask at the front desk for a member of the animal department.

More Out of the Pocket Than in the Pocket of a Keeper: Volume the Third

Fall is in the air at last(ish)! I really enjoy this time of year when everything is cooling down again (although in our case it's more like colding down and then heating up and then finally, maybe, cooling down a little, for now, if we're lucky and don't jinx it. Oops.). Regardless, October is definitely one of my favorite months because it's such a transition month (my other favorite month is March for the same reason. Have you heard the phrase "in like a lion, out like a lamb"? My birthday's also in March, so maybe that's why I'm partial to it...). There's a period of time in October where summer is losing its kick and fall isn't quite on the ball yet and the effect is very spring-like. To me, anyway (I ended up getting teased for feeling this way. Apparently everyone else just thinks it feels like fall). And what a better month to have a camera in my pocket always than this beautiful transition month (see, what I'm doing here [quite sincerely] is positively reinforcing Sherry for getting the camera. This is a technique we use in the training of our animals)!

Looking over a bunch of pictures I've been taking, I saw that I have an interesting documentation of the transition at the Museum this year. Here's a picture of a beautiful farmyard morning I took at the beginning of the month. It was one of the mornings where it felt very springy to me. Notice how green the leaves are on the trees:

Here's another one a week later of some flowers in the bear yard that popped up everywhere. This day was a little warmer and rainier. Look again at how green the leaves are:

Slowly, the first signs of fall emerge. These were taken by the wetlands down in Explore the Wild:

A find! One of the last Monarchs of the season. I showed this picture to the very fabulous Ranger Greg Dodge (he carries a camera on him too, and we always share pictures when we pass each other), and he was surprised that this guy was still hanging around:

Hey! Acorns everywhere! Where did they all come from all of the sudden? We collect buckets of them for the bears:

And then, suddenly, everything's on fire (these were taken by Cassidy, but taken with my camera fresh from my pocket):

Leading us to this cool fall morning when I went to get the trailer, and it was decorated with a little fall decor (like 2 seconds after I took this picture, a volunteer dumped a big shovel of poo in it. So much for that.):

Just friends?

Here's a little something that I walked in on the other day when we had one of the box turtles out on the floor for some exercise...

Help an Animal Shelter

The Animal Rescue Site is having a contest. They are awarding grants to pet shelters. You vote for your favorite animal shelter and they might just have enough votes to "win" some $. You can vote for whatever you want, but if you'd like to honor PIG or MISS PIGGY, you could vote for Pig Pals of NC. (Miss Piggy came to us from Pig Pals).

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Spotlight: Queen Wilson

I had been planing to write this month's spotlight on our operant conditioning specialist who I mentioned several posts ago, or Jill Brown, the last of our animal keepers for you to learn about, but something happened today and I thought I would tell you about Queen. (The picture is purposefully not great as Queen was very upset when I said I would be posting about her on the Blog).

Queen has been working at the Museum for OVER 28 YEARS! Queen has been helping me for years. She answers the phones, sorts the mail, orders supplies, and does just about anything anyone asks of her, AS LONG AS IT IS NOT ANIMAL RELATED!

So that gets me to what happened today. I get a radio call from Queen, "Come in animal department". I respond, and she says she has a box of crickets. I think about it

and realize it is a box of superworms. I tell her I will be over soon, and then radio her again and tell her it will take me about 30 minutes. When I arrive, sitting across from her desk is the box of worms, with this paper towel over it- she couldn't even handle looking at the box!

I laughed at her, and she laughed as well. She then reminded me of a story from about 15 or 16 years ago when she went to the post office to pick up the mail and she had to call one of the animal keepers (George, who is long gone) to come get the box of mealworms.

It's amazing that we became so chummy (not Chummix) seeing as she is just not an animal person. When it comes down to it, Queen is a Museum staple, and the place just wouldn't be the same without her!

thanks

Thanks everyone for all your nice thoughts about Pig. I've worked out in the farmyard twice now since last Thursday, and it's been weird without him there.




One of my favorite stories about Pig happened around this time a few years ago, when we got a huge truckload of pumpkins donated to us. We didn't have much room to store them, so kept them right behind our fence in the farmyard where we keep all of our tools. We knew they would keep outside in the cold, and this way we could give Pig a pumpkin every other day or so. Keepers go in and out of this door a lot during the course of the morning, and one morning there were several of us working in the farmyard together. Well, someone accidentally left the fence door open, and Pig, who used to wander around the farmyard before visitors arrived, found his way in there. By the time the keepers realized it, we found Pig in the middle of this vast pumpkin pile, seeds and pumpkin bits scattered everywhere! There were random single bites out of various pumpkins, and Pig laid there, entirely exhausted from his feast! Needless to say he did not get anymore pumpkins for a few days! It still makes me laugh to think about it.

Rest in Peace Pig

Last night Pig was not improved and still not standing. Calls and emails were made to veterinarians, keepers, staff, and volunteers letting them know. Dr. Mozzachio came early this morning and euthanized Pig.

Days like this are hard, and hardest on the keepers, so send them your best wishes.

Pig is not well.

Bad news- sorry to share, but I assume you would want to know. The Keepers found Pig Friday morning not putting any weight on his left front foot. This is not good because Pig has extensive arthritis in his back legs. Dr. Cannedy came out Saturday morning and checked Pig out and give him lots of drugs to hopefully help him feel better.

He was no better by Monday morning, so I spent much of yesterday at the Vet School with him. His x-rays showed no broken bones, and we upped his meds a bunch and are hoping that a few more days of rest and meds will help him improve. If he does not improve by Thursday, it is likely that we will euthanize Pig.

We'll keep you posted, and we'll hope for the best!

In the Pocket of a Keeper Part Deux

Or: Hey! I can actually do work with this thing (kinda)!


Another week of constant camera carrying has concluded, chronicling my crazy week (I love alliteration!). This week I've learned a few things: 1) You take your camera home A LOT when you keep it in your pocket all the time 2) That's not such a bad thing because you end up running into people who ask you if you work at the Museum (because you are still wearing your purple shirt), and it's a great opportunity to show them super cute pictures of the animals, convincing them to a) visit the museum and b) visit the blog, 3) I take a lot of pictures of flowers and bugs 4) Our animals are pretty darn cute (I've always known this, but now I have proof!) and 5) I can actually do work with this thing!


For instance, here are the updated salamander identification sheet that I talked about in my last post. We got them as babies, and since they all live together in the first exhibit in Carolina Wildlife we wanted ways to tell them apart for their records and for things like seeing how much they were respectively eating. When they first came to us we took pictures of them and identified them by the spots on their heads. As they grew, it got harder and harder to tell them apart by those markings, and impossible by the other markings on their bodies. I noticed that the markings on their chins were very distinct from each other, and in fact looked a lot like facial hair. So here's what I came up with:

Beard = The Salamander Formerly Known as Left Spot

Moustache = The Salamander Formerly Known as Two Spot

Goatee = The Salamander Formerly Known as Right Spot

I put helpful facial hair examples in case my fellow keepers were not so great with their facial hair identification OR their salamander identification (now they are excellent at both).

THEN I was up in the farmyard when a visitor pointed out that Lightning's eye was swollen and weepy. Luckily I had a camera on me to take a picture of it in case the vet wanted to see what it looked like at its worst (we flushed his eye out and put some medicine in it and it was looking much better by the next day):

Buuuuuuut, mostly I just take pictures of flowers, bugs, and cute animals. Here's some pretty flowers growing all around the deadfall in the bear yard:

Here's a bee on the same type of flower in Catch the Wind:

Here's Cassandra the Ring Tailed lemur totally high-fiving me (she was grabbing my hand because I was giving her some medicine-covered raisins, but it looks like a high five!):

And here's a series of some really cute Virginia pictures that I took when I went to go feed the bears:

If you're ever at one of the 2pm Meet the Keeper programs that I'm giving (they happen every day, and you can ask the front desk where they'll be when you come in, or there's a sign at the top of the boardwalk), make sure to ask to see what pictures I have on my camera. I usually have something cute on there.