Katy has been going through her photos and came across this one of Galileo which made us both laugh.
Annie was terrified when she found Galileo in the ball so the ball now looks like this
But, since the opossum got out of the ball just fine, Katy and I think the ball should not be labeled “not for opossum use” but rather “not for Annie use”
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Our Interns, Jessica and Jamie, have started their enrichment project. They are interning with us Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays, and on Tuesdays and Thursdays they take classes. for one of their classes they have to do an enrichment project for an animal. They decided to work with Henry, our woodchuck, to see if they could get him more active. We’ll report back (if you want) later in the semester to see what they learned, but in the meantime, here are some photos of what they built and their first day of watching Henry with their item:
Jamie ties on the whiffle balls
Ready to go
Henry watches from his bed at first
Jamie and Jessica take notes diligently hoping for some interaction.
Henry approaches
Henry engages
FYI- I went back and checked and only one of the whiffle balls is still hanging up. Seems like he’s been having some fun.
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I was going through old blogs and found one I hadn’t posted yet which was a video of Yona playing with a box.
I have some boxes I need to flatten and recycle here at the house. I think she could be a big help!!
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In the fall we receive A LOT of donated pumpkins that are used in the animal department. Some animals eat them, some animals play with them, and some animals don’t really do anything with them.
Our muskrats really like to eat pumpkin, so we give it to them sometimes as enrichment or as a substitute for another vegetable in their daily diet. In an effort to use some of the many pumpkins that we had, I decided to do both.
We usually only give the muskrats pieces of pumpkin at a time, so I had to substitute several of their vegetables for one day in order to give them an entire pumpkin. I decided to clean it out and put their daily food inside.
I thought it would be best to only put half their food inside the pumpkin so that they wouldn’t fight over the pumpkin once they realized their food was inside.
So I placed the pumpkin, lid on, in the exhibit and scattered the remaining food for them to find (we do that daily.)
I thought they would probably go directly to the pumpkin to check it out, but they actually seemed a bit apprehensive about it.
After several minutes of keeping their distance from the pumpkin and eating the scattered food around the exhibit, they started to creep up to it to check it out but would then run away.
I finally decided to take the lid off the pumpkin in an effort to help them realize that this big round orange thing was something good and yummy. At that point I had to go clean the rest of the exhibits, so I left them to continue checking it out. When I came back about 30 minutes later, I found this…
Yep, that’s right, the muskrats had dragged the pumpkin into their pool. It was floating upside down, waterlogged but surprisingly with most of the original food still in it. I drained out the water and placed it back on the floor of the exhibit with the rest of their diet still in it.
When I came back later I found the pumpkin moved back to the water’s edge, but this time there was a big chunk eaten from it.
Then I looked over at their den area and saw that they had taken the top of the pumpkin and put it at the window for everyone to see, along with some of their other veggies. They do this with their diet a lot, and it makes it pretty convenient for the visitors to get a look at all their food. I enjoyed putting this enrichment togther for them, and it was neat to see what they did with it throughout the day!
….think this could be part of the 2013 New Year’s Resolution list….the Museum’s awesome keepers will help you overcome your fears of unusual veggies.
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If you give a Whistle Pig a pancake…
He’ll chase you down the hallway until you give him another.
It wasn’t quite like the book
oh he loves him some pancakes!
This just goes to show that we love all the “staff” here at the museum!
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On Sunday’s the snake enrichment is to be held. Volunteer Colet is always eager to accomplish this task. After holding this corn snake for awhile she let it crawl on the floor for a bit.
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Recently I added a hammock to the Ring Tailed Lemur indoor stalls. I have seen both Cassandra and Satyrus snuggled up together in it but when I reached for my camera they jumped up. I got lucky the other day and snapped a pic of Lycus lounging in it.
I was working for Keeper Jill this past Saturday (who was attending the AAZK conference) and wanted do some fun enrichment for the Bears and for me to watch. So I used a bunch of empty boxes and filled them with their p.m. food and some extra treats. It wasn’t very eventful but it was interesting to see how each of them accessed their boxes differently. Gus just shoved his head right in! Mimi carefully pulled back the tabs on the boxes. Virginia pushed all the tabs into the box and Yona had her box on it’s side.
Front to back: Gus, Mimi, Yona
Virginia
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Exercise is important for everyone! The little goats are no exception and both Rocky and Patches enjoy time to wander around the farmyard freely when the museum is still closed in the mornings. Sometimes, though, if we finish cleaning the farmyard early and there are enough volunteers, we get to do a little something extra special like washing Max, brushing the little goats or taking them on walks.
What you can’t see in this picture is Lightning, the donkey, just to my left. He also went for a walk with the goats. Even though the goats are out front leading the way, they won’t go anywhere together without Lightning nearby.
I miss those little goats already!
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Last summer, we got a whole truck load of watermelons donated from a local farmer. At the time, we were using them to give Ursula bear her daily medicines as well as for enrichment with the other animals. The farmer gave us so many because he couldn’t sell them; they had sunburn! He assured us that there was nothing wrong with the fruit inside, but the sun damaged the rind and watermelons that aren’t pretty don’t sell well. So we got a whole pickup truck full of not-so-pretty-but-perfectly-tasty watermelons.
And that got me thinking, how can a fruit that grows out in the sun all summer, get sunburn?
The watermelon vine needs a lot of sun and water to be able to grow juicy watermelons, but sun and water are actually pretty bad for the fruit itself. The sun bakes the rind and causes it to dry out, the UV rays break down the cells of the exposed skin (just like your skin cells) and they lose color and die. Plus, droplets of water sitting on the skin of a melon act like lots of tiny magnifying glasses, amplifying the sunlight.
Photo Credit: Purdue Univ. Horticulture Dept.
If the melons aren’t covered by the vine or by a cloth, the sunburn keeps getting worse until…
Photo Credit: Texas A&M Horticulture Dept.
Sun scald! It’s the 3rd degree burn of the fruit world. If the burn has gotten this bad, the fruit inside is also probably inedible and is beginning to rot.
Photo Credit: Missouri Botanical Garden
So, keep your sunscreen on or wear loose fitting clothes that cover your skin whenever you’re outside (and keep your watermelons covered, too!). Sunburns aren’t good for any one, no matter your skin color.
And if, by chance, you want to protect your newly acquired watermelon while keeping it refrigerator cold for your afternoon picnic, you can always buy a personal watermelon chiller!
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Here are Cassandra and son Satyrus, two of our Ring Tailed Lemurs, enjoying frozen watermelon on a very hot day!
This teepee tree is used for enrichment
New keeper Jessi designed this teepee tree with former intern Casey
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That’s fantastic!