Posts Tagged ‘ring-tailed lemurs’

by , Keeper
I'm extremely excited to be working at the Museum since October 2010. My favorite part of this job- besides working with the animals- is listening to all of the Keeper stories, I hear a new one each day. In my spare time I enjoy hiking, belly dancing, and vegan cooking.
I work Sunday through Thursday. I can be found mostly behind the scenes or training the Ring Tail Lemurs.
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10 mins with the Ring Tailed Lemurs

May 10th, 2013

After lunch everyday we head out to our respective areas and do afternoon checks. The ring-tailed lemurs have been enjoying their outside exhibit. I snapped some pictures during check recently. Sometimes all they do is sleep and sometimes they are climbing trees this is what they were doing on this particular day…

All 3 ring-tailed lemurs resting on top of their climbing structure

Still hanging out on the structure, just further apart

Lycus stands up…

for a nice stretch!

And sits back in a buddha pose for some nice sunbathing

Satyrus and Lycus, checking out some browse

Here you can see Satyrus in the back sunbathing while Lycus lays in the front

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by , Keeper
I'm extremely excited to be working at the Museum since October 2010. My favorite part of this job- besides working with the animals- is listening to all of the Keeper stories, I hear a new one each day. In my spare time I enjoy hiking, belly dancing, and vegan cooking.
I work Sunday through Thursday. I can be found mostly behind the scenes or training the Ring Tail Lemurs.
Tags: , ,

Ring-Tailed Lemurs moved to the inside exhibit

January 14th, 2013

If you are a regular visitor you may have noticed a change at  lemurs. The ring tailed lemurs are now in the inside exhibit and the red ruffed lemurs will spend their estrus cycle off exhibit. We made the switch on one of our closed Mondays. In terms of animal stress it was minimal. All lemurs spent a lot of time exploring their new areas. I snapped several great pictures of the ring tailed lemurs checking out every square inch of their new exhibit. They climbed on everything they possibly could! I stayed up there with them to monitor their exploration, making sure they didn’t get hurt during their excitement. Now that their exhibit is no longer novel, they have been enjoying snuggling up together in a lemur ball on the ground. Look down and to your left if you don’t immediately see them. Click here to see how the red ruffed lemurs are doing off exhibit.

 

 

 

 

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by , Keeper
I'm extremely excited to be working at the Museum since October 2010. My favorite part of this job- besides working with the animals- is listening to all of the Keeper stories, I hear a new one each day. In my spare time I enjoy hiking, belly dancing, and vegan cooking.
I work Sunday through Thursday. I can be found mostly behind the scenes or training the Ring Tail Lemurs.
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Ring-Tailed Lemur training update

December 12th, 2012

It’s been awhile since I’ve updated and we’ve seen a lot of progress. My last post was about Cassandra exploring the vet room. We allowed her to do this once more and it went about the same as the first time. I believe the second time, she took longer to come down, seemed like she was enjoying exploring too much. Before that I wrote about crate training, which has been my biggest goal with the ring-tailed lemurs. (now it’s our biggest goal with the red ruffed lemurs too, check back for future posts about that)

Their physicals were way back in September, on that particular day I was only able to crate Cassandra. The boys both went into their crate but then bounced right back out, Sherry said catching them was very easy that day.  We also changed where the lemurs wait for sedation. We started using a metal cage located in the vet room. It’s roomier which makes it easier to get the lemur out of.

Cassandra just outside the cage we use in the vet room

This is an added part of crate training. I bring the lemurs into the building and then open this cage and their crate door and ask them to go inside.  I have also been practicing this behavior with the lemurs down at the lemur house. We took an extra vet room cage and placed it inside their holding space in the lemur house. It’s big and silver and makes a lot of noise when the jump on it, but the good news is, this behavior is working. They are not afraid of it and have no problems climbing all over and inside of it, making their visit to the vet room much less stressful.

About a week later we needed to get blood work on Cassandra again. It was very easy to crate her using training which made everything run smoother.  Then in November I noticed Lycus was holding his left hand across his chest. It seemed like a shoulder injury. Dr V came in to check him out and decided she wanted to do hands on with him. This meant getting him into the crate and bringing him to the building. Using training it was super easy. I still practice crate training a couple times a week. It has helped the process of vet visits tremendously and it’s something I want to continue working on. Next challenge is crate training the red ruffed lemurs.

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  1. Many many Kudos to all your lemur training (and also to all the other keepers)!!! The lemurs seem so stress free with their physicals…more like an outing in a cool playground!!

    Posted by dj
    5:35 pm on December 13, 2012

  2. Thanks so much DJ!

    Posted by kimberly
    1:05 pm on December 18, 2012

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by , Keeper
I'm extremely excited to be working at the Museum since October 2010. My favorite part of this job- besides working with the animals- is listening to all of the Keeper stories, I hear a new one each day. In my spare time I enjoy hiking, belly dancing, and vegan cooking.
I work Sunday through Thursday. I can be found mostly behind the scenes or training the Ring Tail Lemurs.
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This week in ETW

October 13th, 2012

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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by , Keeper
I'm extremely excited to be working at the Museum since October 2010. My favorite part of this job- besides working with the animals- is listening to all of the Keeper stories, I hear a new one each day. In my spare time I enjoy hiking, belly dancing, and vegan cooking.
I work Sunday through Thursday. I can be found mostly behind the scenes or training the Ring Tail Lemurs.
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Photos from Explore the Wild

September 24th, 2012

Lemurs-

Cynthia sleeping- can you believe she finds this position comfortable???

Cassandra having a bite to eat

Lycus sitting between the shift door

The beginning of station stump training

Ring Tail!

 

 Bears-  

Two bears during a keeper talk. Keeper Talks are in Explore the Wild everyday at 2pm!

Gus laid out on a hot day, Yona is curled up close by

I love seeing Mimi’s cute face each morning

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by , Keeper
I'm extremely excited to be working at the Museum since October 2010. My favorite part of this job- besides working with the animals- is listening to all of the Keeper stories, I hear a new one each day. In my spare time I enjoy hiking, belly dancing, and vegan cooking.
I work Sunday through Thursday. I can be found mostly behind the scenes or training the Ring Tail Lemurs.
Tags: , , , , , , ,

Lemurs in Crates

August 11th, 2012

I’ve posted about lemur training before and wanted to give an update.

Click here and here to refresh your memory.

Ring Tailed Lemur physicals are in September! That’s so soon. But we are making progress. Lycus actually had to be seen earlier than expected. I noticed a change in his eyes, a white cloudiness. We had a few days until Dr. Vanderford would be able to see Lycus so I began using the ophthalmoscope (a lighted instrument that is used to exam the inside of the eye) during training. Luckily, they are curious little animals so it didn’t take long for me to be able to hold up the ophthalmoscope and shine the light into their eyes.

Demonstrating the ophthalmoscope on a stuffed lemur

To exam Lycus’ eyes Dr.V came down to the lemur building, we actually have shelves on each stall door. I called Lycus up to the shelf and she checked out his eyes while I supplied the treats. She also checked out Cassandra’s eyes, for comparison. Dr. V thought it was best to have Dr. English come check out Lycus.

For Dr. English‘s visit we had to bring Lycus down to the vet room, which is in the main building. That meant being crated and a ride in the vehicle. Dr. English confirmed that Lycus, who is 27, has old age related cataracts. Although it was earlier than expected, Lycus did very well. In fact, two days later I tried crate training (while crossing my fingers) and he went right in without issue. Him and I have been taking short rides in the vehicle as part of training. He’s doing great!

Lycus on one of our rides around campus

Julie Grimes and I plan on bringing Lycus to the vet room and using training to call him out of his crate. With hopes that he doesn’t bounce around the room and that he goes back into his crate on his own.

So that’s were we are at. I feel like Cassandra is ready to take some short rides in the vehicle and Satyrus has been doing great as well.

Lycus relaxing in his side-yard doorway

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  1. How exciting! Well done Kimberly. Will you treat Lycus’ cataracts?

    Posted by leslie
    9:13 am on August 13, 2012
  2. Keeper Comment :

    Thanks Leslie! Dr English isn’t overly concerned with them, we’ll just monitor them for now.

    Posted by Kimberly Lawson
    1:14 pm on August 13, 2012

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by , Keeper
I'm extremely excited to be working at the Museum since October 2010. My favorite part of this job- besides working with the animals- is listening to all of the Keeper stories, I hear a new one each day. In my spare time I enjoy hiking, belly dancing, and vegan cooking.
I work Sunday through Thursday. I can be found mostly behind the scenes or training the Ring Tail Lemurs.
Tags: , , , , ,

More fun with Watermelon!

July 31st, 2012

 

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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by , Keeper
I'm extremely excited to be working at the Museum since October 2010. My favorite part of this job- besides working with the animals- is listening to all of the Keeper stories, I hear a new one each day. In my spare time I enjoy hiking, belly dancing, and vegan cooking.
I work Sunday through Thursday. I can be found mostly behind the scenes or training the Ring Tail Lemurs.
Tags: , , , , ,

A bowl full of mashed chow and banana…

May 15th, 2012
 

…Helps the medicine go down!

Keeper Jill wrote a post “Time for your medicine” about all the tricks we use to get animals to take their medicine. She posted pictures of the Red Ruffed Lemurs taking some meds.

The Ring Tailed Lemurs aren’t so easy! But I found a very easy mix of mashed lemur chow and banana that seems to mask their dewormer enough for them to eat it.

 

Here's the mashed chow

Add mashed banana

Add the dewormer

Mix it all together

 Cross your fingers and hope they eat it all 

Cassandra (in front) and Satyrus eating their dewormer mix

Lycus eating his dewormer mix

 

 
 
 
 

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  1. My dog had to take a liquid dewormer once. I mixed it with cooked mashed liver. It smelled awful but he loved it! I’ve learned a lot about how to enrich my dog’s life through the keeper blog!

    Posted by leslie
    10:16 am on May 15, 2012

  2. now you can teach me how to give misty our dog a pill lol

    Posted by betty linkenhoker
    9:42 am on May 20, 2012

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by , Keeper
I'm extremely excited to be working at the Museum since October 2010. My favorite part of this job- besides working with the animals- is listening to all of the Keeper stories, I hear a new one each day. In my spare time I enjoy hiking, belly dancing, and vegan cooking.
I work Sunday through Thursday. I can be found mostly behind the scenes or training the Ring Tail Lemurs.
Tags: , , , ,

A work in progress

March 18th, 2012

If you have read any of my posts before- you know that I am a huge fan of lemurs. One of the biggest reason I have an animal crush on lemurs is because I train our Ring Tailed Lemurs here at the Museum.

"left hand" behavior

I’ve posted about training before, check it out here, but this time I want to talk about my progress. The most important behavior I am working on with the ring tails right now is ‘crate’. By crate I mean that they go into the crate- don’t come bouncing out and allow me to close the door- while remaining calm. The end goal will be to crate them for vet procedures, using one or two treats only, and move them- in the crate all the way to the main building, which of course requires a ride in one of our vehicles. This trained behavior will alleviate several unpleasant aspects of catching lemurs. First the stress on the lemurs themselves will be minimal. Once they are comfortable with me shutting the crate door and picking them up, the rest is quite easy. When our ring tails get stressed they poo and it’s not pleasant. Typically it involves poor Sherry getting a bit covered in yucky lemur stress poo thus having to change her clothes several times in one day. So… less stress for lemurs, less poo for Sherry, and a great sense of accomplishment for me.

"crate" behavior

We’re not quite there yet, but today all 3 ring tails went into their crates, I shut the doors without issues. They stayed in for 1 minute- no issues, I picked up their crates and moved them a bit, then they sat for an additional minute- no issues. When the 2 minutes were up, I opened the door and then lemurs walked- not ran- out to claim their big reward!!! and I had a huge smile on my face! I have been this successful before but then they had some regression on the behavior, so it’s taken some time for them to get comfortable again. I’m happy to have great progress once again.

"here" behavior

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  1. Today all 3 Ring Tails went into their crates for 4 mins each. After 1 min- I picked up the crate and moved them to the other side of the stall. Click- Treats! After 2 mins- I picked up the crate and moved them out of the stall into the keeper space. Click-Treats! After 3 mins- I picked up the crate and moved them back to their original spot. Click-Treats! After 4 mins- I opened the door and they got a big reward! Great day!

    Posted by Kimberly
    12:01 pm on March 18, 2012

  2. That’s awesome! Good job to all four of you!

    Posted by Kristen
    2:45 pm on March 18, 2012

  3. That’s super exciting! Good for you!

    Posted by sarah
    3:00 pm on March 18, 2012

  4. Thanks Guys!

    Posted by Kimberly
    1:33 pm on March 19, 2012

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by , Keeper
I'm extremely excited to be working at the Museum since October 2010. My favorite part of this job- besides working with the animals- is listening to all of the Keeper stories, I hear a new one each day. In my spare time I enjoy hiking, belly dancing, and vegan cooking.
I work Sunday through Thursday. I can be found mostly behind the scenes or training the Ring Tail Lemurs.
Tags: , , , , ,

Lemur Photos

February 26th, 2012

I wanted to share some Lemur photos.

If you remember back several months ago- we had two interns Casey and Jessica who did their enrichment project for the lemurs- it was a teepee tree. We still use it and here are some recent photos of the ring tails climbing on it.

Lycus climbing

Cassandra and Satyrus climbing on their enrichment

 

As for the red ruffed lemurs, we were treating Iris twice a day with medicine that we put in mashed banana, which often meant her sister and mother also got mashed banana as a treat.  Here are photos of Jethys (Iris’ sister) who was so “excited” about her banana- she took the bowl right out of my hand and held it herself- hahaha

Jethys holding her own bowl with both hands

One hand!

When she was finished she dropped it on the ground

 

Hope you enjoyed- here’s Lycus to say GOODBYE

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