Confused? Let me help. I sound like a broken record… it’s just (I’m just) too busy. Awfully long days tending to regular tasks and animal issues. Animal Care doesn’t diminish because there are less people visiting the Museum and animals don’t sign-up for “today is my day to be ill”.
Last week I spent one day communicating with five different veterinarians about three different critical issues and several other items to tend to. All our “sickies” are on the mend, but just like with toad, there are lots of treatments to help our non-human teammates recover.
Here’s a photo view of some of the items the past week:
Pepper Chinchilla has a severe eye infection. He’s much improved. I give him the end of the applicator (q-tip) to keep his hands and mouth busy while we put medicine in his eye. NO ONE likes getting eye drops. His oral antibiotics are evidently very tasty, so he just drinks those down quickly and easily.Bill goat has perpetual dry flaky skin. Dr. Cannedy and Shayna are getting blood work so we can learn of any underlying causes. Bill’s condition flares at times and we provide a variety of different medicines, including shampooing him.For shampooing, we don waders attempting to keep ourselves as dry as possible through the wet-down, shampoo, and rinse process. Aaron is an expert goat holder. One year we had to do this in winter (it was really hard) so I am very appreciative to be doing this now when warm out ( and I am sure Bill is too).
One of the many ways we keep our animals well is by monitoring their feces for intestinal parasites. It’s no surprise that we find positive fecals at times. Below is a picture of a parasite egg found on Lucy’s and Camilla’s fecal. (They are chickens used for programs).
The entire slide only had one parasite egg, but we treated the chickens anyway with a de-wormer.
Ending with the broken record theme, we’re still in a pandemic and we still need to stay safe and well. And, it’s also important to find something that makes you smile, or brings you joy and happiness. Here are two from me:
From the work front, how can you not smile at a snoozing skunk?!? Florian is pretty darn cute.From the home front, my daughter and I successfully built a 12′ tall climbing wall. It was quite the accomplishment. It’s sturdy and functional and we didn’t get too cranky with each other (I only got short with her once and yelled at myself once)
Hang in there… and well, climbing a wall is always a good stress reliever! Thanks for the update, and all you do for the animals!