This nest of Carolina Wrens (CAWR) is the third we’ve had in the Farmyard this year –that we knew about, anyway–. Mom and Dad wrens have been very protective of their three youngsters, but now that the babies are a little bigger, I managed to sneak a peak at the little ones without being crashed into by a grumpy parent. Normally our CAWR nests are well hidden up in the rafters of the barns. This one, however, is my favoriteRead more
Posts filed in: Farmyard
Max, being Max
He’s almost 1,700 pounds and stands about 5 feet tall at the shoulder (the height is a guess, he tried to eat my tape measure). Max weighs more than all 4 of our bears put together and can poop the combined weight of our baby alpacas every day! He has a well documented adoration of shoes and Kent. You’ll just have to trust me on the Kent part, or come visit some day and listen to Max bellow when KentRead more
There’s a Goat in the Tree
Rocky is a bit too short to reach the tastiest leaves on the tree with all 4 feet on the ground. So, after many attempts, he adopted a new routine for browsing. Previous to Rocky’s new found abilities, Chummix goat had been the champion Farm Yard tree climber. Unlike Rocky who climbs for more typical browse, Chummix only climbed trees for Poison Ivy vines.Read more
Summer is here so it’s time for watermelons
Summer is here so it’s watermelon season. We LOVE getting watermelons for the animals! The initial benefit is we get to pile them all on someone’s desk (it used to be Kristen and now it’s Aaron’s desk). Please drop off watermelons at the Admissions Desk or at Gate # 1. So many of the animals seem to love watermelon: Lemurs Bears Farmyard critters. A video of watermelon eating! We’ll be having Watermelon Day again this year on FridayRead more
Naked Alpacas
We used to have naked sheep once a year- check out last year’s sheep shearing. The four of them lost about 21 pounds of wool. Much less than the 35 pounds the 4 sheep took off last year This is our first year shearing alpacas and today was the day. They no longer look like this: Jonathan lays the alpacas down, straightens them out, and ties their legs. It goes pretty quickly and easily. We’ll get some video andRead more
Another Difficult Goodbye: You’ll be missed Chummix
We started the blog over 5 years ago. Our goal was to bring you into the life of a Keeper at the Museum. Death is a part of life. Some animals die on their own, others are euthanized. In fact our very first blog post was about saying goodbye to Moo. As we’ve written previously, some days are tough and some days suck. Today has been one of those days. I’ve written in the past year about Chummix and his “old goat disease“. We’ve been monitoring him and the keepers have been workingRead more