This week the red ruffed lemurs got their annual physicals. All three girls- Cynthia, Iris, and Jethys- did great. Each one, from pre-sedation to reversal took 37 minutes. We’re waiting for blood work to come back, but everyone’s initial findings seemed to be okay. Our girls are getting old so I always have concerns about what the tests will show. Cynthia is almost 32 years old. The Duke lemur center only has one red ruffed lemur older than her. Read more
Posts filed in: Health/Vet
Another visit from Dr. English
Dr. English, a board certified veterinary ophthalmologist, was by last Thursday to check on a bunch of the animals with eye issues. He and his team saw 10 of our animals: 2 lemurs, the donkey, a rabbit, the hawk, 2 screech owls, 2 barred owls, and a salamander. We’re so thankful that Dr. English comes and checks on the animals who need his help. He tracks any changes in patients’ eyes from previous visits and checks out new animals whoRead more
Let’s all get weighed!
Keepers are enjoying the new scale in the farmyard, and so are the critters. Here’s some video of Max and the alpacas getting weighed. Max’s training focused on keeping him calm as he walked from his enclosure to the scale – he tends to get excited when he goes for a walk. And 1600 pounds of excited steer can be difficult to manage. But look how calm he is! [youtube]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FSfSwNZ1ifY[/youtube] The alpaca training is more focused on helping them tolerateRead more
Ultrasound for a Snake
Last Thursday Katy and I took Todd, our black rat snake in for an ultrasound of his heart. Since Dr. Godshalk, a board certified veterinary radiologist, doesn’t have a lot of snakes for clients, we had to bring a “normal” snake so she could compare the heart of one to the other. We took the snakes to VSH in Cary- this is where, 3 years ago, Dr. Godshalk helped us out with Cassandra’s brush with death. All went well. Read 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