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. 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 crateRead more
Posts filed in: Health/Vet
Lemur Photos
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. 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 motherRead more
For shame…!
So my friend Katy is another keeper here who specializes in the Veterinary aspects of our collection. She does the majority of her work through our vet room and making sure everyone stays healthy (animal wise, at least). But sometimes when we are a little short handed, she jumps right in and lends a hand to help clean exhibits or anything else that needs to be done. Unfortunately, in the excitement of cleaning an exhibit and scrubbing poo off ofRead more
“Target” click
One of my favorite duties as an Animal Keeper is training with the Ring Tailed Lemurs. We train many of the animals at the museum using operant conditioning. When I first started here, I was familiar with training, I used positive reinforcement for several animals at my previous job- a Serval, African Crested Porcupine, Binturong, several birds including large Macaws, a Raven, Crow, Hawks and Owls. African Crested Porcupine Even Rats- But it wasn’t until working here at the Museum that I really got intoRead more
Trash anyone?
Anyone who has been in the animal keeping profession knows that part of the job includes the unfortunate task of pulling trash out of the animal exhibits. On some level it is expected that a random object will occasionally be found in an animal’s enclosure, due to a visitor accidentally dropping something and not being able to recover it (please don’t try to retrieve the item yourself!). However, we have noticed the amount of trash in the exhibits increase significantlyRead more
What a prize!
If you visit the museum often, you will soon notice the “new” yellow horse trailer sitting at the entrance of the farmyard. The trailer is not new literally, but it is new to us! And it was actually given to us as a donation after keeper Sarah did lots of searching on line and in the papers. We have never had a trailer of this size, but now that we do it will open up a world of opportunities for usRead more