Kristen wrote about stocking the animal department Kitchen in October. She is our weekly produce shopper, but with her out of town, it was my turn to go. I grabbed the super-size cart, the one that two kids could sit in, and hoped everything would fit. I loaded 35 bananas in the cart: it made me think of what Wendy our woodchuck would do if she came across this goldmine! When I put the cauliflower in the cart, I chuckledRead more
Posts tagged: #diets
EnrichBits: Feeding and Foraging
EnrichBits: A monthly look at animal enrichment Food is a major component to our enrichment program here at the museum. Remember Enrichment and how important exhibit design is? Well, Feeding and Foraging is another big category of enrichment that we apply to our captive animals’ lives. There are quite a few ways in which we can vary, prepare, and distribute our animals’ daily diets in order to keep things interesting for them. They’d spend much of their waking time inRead more
Stocking the animal department kitchen
If you were to come into the animal department kitchen and crack open one of our 6 refrigerators/freezers, you’d probably see a lot of items you’d find in your own fridge at home: apples, oranges, broccoli, carrots… frozen dead mice, mealworms, etc. You know, the usual. 😉 Although we receive a few donations, we purchase most of our produce from the local grocery store, and have to restock our fridges about once a week. The look on some of theRead more
Big Word: What’s for dinner?
Big Word of the Month is a regular feature that explores the sometimes challenging vocabulary of Biology. All animals need basically the same things to survive: water, calories, vitamins and minerals. However, animals acquire these necessities from a wide variety of sources. Some eat only one type of food for their whole lives while others may have different food at every meal. Biologists can usually tell what kind of food an animal eats by looking at their and teeth andRead more