A rough week it was: May 13: X-rays for Jean, one of our Farmyard rabbits. She was found in the morning with her leg not quite right. We got her checked out by our vet, and x-rays indicated some dislocated metacarpals. After consulting with a surgeon, we decided to let her rest and see how things would progress (resting still in progress). May 23: Heart “zapping” (as we call it) for Kent. Kent’s been mostly out the past month, but returned andRead more
Posts tagged: #Kent
If you could be any animal- which would you be?
I asked my fellow animal keepers this question awhile ago, thinking I’d come up with a funny blog to post. I got a bunch of answers: Kent – Mottled Rock Snake Sherry- Eagle Katy- Elephant Jill- vegetarian Polar Bear Kristen- Giraffe Aaron- Killer Whale Sarah- Atlantic Puffin Marilyn- Spectacled Bear Mikey- Stegosaurus Me- Clark’s Grebe While all of these are great answers, it wasn’t really as funny as I’d hope it would have been. Insert Interns— As you may haveRead more
Bathing a small car…
Yes, that’s right… I said bathing a small car. That’s because our 1,400 pound steer, Max, is almost big enough to be a small car (or at least it seems that way when you have 4 or 5 people scrubbing him down). We give Max pretty regular baths during the warmer months of the year. He really seems to enjoy being bathed and pampered and it also serves as a fun thing for our volunteers to participate in, along withRead more
Canebrake Rattlesnake Tubing
We’re hands-off with our venomous snakes at the Museum. What you see in the photos below is “snake tubing”. Kent is holding the snake tube with the canebrake rattlesnake inside. The tube itself is a hard plastic, about 3 feet in length. The most important factor is the diameter of the tube. You want the diameter of the tube to be only slightly larger than the diameter of the snake. This prevents the snake from being able to turn aroundRead more
Tick Magnet
There are many joys to being an animal keeper, but as with any job it also has its downfalls. Pesky little bugs and bloodsuckers would be one of those downfalls. When working outside in the summer, we obviously deal with an onslaught of these critters. We become fantastic meals for mosquitoes, ticks and chiggers while we are diligently doing our jobs and not paying attention to what might be joining us as we work. I am known to have aRead more
QuikPost: mowing the bear exhibit- or not
March is when we start thinking about the grass in the bear yard again. We always seed, aerate and fertilize the bear yard in March- we mow too. We have everything we need on hand to proceed: LOTS of seed (we over seed), a little natural fertilizer (we don’t use/need much as the bear yard gets lots of natural fertilizer), our aerator, Kent (he’s the tractor driver), me, and the tractor. As you can see, the tractor is out ofRead more