Have you ever wandered into the farmyard and asked yourself, “Why doesn’t the duck simply fly away?” There are three answers: He does, sometimes. As you can see here in an older post. He seasonally has wing feathers trimmed to help keep him down on the ground. At nearly 11 pounds, he’s a little bit too chubby to really get off the ground. In the early spring and fall, Ducky molts (loses) his old feathers and grows a niceRead more
Posts tagged: #Sarah
Henry the Great
Henry is our resident Woodchuck in Carolina Wildlife. Below are pictures of him getting some exercise time on the Keeper Hall. Keeper Katy found it a great opportunity to get him on the scale. We weigh our animals on schedules, some may be once a week, some may be once a month. In addition, anytime we have an opportunity to weigh an animal -we take it! Keeping a good record of animal weights is very important and can help decideRead more
Concurrent Accession
“Accession” is a word the zoological world uses to mean, “adding to.” It’s the term applied to newly acquired individuals to a museum/zoo/aquarium’s collection. We don’t have a large turnover in our collection at the museum. Every year we lose some animals due to old age, health problems, or transfers to other institutions and we gain a couple, but our collection stays at about the same number. Because we don’t take in new animals very often, I found it interestingRead more
Big Word of the Month: Flehmen Response
Whatever you call it, if you have a pet cat at home (especially if it’s a male) you’ve likely seen this face before. It goes by many variations of the same name: Flehmen Response, Flehmen Position, Flehmen Reaction, or simply Flehming. Flehmen (pronounced: FLAY-men) Responses are used by a wide variety of hoofstock (ungulates) and many cats (felids). Males and females, adults and babies, all exhibit this silly facial expression. The silly look on the animal’s face helps toRead more
Farmyard Pumpkin Fest 2012
Only a couple days after we were given that truckload of giant pumpkins, I answered a radio call from Sherry telling me to drive the gator very carefully so I wouldn’t spill the cargo (I didn’t spill any). With our Quarantine stall in the Farmyard already full of pumpkins, something needed to be done to whittle down the collection. The result: Pumpkin Fest 2012 There was even some pumpkin smashing! Read more