Ranger Greg may have noticed the first signs of the impending season change back in August, but here in the Animal Department, we hold off until the middle of October to make our changes from the summer heat to the winter cold. We also have our animals to let us know when it’s time to shut off the fans and turn on the heaters. Scout, the duck, molts all of his old summer feathers to prepare for what would be aRead more
Posts tagged: #Sarah
QuickPic: Goats on Spools
The bears and lemurs have stumps to learn to station with and the little goats have spools! Even Lightning, the donkey, gets into station training. Teaching “station” or “place” is a great way to get an animal to give you some breathing room when you’re training multiple animals at once. Read more
Painting the Roses Red
Patches, the goat, decided to add his own artistic touch to the freshly painted barns. Who needs thumbs or a prehensile lip to hold a paintbrush when you’ve got a tail?Read more
Time For a Tune-Up
Now that we’re 1 month away from the grand re-opening of the Farmyard, it’s time to trade-in your well practiced sheep “baa” and try out your newly acquired alpaca “hum.” Here’s Retro, short for “Retroversion,” one of our new alpaca moms– and by far the most vocal– giving you a lesson in alpaca communication. So get practicing and in 30 days you will be ready to welcome the humming quartet into their new Farmyard home. [youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aUVKqObrlvM[/youtube]Read more
I Spy
Have you ever looked closely at a goat or sheep and noticed their weird rectangular eyes? I hear guests commenting on them every few weeks; some people love them, some people are disturbed by them, I think they’re awesome! Ungulates (hooved animals) are prey animals and need to have a great field of vision to avoid being snuck up on by a predator while they’re grazing. The rectangular pupil of the sheep and goats allow them to see in nearlyRead more
Big Word of the Month: Symbiosis
Many of the animals at the museum live with another animal of a different specie. They might live together because they seem to like each other or because they don’t bother one another and fit the exhibit well (large exhibits with 1 animal are pretty boring if that one animal doesn’t want to be in sight of guests). Some of the animals we have together are a donkey and dwarf goats, a steer and a boer goat, a pine snakeRead more