Taking Care of Hooves and Lemurs
It was nice to be back at the zoo after being gone for three weekends. The back area is familiar to me, it was a sunny day, and I knew where Denise would be - the giraffe barn.
We raked, swept, and shoveled the scattered poop and alfalfa, then let Asha back in the barn. Loren was helping Denise today, so there were three of us back there. Asha came in and I saw the bucket of Hoof Conditioner sitting on the floor by the door to the giraffe area. So, Asha was in the barn and Denise was trying to lure her close to the human-sized door so Loren could use a broomstick with a tiny, stiff brush on the end to get the mud off Asha's hooves. I hadn't really looked at hooves before. They're more like toes than I thought they'd be. Kind of a toe and hoof combination. Giraffes have one split in each hoof, so it's like they have 8 toes. Lots of mud gets stuck between there and it looks like it makes it harder to walk and the other parts of their hooves look dried out. If anyone knows anything about hooves, please comment.
So anyways, Denise was waving lettuce around, Loren was trying to be sneaky with the brush, and Asha was trying to eat the lettuce without moving her feet close to Loren. I was just watching and replenishing the torn lettuce supply. Asha was winning. Then Loren went for the hose and started spraying the mud off. That worked. So then Loren switched to the long stick with the hoof-polish-brush on the end. Asha had already gone through one head of lettuce. Denise was talking to her, and brushing the lettuce on her nose or on her tongue trying to get her to walk closer to the door. But Asha's neck can stretch really far... We ended up (hahaha, LOREN ended up) getting the front parts of the front hooves painted. And they looked dark and shiny instead of dirty and clumpy. Asha got to eat three heads of lettuce!!
Then we went and cleaned up the zebra/ostrich barn and exhibit. Denise lost her whistle sometime, so we walked around the exhibit looking for it. I wonder what the zoo visitors thought. The baby zebra, Kebibe (Ka-bee-bee), was being funny. He was running next to the truck, and then running a lap around the exhibit every now and then. When he runs, he gallops a few steps, then kicks both his back legs out and to the side, gallops, kicks!, gallops, kicks!... It looks really fun! I didn't recognize all the noises, but Denise said, "He's always running and farting, running and farting." :-) hahaha.
Have I told you about Rosa yet? She's a lemur that is having kidney problems right now, so she's been in the clinic for a month. It's important that they keep weight on her so they're trying to find things that she likes to eat. They try things like fruit, baby food, puddings, yogurt, pie filling, muffins and Ensure. Lemurs like sweet foods.
Usually Rosa sits on a bench in her cage while we take her food in. This time, after we closed the door to her cage, she ran up the chain link wall, and climbed up to about my shoulder level. Denise told me, she wants you to pet her. !! Cool! So I got to scratch her head and stroke her little hands and feet, I pet her arms and scratched behind her ears some more. It was really cool!
It was a fun zoo day. There's one more story, but it'll have to wait until later.
We raked, swept, and shoveled the scattered poop and alfalfa, then let Asha back in the barn. Loren was helping Denise today, so there were three of us back there. Asha came in and I saw the bucket of Hoof Conditioner sitting on the floor by the door to the giraffe area. So, Asha was in the barn and Denise was trying to lure her close to the human-sized door so Loren could use a broomstick with a tiny, stiff brush on the end to get the mud off Asha's hooves. I hadn't really looked at hooves before. They're more like toes than I thought they'd be. Kind of a toe and hoof combination. Giraffes have one split in each hoof, so it's like they have 8 toes. Lots of mud gets stuck between there and it looks like it makes it harder to walk and the other parts of their hooves look dried out. If anyone knows anything about hooves, please comment.
So anyways, Denise was waving lettuce around, Loren was trying to be sneaky with the brush, and Asha was trying to eat the lettuce without moving her feet close to Loren. I was just watching and replenishing the torn lettuce supply. Asha was winning. Then Loren went for the hose and started spraying the mud off. That worked. So then Loren switched to the long stick with the hoof-polish-brush on the end. Asha had already gone through one head of lettuce. Denise was talking to her, and brushing the lettuce on her nose or on her tongue trying to get her to walk closer to the door. But Asha's neck can stretch really far... We ended up (hahaha, LOREN ended up) getting the front parts of the front hooves painted. And they looked dark and shiny instead of dirty and clumpy. Asha got to eat three heads of lettuce!!
Then we went and cleaned up the zebra/ostrich barn and exhibit. Denise lost her whistle sometime, so we walked around the exhibit looking for it. I wonder what the zoo visitors thought. The baby zebra, Kebibe (Ka-bee-bee), was being funny. He was running next to the truck, and then running a lap around the exhibit every now and then. When he runs, he gallops a few steps, then kicks both his back legs out and to the side, gallops, kicks!, gallops, kicks!... It looks really fun! I didn't recognize all the noises, but Denise said, "He's always running and farting, running and farting." :-) hahaha.
Have I told you about Rosa yet? She's a lemur that is having kidney problems right now, so she's been in the clinic for a month. It's important that they keep weight on her so they're trying to find things that she likes to eat. They try things like fruit, baby food, puddings, yogurt, pie filling, muffins and Ensure. Lemurs like sweet foods.
Usually Rosa sits on a bench in her cage while we take her food in. This time, after we closed the door to her cage, she ran up the chain link wall, and climbed up to about my shoulder level. Denise told me, she wants you to pet her. !! Cool! So I got to scratch her head and stroke her little hands and feet, I pet her arms and scratched behind her ears some more. It was really cool!
It was a fun zoo day. There's one more story, but it'll have to wait until later.
posted by Lauren at
4:26 PM
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