Do you know how to use a hose?

First I helped set up the spider monkey exhibit. While Kate was putting up some of the supplies, I was talking to the monkeys in the holding area. I had my face kinda close to their cage. All of sudden, one of those little monkeys shot his hand through the cage, hit me on the head, and pulled some of my hair! So, don't talk to the monkeys.

Then I was sent to work with the Bird Guys, Travis and Ryan. Travis asked me if I knew how to use a hose. ? I'd told him I'd had some experience in the giraffe barn and in my childhood. It was funny for a keeper to ask me if I know how to use something. I'm more likely to get questions about whether or not I like a certain animal (then if I like them I get to clean up their poop). So, Travis and I went to the entrance and I got a BIG hose and started the 20-minute-job rinsing job. The peacocks hang around the entrance and make a big mess with their poop and white urine splashes. So, I washed that off. Then I helped Travis sweep up some mulch that had fallen out of one of the bird exhibits.

Now, it's Attwater Prairie Chicken time. APC's are an endangered species and this zoo is one of the six facilities that is working on captive breeding. I don't know the whole story, but there's lots of APC eggs and some regular chickens are busy sitting on them. There's one chicken at the zoo named Nugget, and he's hilarious! So, every Saturday Travis and Ryan collect all the eggs in a bowl of sand and bring them back to the lab to weigh them and do some egg candling. This is like science class, but in real life. Each egg has it's own number and Fresh Weight. The FW is the amount it weighed on it's first day. Each week they take a Current Weight and then do some math to figure out what percentage of weight it has lost over the week. I guess eggs lose weight as they turn from slime to feathers. Most of the fertile eggs lose about 16% of their weight each week. Then I got to watch some egg candling. Now the keepers won't warn you that they're going to turn off all the lights... so don't get scared. After the lights are off, they turn on a little flashlight and hold the egg up to the light and let the light shine through the egg like it shines through your hand when you put a flashlight on it. It's cool. They do this to see if it's fertile or not. Fertile eggs have veins and dark masses, but infertile eggs are clear.

We marked all the weight changes and candling observations in the APC egg notebook. Then they asked me if I was familiar with Excel. Hello, how many hours a day do I spend on Excel? Lots. So I helped them set up an electronic APC notebook. It was pretty cool. I think they have about 100 eggs, and I only got through 30 of them. I wonder how many will hatch. There's already lots of infertile eggs. It's made me look at eggs differently anyways.

I guess the monkey was the only funny animal, but I liked learning about the egg project. I'll probably help with the birds again next week.

Today I touched...

A jaguar!!

I worked with Loren since Denise doesn't have to work on Saturdays anymore. I think Loren is a little more laid back. We visited other people and took breaks!! We visited the jaguar cage because they were working on the waterfall in the exhibit. It'd be broken for a long time, and Doug had finally got it to work again. So, we were standing around, admiring the waterfall, doubting the cloudy water, and standing on layers of mud, grass seeds, and dry hay. The jaguars were in their holding cages in the back of the exhibit. Loren took me back there and introduced me. There's a black friendly jaguar named Copan and dangerous spotted jaguar named Wailer. They're brothers, but they're different colors. Everyone has to stand at least 3 feet away from Wailer's cage or else he can get you with his paws. Copan likes to roll around on the floor and rub his body against the cage. One time when he was leaning against the cage I got to stick my finger in really quick and touch his back! Whoa! That was it, but it was cool.

I also got to pet a pronghorn. I wasn't real sure what a pronghorn was until I met Claire today, and did some research on pronghorns on the internet. Pronghorns are native to the American Great Plains. They are kind of like small antelope. Apparently they're the fastest animal around; they can run at speeds up to 60 miles an hour! Cheetahs can sprint at speeds of 70 mph, but not for a very long time, and there aren't any cheetahs at the zoo. Claire is a very friendly pronghorn. She doesn't really like to eat crackers that are offered to her, but she likes attention. I got to scratch her head and walk around the exhibit with her. She shares her exhibit with Bif the Turkey Vulture and Smiley the Crane. Smiley has a crooked beak. :-)

Oh, I heard a funny story about Tanzi the elephant. So there was this lady and her daughter who were visiting the elephant exhibit. The mom was throwing crackers to the elephants and the girl wanted to throw something too. She had a sippy-cup so she tossed it in there! Tanzi, (a very smart elephant) picked up the cup with her trunk, squeezed it just enough for the top to pop off, DRANK THE JUICE, then tossed it to a zoo keeper!! Crazy. The elephants are way cool, but very stinky.

There's a pregnant Colobus monkey. These are black monkey with some long white hair around their face. The pregnant monkey, her name is something like Lydia, hasn't had a natural birth before. Last time she was pregnant, she had to have a c-section, and she didn't accept the baby. After a month of hand-raising the baby monkey, it died. Sad story. So, everyone's hoping for a natural birth.

There's still ostrich eggs in the exhibit! You should go see them!

Man! I really like working at the zoo!

An April Day

Hmmm... I don't have a plan for today's post. The main thing I remember from the zoo yesterday is coming home really tired. I think it's because I've been staying up late ever since daylight savings time started.

Let's see, I got to tell the keepers that I met the students who broke into the zoo for Valentine's Day! Did I write about that on here? Two students boated across Nelson Lake and broke into the zoo at night. Then they had a picnic on the bridge over the giraffe exhibit. Then the guy climbed over the fence and got into the exhibit with Asha and Punk! And they took pictures of everything, and put it on their blogs, and the zoo manager found the blog on a google search! So, they're in big trouble. Don't break into the zoo!

We loaded up the truck with food and went to the zebra barn. There were four pigeons trapped in there so we called the Bird Boys. Diane (the bird-catching ninja) has Saturdays off now so Ryan and Travis work the bird areas. Ryan came by and Denise and I helped him catch all the birds. One was very sneaky! Ryan kept catching it, but it kept escaping! Finally, Ryan pinned the bird down with the net handle and grabbed it with his hand! It was crazy. Ryan and Denise talked for a while about who they would feed these pigeons to, and they decided it was Albert the Alligator's turn. Ryan didn't want to pop their heads off, so he drove away with the birds. Maybe Travis or Albert killed them.

Rosa, the lemur that was in the clinic, died on Friday. Denise was really sad about it. She said they did a nutopsy (an autopsy, but for an animal) and her kidneys were really bad, and her heart was also bad. That's sad, Rosa was a sweet lemur.

Jack the mean, but beautiful zebra is getting shipped out at the end of this month. He doesn't get along with the other zebras. So, if you want to see his striking coat and his beautiful black and white stripes, you need to go to the zoo soon! Some zebras stripes aren't clear, or they're a little brown, but Jacks are super! He's a meany and I'm scared of him, so I guess it's OK that he's moving.

My favorite part was cutting some fresh spring boughs off the trees in the back and feeding them to the giraffes. We took them up on the bridge and held them over the fence while the giraffes used their tongues to strip the leaves off the branches and almost yank our arms off! They pull really hard!

It's great to go work outside with wild animals/their poop. :-)