Long Day

Hello world! I am back with another post. Atlanta was so much fun. I went to the Georgia Aquarium (OMG SO AMAZING) and 6 Flags (I rode crazy roller coasters). But now to the part I know you're waiting for, the adorable pictures of animals at BTN.

Jasper (Nubian goat) was crying, as usual. He wanted his bottle. He's too old for formula, but the poor baby still has a very bad UTI (urinary tract infection) and he gets a bottle of water with cranberry tablets dissolved in it. It seems to make him feel better, the poor dear. At least he got a nice bath today.

Jasper clearly needs a bath

Today I was assigned Spencer (Arctic Fox) and the backrow squirrels. We have a new Animal Enrichment program and every day we follow a log detailing what kind of enrichment we need to prepare to keep the lives of our animals fun and spontaneous. The backrow kids don't get any planned enrichment, but today was Spencer's "Forage Day". That means hiding his food in creative places so he has to go look for it. I even gave him a treat of his favorite food: whole chicks. I cut one up and stuffed the pieces into small sweet peppers. The peppers will mask the scent, and he'll have an interesting time getting the chick pieces out to eat. And I prepared water bags for tomorrow's "Arctic Day" and stuck them in the freezer. Whoever is in charge of Spencer tomorrow will use these bags of ice to make his pool cold, so it's like he's really up in the Arctic. He'll love it. :)

10 bags of soon-to-be ice

Precious was here today, since Stacey was working. She really is precious! And she's getting so big. I remember when she was just an itty bitty baby. Kids grow up so fast, right? Speaking of coonie babies, someone brought in an itty bitty raccoon pup this morning. Just a week old. The poor thing was found being eaten alive by ants. She was absolutely covered in ant bites that were starting to fester. But she was hungry, so that was a good sign. And she got some medicine from us. I hope she makes it through to adulthood! I got really attached to her. I think I'll call her "Anita".

Precious being adorable!

More adorable babies. A little bit past the Popcorn (infant) stage. They're more like toddlers now. They're on the skinny side, but we'll soon change that. :)

So cute!

I did the backrow squirrels. In case you didn't read my earlier posts, "Backrow" is the area in which we keep our rehabilitated animals that are getting ready to be released. They are unavailable to the public, since we have to get them used to not being around people. They need to be wild and learn to forage for themselves. We try to give them food that they'd find in the wild like acorns, but we still prepare diets for them. Today the squirrels also got some bread soaked in squirrel formula since a lot of them are kind of young still.

The back cage kids said it was delicious

The second cage I did had a bunch of rowdy young'ns. They were running around and having fun at the fact that I was there. They would jump around and chew on my shoe and nibble on the food I brought. Some even tried to bury a few pieces of food. Good grown-up technique that they have to learn. They're clearly not ready to be released, but they're on their way to getting there.

"Did you bring me a peanut?"

Last time I did Russell's cage he stayed in his igloo the whole time. Here he was today taking in the good weather. It was quite nice out today. I would not mind if every day was like this. Enjoy yourself, Russell.

Lovely October weather

 This guy..... This guy in the 3rd cage kept trying to give me a new ear piercing. Either that, or he was trying to make my boyfriend jealous. He kept jumping onto me and climbing up to the back of my neck where he would play with my ponytail, bite my ear and bite my neck. Sometimes he would get a little too rough. Boy do squirrel bites hurt. And they were only love bites! It was only after I finished in the enclosure that I learned that everyone in that cage had mange. Well... How lovely. They were all over me. Fortunately, it's very difficult for humans to contract mange from an animal. But they were still covered in scabs from scratching themselves. Yay.

My new boyfriend chowing down

When I left and came back to rake, I guess he was upset. So he peed on me. Great.

I also released some kids from the Baby Room into one of the enclosures. Instead of me taking them out of their cages, I preferred to watch them figure it out for themselves. It was so entertaining to watch the gears turning in their little heads. Most of them figured it out, but I had to give a few of them a helping hand. Yes, you can leave your cage! There is a lot of room and lots of friends out here! 

"Is this a trap?"

It was way after my usual time to leave at this point, so Cait (an intern) said she would take over my Spencer (Arctic Fox) duties so that I could help Stacey (curator) finish the backrow. I'm not allowed in with the raccoons and opossums because of the risk of contracting rabies or distemper or something like that. Our guys are pretty healthy and I'm not afraid of catching anything, but for legal reasons all I did was assist Stacey outside of the cages.

Angry little opossum

I know it doesn't seem like much, but I did end up finishing 3.5 hours later than normal. Remember that I also have sidework duties that I don't take pictures of. You don't want to see the pile of disgusting laundry I had to sort through today. It was so beyond washing, I had to throw 90% of it away. Our washing machine is broken, so anything incredibly dirty unfortunately had to be discarded. After that, I took out the trash and relined the trash bins. I also helped do dishes for a while since after the backrow is cleared there are a lot of dishes piled up.

I decided to stay and chat with the other workers after we had finished our chores. We had a great time, and talked for 2 whole hours!

I love these people. :)

The Wild Dimes has Fainted!