Training

Hello everyone!

Sorry for the lack of update late week. I couldn't make it to my BTN shift because I had sprained my wrist. I rested and took ibuprofen and now I'm all better!

I had 2 training assignments today and the birds of prey flight cages. So I didn't have to do much except talk and let the new gals know what their duties were. Heheheh!

 First of all, look at these adorable baby raccoons. We call them popcorns. I don't know why.... We just do. Sorry for the bad quality of the photo, the Baby Room is very dim plus they were moving around a lot because they were hungry.

Adorable popcorns!

I didn't take any pictures while I was in Mocha (Eastern Fallow Deer) and Jennifer's (Nubian Goat) cages training Jessica, a new intern. So there are no pictures of them, sorry. Jennifer is looking fluffy with her winter coat, which is all white. It's weird because she's normally mostly chestnut-colored. And it was great getting to rub on Mocha again. I miss singing Disney songs to him. My big geriatric man!

It's been a while since I was in the Flight Cages, and it was good seeing the old birds again. Especially  beautiful Cookie (Turkey Vulture). I never get over looking at all of the colors in his feathers and his bright red head. The purples and greens. Absolutely beautiful. He didn't seem too happy about it being a fasting day. All the birds of prey don't get food on Saturdays.

"Where's my rotting chicken?"

Colombo (Great Horned Owl) had moved from his regular perch! Well, it was still the same branch, but he was on the opposite side of it. I guess he wanted to soak up some sun on such a pretty day! He did his normal hissing and clicking. All talk.

"Who dares disturb my slumber?"

Tarot (Red-Tailed Hawk) is now in Winnie's (Bald Eagle) old flight cage and he loves having all of that space. And his feet are getting much better! Everyone is so glad! Poor guy had bumblefoot for 3 years now, which is a bacterial infection on the feet of birds from improper perches. When he came to us he already had the infection and we've been treating him. Recently we've bumped up his treatments to every other day and it's done him good! And that means capturing him every other day, so I wasn't surprised that he stared me down while I was cleaning his enclosure. He wouldn't move from his perch and I had to scoop up some leftovers that was on the ground underneath him. I was so close I could feel the breeze from his wing-beats. What a rush!

Tarot loves his big enclosure!

Before I could train Fahima on Harriet (Virginia Opossum) I was shanghaied by Debbie into feeding 5 baby squirrels. They had their eyes open, which is a little older than what I prefer. I think they're the cutest when they have fur but their eyes are still closed. And they have less energy then too, lol! It took 45 minutes to feed all of them. Longer than you would think, I know. But that's normal. Still, when they behave they're ADORABLE!!!

What a tasty lunch!

A lot of resident animals were getting moved today, since we're trying to put the birds with each other. I don't remember exactly where everyone is going. I think Kenny and Mogua (Barred Owls) are moving in with Columbo, and the Screechies (Tobias, Squinty and Pirate) are getting K and M's old enclosure. Nigel (Sherman's Fox Squirrel) is moving into the old Screechies' enclosure since he's so cooped up in his current cage. Little Man and Daisy (Eastern Grey Squirrels) are moving into a big enclosure in what used to be Jennifer's yard. Lots of moving.

The Screechies were in the Baby Room for the day.

Tobias makes a dramatic profile!

Finally I trained Fahima on how to do Harriet's enclosure. Fortunately there isn't much to do in there, so while Fahima was working I spent a minute with Harriet who let me pet her for the first time! How exciting! I knew our friendship would grow. :)

Shuffling back into her kennel with a tasty chicken neck.

It was a fun day. I like training the new people. It makes me think back to when I was new about half a year ago. I can't believe it's been that long! Time flies when you're having fun with animals. I love all of our critters and the wonderful people I volunteer with. :)

Until next week!

The Wild Dimes had Fainted!

Vash likes to sleep in odd positions with his Auntie Dimes

Cold Day!!!

Geewillikers was it cold out! I had leggings under my jeans and a thick sweatshirt on and it was still freezing. I hope everyone has been keeping warm in this cold weather! The BTN animals were cold too. Except Spencer, of course. He probably wished it was even colder still!

So I started my day off with actually being on the schedule! Yaaaay! I got Harriet, Spencer, the Screechies and Whizzer.

Like I said, it was cold. But the worst part was preparing diets. The Screechies and Whizzer fast on Saturdays, but Harriet and Spencer both eat every day. And they get meat in their diets. Let me tell you how much fun it is to grab raw meat and chicken necks with your bare hands on a cold morning at 40-Fahrenheit.  ..... That's how much. And the fruit and veggies were all cold and wet too. And after the diets were prepared I had to wash my dishes. Oh yes, dish washing is so fun. Actually, the water wasn't that bad. It was even a tad bit warmer than the air. It's when my hands came out of the water that was bad. Half an hour into my day I couldn't feel my fingers and toes anymore.

The Screechies (Tobias, Squinty and Pirate - Eastern Screen Owls) were an easy bunch. They tend to hang out in the same spot, the upper-back-left corner of their enclosure, so all of their poop and leftovers are right underneath them. Debbie recommended we use scrub buckets with only water and a bit of bleach. Leaving out the soap means we don't have to hose it down afterward and that's good. No one wanted to get wet on such a cold day.

"Who dares disturb my slumber?"

After the Screechies it was Whizzer's (Red-Tailed Hawk) turn. His cage went pretty fast as well. Whizzer likes a certain spot too, only his poops are more projectile than the Screech Owls. Poor Whizzer was all fluffed up against the cold. I wish there was a kind of hawk sweater to give him. He looked so cold!! At this point Lesley let me borrow her gloves, which I love her for. They definitely helped a lot!!

I forgot to take a picture of Whizzer looking all fluffy. I'm sorry everyone.

Now it was time for Harriet (Virginia Opossum). Her enrichment was supposed to include me spraying some parts of her enclosure with different pre-approved scents, but the Scent Box was being cleaned and refilled that day so I had to come up with something else. Going with the scent theme I did something I had already done before: tying up herbs and stringing them around her enclosure. I used oregano and "poultry blend" which I guess is used for stuffing chickens. It smelled like chicken noodle soup. So I used some twine and tied them up. When she came out to eat she happened upon one of them and seemed to really enjoy it. Yaaay!!!

She goes for the chicken neck first and leaves the veggies

Like I said, Spencer (Arctic Fox) was really enjoying the cold. He seemed to look at us as if he was saying, "Why are you guys wearing so many layers? It's great out! Let's get in a pool!" Hahaha.... No. I had to leave Lesley's gloves out to dry because they got soaked. Hence my hands were wet and cold. But Spencer didn't care, he just wanted those chicks I was holding. His enrichment was supposed to be making fox-print art, but we didn't have the supplies for it. So I did the same thing as Harriet's enrichment. And he was going crazy over the herbs. Sniffing and looking at me like, "What is that smell? Why do I want to eat it?" It was adorable.

*Sniff sniff sniff*

Being a nice cold day for him, I would have thought Spencer would be hyper. But he was actually pretty calm and wasn't up for much affection. Maybe I smelled like an animal he didn't enjoy. We did hang out for a little bit, but not much petting was involved.

Sunning himself

I was done with my charges for the day and I did my chores, which was washing dishes.... Yay me. Just had to plow through it. And since I had some time left, I asked Carissa if anything needed to be done. She asked me to prepare Precious' (Raccoon) meal, which I was happy to do since Precious is everyone's baby. We've had her since she was a tiny little pup. So adorable! The spoiled thing...

Delicious, right?

 And after that it was time for me to go, but I figured I'd ask Debbie if anything needed to be done before I left. Because I'm a good  person. Yep. And she said that Koko's cage needed cleaning. We had a new intern on Barnyard duty today and it always takes the newbies a while to clean Jennifer (Nubian Goat) and Mocha's (Fallow Deer) enclosures since they have very small poops in a large sand enclosure and you're armed with a pooper-scooper on a stick and a tiny rake. Not fun. So I understood why it was taking her so long. So John got assigned Mocha and I got Koko.

It was not a good day for Koko. Her enclosure is at the back of our facilities and a Community Service guy (doing his hours with us) was near her cage sorting through lumber and throwing it about. This made her very nervous. Which in turn made me very nervous. When stretched out to her full height, Koko is about 7ft tall I think. And even though I wasn't the one making the noise and we're good buddies, she was still pacing and looking at me and then trying to look over her fence at the noise-maker and looking at me again. Suffice it to say I moved very slowly and kept talking to her so she would know my position. I had managed to scoop all the poop and change her water before I got really uncomfortable. I had just started raking when Koko began to head my way, stretched out and stomping. That's when I grabbed my gear and left her enclosure. I apologized to Debbie. I figured it was a lot better to have gotten out of there since I was adding to her nervousness by just being there, not to mention I was probably wafting nervous energy at her. Poor old girl wasn't having a relaxing Saturday.

Koko pacing

There wasn't anything for me to do, so it was time to go home and out of the cold. Huzzah! Hopefully next weekend won't be so cold!

The Wild Dimes has Fainted!

The clean dishes I washed laying out to dry

Happy New Year

Hello and Happy New Year! I hope everyone had a fun and safe holiday season. Now it's back to the grindstone. But at least you get my happy animal-filled posts again. I have decided to remain at Back to Nature this semester and I will continue to work on Saturdays. So look forward to many more posts!

There were a lot of people in on Saturday the 7th to work. It was amazing. I wasn't even on the schedule, but of course I stayed to help anyway. I took over the reptiles from Carissa, which is super easy. And since that was my only charge for the day there was no rush and I got to spend some time with the animals.

Spike got a tent of thick comforters hanging around his heating lamp at the top of his rock cave. I scaled the faux-plastic like a mountain-climbing pro and sat down next to the big guy. At first he was a little shocked by my entering without knocking (very rude of me, I know) but I think he accepted my apology after a few pets. He really seemed to enjoy them, don't you think?

Spike and his tanning lamp

It was fun saying hello to the other volunteers/interns walking by from the top of the rock cave. They would look around the enclosure for me, then were all surprised when they noticed I was sitting up near the ceiling. Tickled me pink. I must have spent a good 20 minutes with Spike. Poor guy doesn't get a lot of attention. At least I was there to help out some guests that wanted to see Spike. Since he was hidden away in his tent no one could see him, so I held the comforters away for a few minutes while the guests took pictures and admired Spike.

"Ahhh... That's the spot."

After this I found out that Stacey and a few of the other volunteers were learning (from Debbie) how to process a deer, so I ran around back to see. The deer had accidentally caught itself in a fence but by the time Debbie and Stacey got to it to help, the poor thing had broken its own neck and died. At least we could give the deer's death a purpose and use his body for the enrichment of our animals. Unfortunately I missed most of the processing. I came in time to watch the brain get removed, which I helped out with minimally by looking up how to do it on Jeannie's fancy smartphone. I have pictures, but I won't post them here in case someone has a sensitive stomach.

Afterwards I went to go prepare diets for Kelly's squirrels. Kelly was called away to do a tour, so she asked me to tend to her babies and I was more than happy to help. A little scared though, since Joe can be a little aggressive. But that's just because he's startled by new people (I think). I was lucky in that he was more interested in the tasty platter of food I brought than in nipping at me.

Lunch time for Angel and Joe

There wasn't anything else to do except finish with the reptiles, which didn't take long at all. I then spent some time drying and putting away clean dishes while chatting with Jason, who was washing the dirty ones. It was a slow easy day with lots of people to talk and have fun with. I can't believe I've been with Back to Nature over 6 months now. It has been an amazing experience and I feel lucky to continue volunteering with them.

My next installment should be fun. The new interns started this week, so I should see new people on Saturday. Hopefully I'll see some KMWC friends.

The Wild Dimes has Fainted!

Vash sleeping silly against my leg