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