Wow, there is so much to catch up on. I terribly wish I had the gusto to write every single day, but I've been very busy spending time with friends and having a blast whenever possible. After I have worked all day and enjoyed festivities, I find it very hard to sit down and recall my day in a manner poetic enough to please the general public. Now, for the sake of convenience, I will divide this entry into case sections. Each of the mentioned scenarios has had a great impact on me and has taught me alot.
Feeding Elephants:
What a fun day this was! We had headed up to the elephant building to do our third and final trunk wash on the elephants. They all performed brilliantly, and we had received our conical tubes full of elephant nose water. Just before we were about to leave the building, the veterinarian looks beside her and sees a box full of apples. She says to the keeper, "May I feed the elephants?" He allowed her to, and I watched enviously from behind as she gently handed apples into their prehensile noses. They eagerly lifted their trunks to their mouths and dropped the yummy fruit in. After she had given all the fruit she had, one of the elephants began to feel all up and down her legs, wrapping gently around her ankle at one point. It looked like great fun, and when they offered to let me feed one, I was ecstatic! I grabbed a few apple slices and held out my hand. The eager trunk immediately found my fingers and removed the red succulence from them. I was amazed at how soft their trunks are! And how strong, too! Most zoos in America, as well as this one, adhere to what is called protected contact. Protected contact is when keepers are never in direct contact with the elephants, and bars always separate them, save that one soft long reaching appendage known as the trunk. To touch an elephant, an animal who is colossal when up close, whose soulder is higher than your head and there is much more of her above that, and to make her happy by passing on fruit is indescribably amazing. I was giggling inside for hours after the awesome experience.
Serval Transfer:
Previously, we had two male servals here at the zoo. Servals are spotted, medium-sized cats with large triangular ears. We have been desiring a breeding partner for one of males, but don't have the room to house more than two of these cats at a time. So, one of the boys was being shipped to another zoo. Well, bright and early, we were up and at the cat house to sedate and crate our kitty. We had a whole host of supplies there for managing this task, the most decidedly important of which was the blowdart. Into this long tube we loaded a syringe, primed with air in one end, meds in the other, that would be blown at the serval, and upon contact in his skin, would discharge the sedative.He was extremely active and agressive when we were trying to get an angle on him. He had been moved to a tiny stall where we would have easier access to him, and the vet had taken out the pole syringe as a tool to manipulate him to one side so the blowdart could be sent his way. She stuck the wooden stick (the end opposite the needle) in the cage with him, and the angry fellow reached up and smacked the end of that stick right off! It was crazy how strong he was. After one unsuccessful dart, and a second successful one, plus 20 minutes waiting, he was somewhat calmed down, but not markedly sedated. So, we decided to give it a third go on the drugs. At this point, he was lying on a wooden perch in the stall that was about three feet off of the ground. The stall's total height probably reached 9 feet. When he was hit with the third dart, he lept straight up from the perch so high that he hit the ceiling of the stall. Well, after another time of waiting, he had calmed considerably, and was able to be moved into a crate. Now, a sedated wild animal is still a wild animal, and though he was a little relaxed, he was by no means unable to harm us still. So, to be moved he was snared around the neck by a snare pole, and walked into the waiting crate filled with hay. Once he was in the crate, an antagonist drug was given that woke him up slowly from the sedative. When he was getting ready to head to his new home, in a crate in the back of the van, he was sitting up and curiously looking around.
Pinned pintail duckling:
Remember the duckling who broke his leg a while ago? Well three days ago, it was time to remove the pins from his leg. Everything felt fine, the little guy seemed very bright and alert, and he did well under anesthesia. After we took the pins out, we took xrays, which looked good. The bone had begun to callous together and he was walking with only a slight limp. We put him back in the water with the other ducklings where he swam away happily. However, two days later, he was brought back to the vet wing. The tiny grey body could not be held on the tiny grey legs with webbed feet that splayed out in front of him like clown shoes. He was tottering over upon every step, and even went face first into the ground a few times. He flipped on his back and could not get back up. This seemed like more than a leg problem, but we took xrays to make sure. The xrays revealed nothing abnormal--the leg was healing, the spine was normal, even the brain (which we shot an xray of) was looking healthy. So, it was reasoned that the cause must be infection. We looked up the history of the birds who had previously been in the enclosure where Pintail was. These birds had died of an infection, and while the area had been well cleaned, and no other ducklings had been seen with strange symptoms, it was possible that the pintail baby was just more susceptible to what little infection remained, because of the pin holes healing in his leg, and because of the stress of going under anesthesia. We immediately changed up his antibiotic, and started taking strong precautions to remain very sterile in his room. Everything that touches him goes immediately to wash after it is removed, and we change his bedding multiple times a day. He had to be force-fed and given injectable fluids for the first day. When we left that evening, he was still wobbly, but sitting up on his own. I was very worried when I came in this morning that he would have gotten worse, but thankfully, he had improved! He had eaten all of the food in his dish that I had left, and he was sitting up. Upon his standing, I saw that he was still having a really hard time walking. Every step he tries to take, he falls over, but he's such a trooper! He keeps trying and trying to get to his food, or to get away from me when I have to catch him when it's time for medicine! His spirit is very endearing. He's a determined little, drunken-looking duckling. He ate quite a bit of grain and mealworms today, little beak smacking at hyper speed as he swallowed them down. He's still wobbly, but hopefully tomorrow will show even more improvement.
Fawns
A few days ago we walked by the deer yard and saw one of our pregnant does. Her stomach was a huge bulge, coming out on both sides, and she was ready to pop with the life inside her. Within two days of this sighting, the world had gotten the gift of two new twin babies. One was a boy and one was a girl. They needed their tetanus shot, and they needed to be cleaned up after the birthing process if any umblical cord was still remaining or they had any caked blood, so we headed down to see them. I entered the barn with plastic gloves on my hands, a bottle of sticky red iodine in tow, and a cooler of syringes in the crook of my arm. When the keeper walked from across the barn, carrying in his arms, a minute tan body and long skinny legs splayed out, seemingly too long for the small form, with hooves that could fit in a shot glass, and eyes the size of quarters, I nearly dropped all the gear from cuteness-overload. What is it about baby things that is so precious?! I even find baby spiderlings to be precious, just because of their minute size! I believe it is the 'helper' in my that finds babies so enthralling. I've always had a soft spot for them that cannot help themselves, and a baby is the epidome of helpless. At the end of the day, I guess we all want to be needed, and to be needed by a life form that truly and absolutely needs you to survive if the ultimate satisfaction. Thankfully, the babies looked great! There were no medical problems whatsoever, and we didn't even have to clean them up; momma had done a great job of that. It was a very precious moment, and the miracle of life amazed me, as it always has, and as I am certain it always will.
There is so much more to tell! So many more stories will follow this weekend when I have time to write them out. Some of the tales are of loss, but some are of healing, and while both can teach us something, the healing are my favorite kind. Oh, the joy of newness of life.
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