We've had two surgeries this week, which is super neat. I love being involved in surgery, because it is a process where, in general, you know exactly what you want to accomplish and you go in an accomplish it. It is great when you get a medical case that can be resolved, but in general, they take much time to do so, or they are chronic. A surgery is simple, direct, rewarding (if all goes well). Granted, the pressure is much higher, and I have a tendency to get kind of flustery under pressure. I hope that this will soothe as a grow older and more practiced. But anyway, the surgeries:
Pinioning "James":
James is a goose who is kept in the quarantine building, with his companion Jesse. I have known these two since they were quite small. They still had downy, grey feathers when I arrived here, and were going on daily walks with supervisors. When I would go clean the hammerkop's stall, these little guys would eagerly snap their beaks at the fence, and I would always squat down to their level and say "Hi gooses." No idea why improper grammar seemed to be the choice endearment, but I said it nearly every morning. They have no grown up to be real-sized geese, and they are still quite sweet. They are getting ready to go on exhibit though, since they are larger, and here is the thing. Our geese are out on a yard where they can walk around, and where they can swim, but because they are zoo property (saying that an animal is property just sounds wrong to me!), but because we want them to stay at the zoo year round, a surgery is preformed on one of their wings. This surgery is called pinioning. Essentially, the lower portion of the wing is removed, bone and all, so that the bird still has balance, and can still flap, but cannot fly away. I am not one hundred percent sure how I feel about this in general. It allows for beautiful enclosures, with no netting on top to hold flighted birds in...but it also keeps them from doing what is natural. Anway, the surgery was a pretty bloody one overall. In preparation, a surgical site had to be prepared. Well, in case you didn't know, geese are covered in feathers. Big surprise. So, I had to pull out enough feathers that a site for cutting could be exposed. James was under anesthesia the whole time, and he had been given a numbing medicine. I had to take needle-nosed pliers and twist while pulling out the feathers. It is incredible how well embedded in the skin those feathers are. The tips extend into the epidermis for about an inch. After a good rectangle of pink skin, thin as a piece of paper, had been exposed, I scrubbed it up and the doctor took over. He cut around and exposed the bone, tied off the veins and tendons coming down the wing with suture material, then used large bone cutters to slice through the white toughness. It was very strange to be handed a gooses wing for disposal, especially one that is wrapped in vet wrap to hold the feathers away from the surgery site. I had this bloody bone knub, with some black feathers peeping out, and a long conical wrap of brown tape. Strange. Anyway, the skin was then sutured closed and cleaned. It looked very good. Considering James had really bad angel wing (something i mentioned before, where too much protein causes the wing to splay out unnaturally), and we removed the wing that had this problem, he actually looked more handsome. After he began to wake from the anesthesia, we put him in a padded stall and stayed with him while he recovered. Poor guy was still a little loopy, because when we put him on the ground, he acted as if he would like to stand straight up, pushing his big chest out...and then he went backwards, tipping goofily like a toy goose would fall back if you pushed it. No worries- we caught him and steadied him until he was fully alert and walking fine. He got to go back with his other goose friend, Jesse later that day, and is doing really well today.
Butt Cheek Monkey, otherwise known as "Cheeky":
It is an obscure name, to be sure, but if you could see the junk in the trunk on this girl, you would understand. Cheeky is a squirrel monkey, a very darling small grey monkey, with yellow arms and a little black mask on the eyes, and white fur on the face. They have grabby little hands about the size of a quarter, and I find them to be adorable. But Cheeky has been having an issue. About a year ago, when they put her under anesthesia for her yearly checkup, they noticed some swelling on her behind. Over the past year, the swelling has truly grown, and she had begun to scratch at her butt. I could not see the extent of the problem when she was on exhibit, because they are quick little suckers, and her tail helped to hide it at times. Once they brought her to the vet wing, nicely drugged up enough that she could be removed from the crate and put under anesthesia, and they layed her on the table, I saw the spectacle that was her rear. Poor little thing had two fat blobs where her butt should be, pale yellow in coloration, one the size of a golfball, and one a bit smaller. It was truly quite funny looking. Now, as far as anyone can tell, these swellings in no way cause her pain. She had merely begun to scratch, and the vet staff had become curious at to what the swellings were. She was thoroughly examined and no external lesions or other skin issues were seen. She only had the fat butt issue, and some chafing between the flubby cheeks. The vet cut a small incision, about an inch long, along the bigger of the two cheeks, which was now poking from a hole in blue surgical drape, so everything was sterile. The swelling seemed to be composed entirely of fat, but he removed two pieces to be sent off for testing, just to make sure. The sleepy little girl was sutured up, and the staff was afraid she would pick at her stitches. Because they want to prevent her from ripping them out, they did something bizarre. They painted her fingernails all sorts of bright colors! Apparently, she becomes distracted by the color and texture of her nails and it will cause her to leave her butt alone for a bit while it heals. Crazy! Apparently, they once had a monkey with more extensive stitching, and to distract him, they sutured macaroni noodles to his fur, so he could play with them! I found that to be hilarious. The little girl woke up from surgery well, huddled close to the crate door in a dark room, tiny body curled and no bigger than a bottle of windex or something of similar size (other common objects of this size elude me). They took her back to her other monkey friends, and though she seemed to be picking at her rump some, she is doing well.
Meerkats and mealworms:
So, my housemate and friend is working on her intern project with meerkats. I've always been quite obsessed with these curious little guys, who perch up on their hind legs so their black-skinned bellies can absorb warm sunlight. They have adorable little black rings around their eyes, and tiny clawed paws, apple shaped bodies with fat round thighs. They like to lay in giant piles with dark eyes wide, or dig tunnels, or play with one another. I have a poster in my room back home that has a picture of meerkats and says, "The more the meerier." It kind of makes my life, as it incorporates animals and puns. To describe her project to you, I must first describe the set up of the meerkat house. The long barn is composed of 5 stalls, all with doors that can be slid open between. The meerkats have full reign of the stalls, going between each as they please. They are hard little suckers to catch, and it is a stressful process to do so, so a previous intern had built a really cool way of getting a weight on them or scanning for their microchip. Essentially, in one stall a box is set up. It is made of clear plexiglass, has a removable lid, and has two tunnels connected to it. Each of these tunnels connects to a plexiglass window that fits in the door between the stalls. There are pieces of plexiglass that can be slid into slits in the tubing, thus blocking a meerkat in one of the tunnels or in the box. The goal is for the meerkat to run through the tunnel, get closed into the clear box, and thus be able to stand on a scale. The girl running the project is the controller of the sliding pieces to trap the meerkats in, but she needed someone to reward those meerkats that make it through the tunnel and to the other stall. Well, as it turns out, meerkats love mealworms. Mealworms are like meerkat crack. When given these delicacies, they emit low, gruff, barks, almost like that of a dog, but softer and more gravely. They scramble for mealworms, swiping them with their little claws, drawing them up to eager mouths full of sharp teeth. They chomp eagerly, quickly, on them and keep barking for more. Basically, I got to sit in the stall with them and throw mealworms to those that made it through. The first ones through the tunnel were obviously the most brazon, and would come very close up to me. Today, one even got so brave as to take a small swipe at my outstretched hand, hoping to find a mealworm. It's tiny paw was no bigger than the end of my finger, and the little guy kept edging closer and closer to my indian style crossed legs, 'gruff, gruff, gruff,' swiping his little hand for more mealworms, beady black eyes trained on me. It was very cute and enjoyable! Here are some pictures of me hanging out with the meerkats!
Logan, baby goat:
Ah, man that little guy. I'm still just in love with him. He's about 4 weeks old now, and it must be the "terrible twos" of goat aging. His little horns have grown to two quarter inch gray stubs that are hard, and as I found out, painful when they smack you in the lip and bust it. Anyway, he has gotten positively crazy. He jumps all over everything--his log, the wall, me, the food dish,...when he wants more milk, he aggressively scrapes his hoof across my leg. I now have many lovely bruises on my thighs from his hooves. It's quite frustrating, too, as I must keep him from acting this way. He is growing every day, now at ten and a half pounds, and he must be calmed. As he gets larger and larger, his little jumping and parkour antics will not exactly be a good thing, and they won't be adorable anymore. So, sadly, I'm having to train him to eat on the ground, not my lap, and I can't let him nuzzle my face as he so desires. It's very hard work to do so, as he is very persistent and adorable. I'm in the middle of also training him to eat goat pellets of grain. He doesn't like them much, because they are not the yummy warm milk I frequently feed him. I've added milk powder to the pellets today, so that he would maybe enjoy the taste a bit more, and one time I even put a little of his milk on there and hand fed the pellets. He did chew them up and eat them, but he isn't going for them much outside my presence. Excitingly enough, they've decided to keep him in the vet wing until I leave, so I can continue to feed him and love him. I'm so happy about that decision!
"Squirt", darling baby deer:
Well, we had a new addition to the vet wing this week, and what a great one it was! Our white-tail deer have been having babies these past few weeks, and one mother had two twins- a boy and a girl. The boy was about half the size of his sister, maybe only 1 lb, half a loaf of bread with pencil thin, long legs to hold it up. It was clear pretty early that his mom was not interested in him. He had not been able to nurse, and he seemed quite weak. Over the next day, many of the staff from Mammals assumed the duty of trying to feed the little babe who would come to be named "Squirt." Unfortunately, he would not take the bottle. He was getting weaker and weaker, and so he had to have a tube put down his throat to his stomach, and have milk given to him that way. After his stomach got a taste for milk, he started to be more eager for it. He was brought to the vet wing, where he could be temperature regulated and frequently monitored. He needed regular exercise and feedings, so he would get to walk around the clinic, slowly on shaky spindle legs. His big eyes would glisten and tiny tongue would lick things. He was still stumbling on his legs, awkward, and the slick floor would cause his front legs to splay and his chest to sink to the floor. He would follow you around the clinic, and if you would sit on the ground, he would come to you and lay his tiny head on your lap. Over a few days, he began to eat well and has now gotten up to 3 lbs. Due to his increasing strength, he was sent back to the barn with his sister. They apparently curled up together sweetly upon his return and slept together all day. He is still spending the night in the vet wing, so I was happily surprised to see him with us again this morning when I arrived at work. He's so precious.
Prairie Chicken Chicks:
Lately we've had a few prairie chicken chicks who are not doing well. Prairie chickens are highly edangered, and the birds and very easily stressed. This year, we had 7 babies start to grow up, but recently, some have been losing weight. One even passed away this morning as they went to administer fluids. We have been going up to the prairie chicken house several times a day the past few days to give the babies a fluidy mix of crushed parrot pellets for protein and LRS for electrolytes. The birds are fed in a similar way to the way Squirt was fed, but the tube is a small metal Gavage needle, rather than a rubber tube. I hope that this forced feeding will put the weight back on them and that they will be okay.
There have been a few other routine medical cases and prodecures this week, but those above are the major ones. Have a beautiful evening people of the internet, and remember, as a lovely quote from Dicken's A Tale of Two Cities, "A wonderful fact to reflect upon, that every human creature is constituted to be that profound secret and mystery to every other." Share your life, your secrets with others, for they have secrets of their own that may just change yours.
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