Last Day... For Now

So today was my last day at the zoo... for now. Luckily, pending the results of a negative TB test this summer, I will be able to return back to the zoo as an animal department intern in August when I return to Clemson to start my senior year! I'm so happy I will be able to return and see all of the animals and keepers again and continue to learn and grow as an intern in the department.

For my last day, I did something really new and worked farmyard/kitchen. I had briefly worked farmyard before, but I have never been in the kitchen so it was something completely new to me. Farmyard has 3 goats, 1 pig, a bunch of chickens and ducks, and a great-horned owl. I got to help with the morning cleaning of the pens and barns and then I went by myself to feed the chickens and ducks. I even managed to get a huge bruise on my leg from hopping the fence, but I'm just choosing to call it my battle bruise. (:

In the kitchen, I helped Greg to prepare the diets. We prepare the afternoon diets and the following morning's diets so that the animals have food for the night and the next morning. I mainly helped with primate diets, so that meant preparing the food for the spider monkeys, lemurs, guenons, colobus monkeys, orangutans, and siamings. After chopping, measuring, weighing, and combining all of that food, I moved on to the carnivore diets and got the meat ready for the lions, leopards, owl, vultures, and ocelots. I was really getting my hands dirty as I was elbow-deep in that horse meat... but it was definitely worth it to make sure the animals were getting well-fed.

I really actually liked being in the kitchen. At first I was a little disappointed because it meant I wouldn't get much animal contact on my last day, but I ended up really enjoying it. We were busy the entire morning and we got to have some good conversations and I learned a lot about animal diets!

I'm really looking forward to a great summer and to returning to the Greenville Zoo in August. For now, I'm headed home for a week. Starting May 12th, I'll be down in Baltimore as the official new marine mammal training intern at the National Aquarium! I'm really excited to learn about the other side of animal care (the aquarium side) and to be able to work with the dolphins and their trainers at the aquarium. I'll be posting about my days on here, so be sure to stay tuned for more exciting "tails!"

Running Around the Zoo

This week at the zoo was by far the busiest day I've experienced. I was exhausted by the end of the day, not only from running all around, but also from doing a lot of hard, manual labor! We were down two zookeepers this Sunday, which meant that everyone else had to step in and take care of certain areas that they usually do not have to. They were eager for my help this week as I helped to open Africa, Farmyard, and Asia!

Opening Africa and Asia was the same as usual, I took care of the tortoise enclosure, the giraffe yard, the lion's den, the orangutan enclosure, the red panda enclosure, and the hornbill den. However, a new experience I had this morning was that I got to experience the Farmyard area of the zoo. In the Farmyard, there are chickens, ducks, a pig, and goats. We went down in the morning and cleaned the yards, fed all the animals, and made sure they were ready for the day. This was a lot of fun, because it was a new area of zoo and because I got to pet and feed the animals! I also was able to experience a veterinary procedure in the morning with Owlice, the great horned owl at the zoo. She has a problem with her eye, so I watched the keepers catch her up and the vet tech give her drops in her eye to try to fix her problem. This was really interesting, and it was the first time I was able to witness something like this!

After lunch, I went to South America to work on the aviary. We are building a new exhibit for the South American birds, but this is taking a lot of time and hard work. First, we transplanted plants and replanted them inside the exhibit. Then, we mulched the floor and cut fencing to patch some fence areas. I was exhausted by the end of this, especially because this was definitely the most manual labor I've done since interning at the zoo! However, this was a great experience and it's really cool that I will be able to say that I helped get the aviary read for all of the animals!

Finally, it was the end of the day and it was time to close Africa and feed all of the animals before we went home. I fed all the giraffes, helped bring the lions in, and then packed up to go home. This was the last time I would work with or see Jackie before she moves to her new job, so I made sure to say goodbye to her. I was really sad to see her leave and say goodbye, but I'm very excited for the opportunities that she will have at the Phoenix Zoo. I gave her a card and gift card to show my thanks to her, because she has taught me so much about the zookeeping field and also let me have a lot of fun, and for that, I am so thankful!

So, there you have it. My crazy, exciting, sad day at the zoo. As I've said before, the world of zookeeping is an ever changing place and there's always something new, exciting, or crazy going on, which is why I think I am so intrigued by the field. I'll be taking a 2 week break from the zoo as my best friend is coming next weekend and I'm visiting my family the following weekend, but I'll be back with more stories to share with you in a few weeks! Until then, stay wild (: