Friday, November 7, 2008

New animals. Yeah!!!

This week we received several animal shipments. Tuesday we got our female lion, two female red river hogs and four Thompson's gazelles. Wednesday the two giraffe boys arrived. Thursday our amazing, huge male zebra came. Today was FANTASTIC because we had no animal deliveries and just got to concentrate on all our new animals. Figuring out all the new locks and sliding doors and guillotine doors and gate closures has been a full-time job in itself. The week has been utterly exhausting, but soooooooo exciting and fun.

My big surprise is how much I love the red river hogs. The piggies are adorable and so fun to work with. They will do almost anything for a chunk of apple or a leaf of romaine. They snuff their piggy noses up to my hand and follow me as I walk up and down the hall. The zebra is amazing. He is actually friendly and loves attention. His previous keepers have him majorly trained and he can be hand-fed. Amazing. The lion is growly and silly. I gave her a bowling ball today and she carried it around in her mouth most of the afternoon. The gazelles are skittish. That's about all I have to say about them :) The giraffe boys are slowly adapting to their new home. They've been very nervous, but are starting to calm down. They both ate well today and one of them "almost" came up to eat a chunk of sweet potato out of my hand.

I have to wear a lovely blue jumpsuit and rubber kneeboots while working with the new quarantine animals. If I go to the other part of the zoo for lunch or break, I have to change out of the jumpsuit and boots. It's a bit of a pain, but beats the original plan which was to SHOWER and change into a fresh uniform every time I needed to go over to the other part of the zoo. That would have been awful.

Next week the male lion, gerenuk, male red river hog and rhinos are scheduled to come. WHEEEEE RHINOS!!!!!

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