Ostriches will eat anything

Feb 092012
 

A keeper working in a barn for the African Plains exhibit laid a padlock down on a convenient ledge. When he went to retrieve the lock a few minutes later it wasn’t there. He looked high and low but the missing lock was nowhere to be found. He even checked the floor of the nearest stall, several feet from the ledge, a feat made rather more difficult by the presence of a large, male ostrich right by the door.

There was no sign of the lock in the stall, but then the keeper noticed a suspicious bulge halfway down the ostrich’s neck. As he watched the bulge traveled down the length of the neck and disappeared. The lock was never found.

 Birds

Escape artist

Feb 092012
 

Domestic goats are known for their Houdini-like abilities as escape artists, but one young male African pygmy goat put the rest to shame.
His first escapes were fairly simple; he would simply walk out the front gate while it was held open by visitors lined up to enter children’s zoo. His escapes never took him far—only to the public walkways by the bears—but he seemed to enjoy all the attention he got. When keepers and ticket sellers wised up and started watching the front gate he turned his attentions to the back gate.

The exit gate was an adult-height turnstile that would rotate only one way. The goat would stand in the turnstile and look cute until someone pushed the gate for him. And since he stood just about a foot high, had shaggy, silver hair, and a typical cute baby goat face, he was a pro at looking cute.

Before long, he discovered that he could turn the gate himself. This was no mean feat for an animal his size—the gate was heavy enough that many adult humans had a hard time with it. He simply tucked his head down and, step by step, with great effort, slowly pushed the gate until he had room to squeeze through.

Eventually he was banished from that part of children’s zoo, but he wasn’t through yet. He began jumping over the eight foot fence separating the children’s zoo from the parking lot. At that point the decision was reluctantly made that he would have to go. A local farm agreed to take him. The farm would offer him room to roam without getting into trouble, but the keepers all agreed that they missed having that spunky little character around .

 Children's Zoo

My turn

Feb 092012
 

At feeding time the kudu herd was brought inside the barn for their grain. It became fairly crowded inside and, as might be expected, there was often quite a bit of aggression as the animals jostled for a space at the feeding trough.

One older female, at the bottom of the pecking order, found a better way. She would wait outside the door until the rest of the herd was inside and then bark loudly—the kudu alarm signal. When the others charged out of the stall in a panic she would calmly step inside. By the time the herd calmed down enough to come back in, she had eaten her fill.

She didn’t do this every day, or it no doubt would have stopped working, but she was seen to do this on more than one occasion and it seemed to the keeper to be intentional.

 Hoofstock

What kind of animal are you?

Feb 092012
 

One of the comments that keepers hear the most, and probably the one that becomes the most irritating, is the ubiquitous “What kind of animal are you?” Some keepers complain of hearing it several times a day, and they usually think “Don’t they realize that we’ve heard it a million times?” Sometimes, however, the shoe is on the other foot.

One day at the end of the day a group of keepers were standing around in the Administration building waiting to punch out and go home. The crowd parted to allow an armored car guard to pass through with a cart loaded with bags of money. One of the keepers told the guard that if he had any extra bags he would be glad to take them off his hands.

The guard came back with a polite answer, but from the expression on his face it was clear that he too had “heard it a million times before.”

 MIscellaneous

Tug of war

Feb 092012
 

Workers installing thatching as a sunshade over the great ape cages had leaned their ladder against the metal frame suspended over the front of the cages. Things went fine until one of the orangutans reached through the bars and grabbed one of the men by the front of his shirt as he climbed the ladder.

The ladder kept the orang from pulling the man any closer, but the worker, balanced precariously on the ladder, couldn’t do very much to get away. Every time he pulled away the orang pulled him back—smashing his face and chest into the ladder.

Finally, after a dozen or so bone-jarring crashes into the ladder the orang lost his grip and the uninjured, but slightly shaken worker quickly vacated the ladder.

 Primates

The Great Unwashed

Feb 092012
 

Editor’s Note:
The phrase “the great unwashed” was coined by Edward George Earle Bulwer-Lytton (1803–1873). I don’t know what he had in mind with that phrase, but it seems to fit most keepers’ (mostly joking) feelings about the general public fairly well. Particularly on free days!

Bulwer-Lytton is probably best known for the infamous opening to his novel Paul Clifford (1830) which begins, “It was a dark and stormy night…. “

He is also credited with first using the phrase “The pen is mightier than the sword.“

 The Great Unwashed

Never mind

Feb 092012
 

A young boy, running ahead of his family, asked the keeper what animals were in the large, gunite exhibit the keeper was hosing. Picking the simplest of his standard answers, the keeper told him that they were mountain goats.

When the boy’s family caught up with him he turned excitedly to his mother and said, “Look mom, mountain goats.” His mother, reading the sign on the fence, replied, “No, they’re Siberian ibex.” This went back and forth several times, with the boy insisting that they were mountain goats, and the mother insisting on a literal interpretation of the sign. Finally in exasperation, the mother turned to the boy and said, “How do you know they’re mountain goats?” The boy pointed at the keeper and said, ‘‘He told me!” His mother had no reply.

 The Great Unwashed

Murphy’s Laws of Zookeeping

Feb 092012
 

The animal that you are trying to catch is always the last one to come inside. And the next time, when you are after a different individual, the first one will come in right away.

• • • • •

Whenever you fill a hay rack outdoors the wind is always blowing from the other side.

• • • • •

Whenever a hose bursts it will always spray in your direction and never towards the wall or floor. If you are not around it will soak the animal’s feed, your locker, an electrical fixture, or other vulnerable area.

• • • • •

Whenever you’ve been working extra hard and sit down to take a long overdue rest, your supervisor or curator (who hasn’t been in your building in weeks) will immediately walk in the door. The same is true any time you try to take a short cut or bend a rule a little bit. And it is especially true any time you start talking about them.

• • • • •

More animals will injure themselves or go into labor, etc., just as you’re getting ready to go to lunch or home for the day than at any other time. And most serious complications will arise when the vet is out of town for a conference.

• • • • •

A large animal that has been sick for a long time will wait for a blisteringly hot summer day and then select the farthest corner of the yard in which to expire. This is particularly true if there is a record, holiday crowd watching.

• • • • •

Whenever you attempt to catch a crippled or pinioned bird it will suddenly learn to fly. This is also particularly true if a huge crowd is watching.

• • • • •

Stalls and cages that need to be hosed will always have drains located at the highest point of the floor.

• • • • •

No matter how smooth the floor is the hose will always find a place to get caught. If it absolutely cannot catch on anything it will kink.

• • • • •

When you’re checking the animals in a large exhibit and are ready to concede that one individual has, in fact, disappeared, you will find it just around the next corner, sitting (never standing) in plain sight as if it had been there the whole time.

• • • • •

The embarrassment factor of any stupid mistake you may make is directly proportional to the number of visitors watching.

 Murphy's Law

Gorilla train

Feb 092012
 

A primate keeper took a call one day from someone who wanted to know when the “gorilla train” was coming to town so she could go down and pick one out as a pet.

 Phone Calls

Hose war

Feb 092012
 

A keeper hosing out a row of outdoor ape cages let the trailing hose get too close to the cage front and an adult orangutan pulled it into his cage. A protracted tug-of-war ensued—to the obvious delight of the crowd of visitors that rapidly gathered.

Finally, determined to win the hose back, the keeper put his foot up on the cement foundation wall and hauled back with all of his might. The orang, of course, let go of the hose completely. The keeper landed flat on his back in the grass, unhurt and in total possession of the hose, but without a shred of dignity remaining.

 Primates
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