Babies. They're so good at being distractions.

I didn't get to do anything interesting at the zoo this week, but the zoo itself had some interesting things happen. First, a baby giraffe was born (yay!), but then, it's mom had to be euthanized (no!). From what I gathered, she was suffering from heart failure (along with some other things that I didn't quite get the details about), and the stress of labor was too much for her. It's pretty sad. I was really hoping I would get to see the baby giraffe that the zoo is bottle feeding now, but no such luck. Maybe next week?

Speaking of next week..... AHHHHHHHHHH! MY VET SCHOOL INTERVIEW!!!! It's on Wednesday. Just a few more days. It's all I can do to not freak out every time I think about it. Which is a lot, by the way. I'll be in the middle of class, and it will cross my mind, and I will start frantically quizzing myself in my head. Or start quivering with fear and nervousness. Or panicking. Yeah, that happens, too. 

It shouldn't be this bad, I know. Honestly, I'm fairly prepared for it. I just don't feel that way sometimes (okay, a lot of times). Sometimes, I'm like, "Dude, it's just an interview. You've got this. And if you choke, there's always next year." But other times I'm like, "Oh my god. This is the biggest, most important interview of my life. I can't screw this up. I've worked too hard. I'll be so devastated if I don't get in this year that I'll probably be too depressed to even apply next year. This is going to be bad. So, so bad."

So to distract myself, I'm going to tell you about babies. Babies are cute and cool and happy, right? In general? I mean, I think so. Especially the animal kind. Buuut, I'll warn you now; not everyone thinks that about these particular babies...

Meet Loopy:

Oh god. Yeah... sometimes I forget how ugly he was...

Loop is a starling that was brought to me over the summer by some kids at camp. I tried to put him back in his nest, but I'm pretty sure he had some brain damage (hence the name) because his balance was a little off, and he couldn't quite stay where he was supposed to. So we (myself, the camp's nurse, and some of my bird loving friends) adopted him.

Getting prettier. This was during his awkward teenager phase. He was a little butt-heavy.

I made him some special baby starling food (a mixture of cat food, baby food, avian vitamins, bugs, eggs, and applesauce... yumm), and he thrived on the stuff. Much better than any of us expected (this was mostly due to the awesomeness of the camp's nurse.. she has a way with birds). He even started to become a little less loopy after he learned to fly (though he did enjoy pooping on people's head every chance he got).

And now look at him! He's beautiful! And living the most spoiled bird life possible with the camp's nurse.

I also helped raise quite a few of these guys:

Wow.. I'm starting to wonder how I loved those things...

Unfortunately, their eggs were mistakenly put in the incubator, so we raised them from the day they hatched, which was no easy task. Normally, they are left with their mom's for two weeks, and then we pull them from the nest to make them friendlier.

What are they?

Cockatiels. Who would have thought that mutant-looking creature above could turn into this?

And then there was Meningi, my favorite Silky Chicken chick (short for Meningicoccal.. that's my favorite word):

Isn't he adorable? His brothers were: Meningitis, Ecoli, Salmonella, and Streptococcus.

I'm going to stop there. If I were to post a picture of every baby bird I hatched out/raised last summer, I would be up all night. Seriously. It was close to (if not over) 200 birds. Probably half of which were guinea fowl. We also hatched out quite a few peafowl, a couple turkeys, and some other chicken varieties. And an awesome Red Rump Parakeet that was one of my favorites, but I couldn't find a picture of him. :( We used to cuddle. He was sweet.

And now I have this love/appreciation for birds that I never had before. I get super nostalgic about it all the time. Especially when I'm sitting in the Walmart parking lot, and all those adorable birds are flitting about, eating people's pollution sludge. It almost makes me want to take them home so they can eat and poop on everything in the safety of my apartment. Almost.

Well. I hope you've enjoyed my adorably ugly baby birds. Now I think I'll go back to panicking about my interview...

Roses are red, and hearts are, too...

This is my obligatory Valentine's Day post. So.. happy Valentine's Day, everyone!

I (llama) heart all of my readers!

Since today is all about love and hearts and stuff, I thought it would be a good day to post about one of my favorite llamas in the world. I love(d) him so much. His name was Gandhi (because he "sat in protest" every time someone tried to walk him). Gandhi was a screwed up, old llama. Probably pretty inbred, but he was such a nice fellow that it was pretty easy to ignore his hideousness.

Gandhi had been having some health issues for quite some time (lump on his jaw, trouble eating, etc). He was checked out by the vet multiple times, and we always gave him all of the special treatment he needed (which is why I got attached to him).

Before the summer started to get too hot last year, the llama shearers came to give all of the camelids haircuts, and I guess the stress was too much for Gandhi. The next day, we found his body in the pasture.

Being the gore-fascinated freak that I am, I requested to do a necropsy on him (I was also curious about why he had died, but I'm not a vet so I couldn't exactly make the diagnosis). I had never cut open such a large animal, so I set out with some friends, and we found a few tools we thought might be useful: a box cutter and a broken pair of branch trimmers.

The old, rusty scalpel I found wasn't going to cut through anything, so I sliced through Gandhi's muscles with that handy-dandy box cutter, and when I got to the ribs, I chopped through them with the branch trimmers. Our makeshift necropsy kit turned out to be surprisingly useful.

I look way too happy. I was sad that my friend died, I was dripping with sweat, and I was elbows deep in llama guts. Why am I smiling?!?

After exploring Gandhi's insides, I couldn't really say for sure how he died, but he did have a decent about of food debris in his trachea.. and that's not exactly a good thing.

To commemorate him, I dissected out Gandhi's big, beautiful, loving, llama heart and preserved it in an pickle jar (because a llama heart in a pickle jar is pretty hard to forget).

Apes and Eagles. "What a creative title!" Yeah, I know.

My hedgehog was supposed to have babies this week. I don't think it's going to happen, and I'm pretty bummed.

But. Otto is well on his way to becoming a therapy dog! All we need to work on is walking on the leash (he thinks he can pull me.. I think he has short man/dog syndrome), so I'm pretty excited. He was honestly one of the most well-behaved dogs at the pet therapy workshop (for a Yorkie, that's pretty impressive). I'm so proud of him. He didn't even poop in front of everyone (which he likes to do when we go to new places.. especially pet stores.. the other day, he took a gigantic poo at Alex's work, and some lady was gushing, yes, gushing about the amount of poop he produced.. it was awkward and embarrassing and horrible.. just horrible).

And today was awesome. So I guess the good things outweigh the lack of hedgie babies.

Today, I assisted with a physical exam on a Siamang, which is a lesser ape (a type of Gibbon, actually). And Siamangs are awesome. When I go to the zoo as a visitor, they are one of my favorite animals to see. They're so acrobatic and fun to watch!

Yep, that's a dog carrier. It doesn't look like one, which is partially why it's so awesome (comes in handy when you sneak your dog to class on occasion), but it's just nice and roomy and convenient. I love it. Especially since both of my dogs will fit in it at the same time (with some cramping).

Otto loves it, too. I can't leave it open on the ground without him climbing in and refusing to get out. He's such a weirdo.

Stay tuned for some baby animal posts later this week (but maybe not the baby animals you would expect....).

First day of my internship at the zoo!

Disappointing stuff first: the majority of my day was spent doing paperwork. The vet wasn't there for most of the day, so there wasn't a ton of stuff to do. So that was kinda lame, but the things I did get to do totally made up for it...

First, I got to help (sorta) with taking care of a Geoffroy's marmoset that wasn't eating well. Not super exciting.

But look how cute they are! (I didn't get any pictures of my own because I'm not sure if they want me to post them on the internet, but I'll ask next week.)

Then I got to hang out with some giant tortoises. One started coming at me at full tortoise throttle, and I seriously thought it was going to run over me. It had its neck stretched out and its mouth open, and it was terrifying (the thing was the size of a smart car... almost.. ish). I quickly jumped the heck out of its way. Turns out, it just wanted me to scratch its neck. :/

This is not a perspective trick. That's really how big they are. (Sorry random person whose picture I borrowed..)

Then I met two adorable red foxes, but you guys know what those look like. They were adorable, but very, very smelly.

And finally..... I got to catch/hold a Barn Owl and a Great Horned Owl. It was awesome.

They are so pretty. I wanted to steal the one I met today (not really... well.. kinda).

These guys look a little grumpier.. they are normally more aggressive than the barns, but the guy I worked with today was too weak to fight me much. :(

The zoo's hospital does raptor rehabilitation, and these guys were brought in today (not the ones in the pictures, but they basically look the same.. just less healthy in the great horned owl's case). The barn owl was completely blind, and someone found it on the side of a road. I'm not sure about the great horned owl. He seemed to be kinda old and was super skinny and weak.

The vet tech I was working with was like, "Normally I make people watch me catch one first, but you've had other animal experience, so I trust you." It was a little sudden, but I wasn't going to complain. She explained the best way to catch them, and off I went.

I struggled a little with the barn owl. Aside from his blindness, he was in really good shape, and he clamped onto my arm like he wanted to eat it. He also bit me (no damage done, though; I was wearing those super protective falconryish gloves). The great horned owl was super easy to handle, though, which is not a good thing.

I've never gotten to work with birds of prey like this, but I've always wanted to. I felt like Harry Potter. It was an awesome experience. And now I'm going to be WAY more disappointed if I don't get into vet school because I know that the vet school has a raptor rehab program, too.

Just a few more months... April, please be good to me.