A Zookeepers Life #7 We Love Poop

When you see the title “Zookeeper” you think I just work with animals and do nothing else, that we cuddle them all day and spend the whole 8-9 hours just watching them. I can dispel the myth right now and tell you we do A LOT more than that.

We do a lot of cleaning… and I mean A LOT. There is so much poo, from small poo to huge poo in fact zookeepers love poo, why on earth would we love poo you ask? It comes in all shapes, sizes, consistencies and colours that it tells us a lot about the health of our animals and if we can make adjustments we will. Monitoring Poo is vital!

Poo fact of the day is- did you know that wombats have square poo? This is because they have a square-shaped anus- Isn’t that amazing?! More poo Facts will come into the Amazing Animals posts.

Source

A zookeeper does not only look after the animals but also, we spend time ensuring the sections are neat and tidy from rubbish, sweeping the plant hedges of leaf litter and debris, even washing and drying 25 windows every day (one of the other sections cleans 200 windows every day!). The job is incredibly tiring both physically and mentally, it really isn’t for everyone.

We are also our own vets administering drugs for routine vaccinations and medical treatment, through that we take a lot of photographs of our animals to send over to our veterinary team- this is a vitally important to monitoring changes in our animals. Nutritionists ensuring all the animals in our care have the best possible diet and researching new foods that would be suitable. We are also gardeners, giving our animals lots of cut browse to keep them busy throughout the day. There is so much more to the zoo keeping role that goes on other than “cuddling animals”.

On Thursday, it was my usual day off but after a small trip to the hospital and a minor operation I then had to take 3 days off work to rest and recuperate. This means that I am spending most of my day doing paperwork, it is so important to have records and daily paperwork up to date as an insurance that anyone could run the section should we not be able to. Until my stitches are out, I won’t be in working fully with my animals and that means very little time to see Basil, this morning I did get to see him briefly as I was checking all the animals were OK. He came over for a good scratch which really brightened my day.

I spent my morning with the smaller animals of our section cleaning out small reptile vivarium’s, feeding a snake his dinner, cleaning our invertebrate tanks and tidying the cupboards it was pretty fun. The rest of the day, I spent it updating vital paperwork and organising folders to make vital information easier to find for everyone and then spent a little time playing with number 10 and 11 in their exhibit as they were driving me mental trying to get into reception to sit on my shoulder and as much as I love to have them around I would rather they didn’t try and get out.

Todays Animal Profile

Scientific Name: Tiliqua
Common Name: Blue-Tongued Skink
ID: Solomon

Age: unknown
Birth Location and details: Captive - pet
Current Weight: 690Grams
Pecking Order: Solitary
Diet: Dog food, live snails, fresh veg and herbs, fruit
Favourite things: Live snails- yum yum, digging and hissing

Behaviour: Solomon is new to us having come from a rescue charity seized from his owner for mistreatment. He is very shy and will hiss a lot when he is handled. He is very inquisitive and loves to dig his head into substrate and leave his body hanging out – thinking he is hidden well! He is an amazing looking reptile with his long body and tiny stumpy legs we often see him moving around his vivarium finding a new dig spot.

Are they dangerous? They can bite however they are not poisonous. Danger is minimal
**Conservation Status: ** Least Concern, their numbers are stable!
Amazing Fact: Other than the fact their tongue is actually blue they are cliff divers – never leave your skink on a high surface or they will throw themselves off it as they are completely without fear.

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