This past week was SO cold. Okay, not soooo cold, but it was cold. Unusually cold for Atlanta this time of year I learned. However, I still managed to get to do fun things!
First of all, since it was so cold, the bongos had to stay inside. Which means I got to help out with their training of Becson, the juvenile. The keepers are currently working with him to get him target and "hold" trained, This means that he puts his noise to the target and then stays for as long as the keeper decides before they click the clicker and he knows he's done a good job. I mostly observed, though I did get to be the incentive giver (carrots!).
We also got a new shipment of hay in, which means I got to climb up into the hay loft inside our barn and be the end of our human conveyor belt, stacking all of the hay bails. This was a good experience to have because after stacking about 30 bails your arms are TIRED. But the animals need the hay, so you keep stacking the other 70 without complaints/too many breaks. Here's hoping my arms strength begins to build with all this!
The last unique and fun thing I got to do this week was help one of the keepers with an enrichment project he recently began. He is building a new feeder for the giraffes which requires them to use cognitive skills in order to move obstacles and retrieve the food. I got to use hand held and power tools to saw, drill, and shape different aspects of the project. It isn't done yet, but if it gets completed before I leave I'll take a picture! I learned a lot of useful information about some power tools I feel will be essential to know about in my future zoo keeping days.
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