Tuesday, February 9, 2010

Enrichment
















Every now and then there is time to do a little something different at the Farm. Sunday was such a day for me. I spent time with some of the smaller creatures and tried to give them something different. I brought some old jewelry with me - long ropes of "pearls", necklaces, and a couple of small stuffed elephants on a string.





The lemurs were at first a little shy - but they managed to take apart their enrichment necklace pretty quickly! I will have to bring them something bigger and stronger next time. The lemur family got the stuffed eles - and within an hour or so, at least one of them was examining it closely - and finding it inedible!!!





The brown lemurs were not much impressed by their pressie - but I cleaned their mirror and that was ok with them - they seem to like shiny thngs - so I will be looking for more mirror-type toys for these guys.





The marmosets were fun too - Micky's mirror was cleaned and she enjoyed looking for the marmoset she saw there. And Amigo got a shiny pendant - he handled it, turned it over, looking for the image he saw of himself. But the corn was a hit - especially for Amingo and Micky. Just pieces of corn on the cob hung in the enclosures - watching the marmosets find ways to get closer to the corn and nibbling on it was fun. Pablo's enclosure is more of a challenge - it is really hard to get inside and put anything there for him. I managed to get the corn up for him, but I need to come up with a way to place a mirror or shiny toy for him...





Enrichment is as much of a challenge for the enricher as the enrichee!





As for Chelsea, she didn't care about bubbles this week, but was pleased to groom my boots again and offer me her dolly. She does have a thyroid problem, and is now on medcation for that...we all hope that this will help Chelsea slim down a little and add to her quality of life!

Wednesday, February 3, 2010

Some pics of Chelsea







Chelsea is back in her "home" and quite recovered from her adventure at the vet! There is little to report as far as her blood test results are concerned - at least I have not heard anything final.
But Chelsea has been enjoying some close up time with her "people" - Charmaine offered her hair for a grooming session (picture #3). And then she blew bubbles for Chelsea - and Chelsea really enjoyed that - trying to catch the bubbles with her mouth and her hand. The second pic shows Chelsea with her favourite dolly - the one we couldn't find to take along to vet. But Chelsea found it and is again carrying it around with her everywhere she goes. It is still a little green, but beginning to be almost unidentifiable again...