Archive for the ‘Feeding Our Animals’ Category

Nov
15

Look Who is Trading in The Naturally Wild Swap Shop

Posted by in African Forest,Children's Zoo,Feeding Our Animals,Giraffes,Hoofed Stock,Just for Kids,Swap Shop

Meet Hailey Wolfe, self proclaimed Naturalist and Budding Zoologist.  Hailey recently brought in an excellent nature journal to trade titled “The Pros and Cons of Being a Giraffe”.

Hailey’s Giraffe Journal

Hailey is quite the gifted writer and created a journal that reads like a storyteller’s tale.  She begins with a description of feeding the giraffes here at the Houston Zoo that includes beautiful and artistic detail about the giraffe’s long tongue and big, calm eyes.  She invites all to come along with her to learn more about these sweet giants.

She then moves on to giraffes in the wild and completes her journal with information and pictures of the giraffe herd here at the zoo.

Hailey has been trading with us since early this year and has brought in a variety of items including bones, shells and journals.  At 11 years old, she already has quite a knowledge of animals and a talent for writing about them.

Nature Journals are one of many things that can be brought in for trade.  The more time and effort put in to them, the more points a journal will receive.  To see Hailey’s journal and many others, come by the Naturally Wild Swap Shop at the front of the Children’s Zoo.

Don’t know about trading at the Swap Shop?  Click here to find out more.

 

 

 

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May
25

New at the Zoo: Giant Elephant Shrews

Posted by in Animal News & Updates,Featured,Feeding Our Animals,Mammals: Our Furry (and Hairy!) Friends,Natural Encounters,Zoo News

The next time you are in the Natural Encounters building, look closely near the ground in the Rainforest exhibit. The two little mammalian vacuum cleaners you’ll see there are recent additions to the Zoo, our Giant Elephant Shrews. “Phoenix” and “Karma” are young brothers, arriving from the Denver Zoo where they were born last year.

Shrews use their remarkably long noses to dig into the mulch and gravel to nab mealworms, crickets, and other parts of their diet. In the wild they forage for a wider range of insects and other invertebrates, so to round out their nutrition our commissary also prepares for them a custom blend of earthworms, cat food, peanut oil, protein powder, and vitamin C.

Though Phoenix and Karma are small, they are full grown adults. There are more than a dozen species of shrews that range in size from tiny pygmy shrews to these “giants.” They are found in parts of East Africa, including coastal forests of Kenya  and Tanzania, though due to their natural ability to hide in the undergrowth and tendency to live far from human habitation, they are very rarely seen in the wild. Their habitat is under threat as well, mostly due to agriculture and logging.

This video shows Phoenix nosing around the lower gravel area and munching mealworms in the Rainforest exhibit; Karma was feeling particularly shy that day and stayed well hidden in the upper mulched area. (We made sure he received plenty of mealworms as well that afternoon.)

Wish Phoenix and Karma a happy birthday when you see them!  They were born on May 27, 2011.

 

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Dec
22

12 Days of Grub: Day 10 – Ten Chimps a Chasing

Posted by in African Forest,Chimpanzees,Feeding Our Animals,Supporting Your Zoo

On the Tenth Day of Grub, your zoo gift will help to feed…Ten Chimps a Chasing, Nine Fruit Bats Flying, Eight Giraffes a Galloping, Seven Snakes a Slithering, Six Mole-rats Mining, Five Golden Frogs, Four Calling Birds, Three Wild Dogs, Two Grizzly Bears, and Darwin the Cassowary! CLICK HERE to read them all!

For most wild animals, the acquisition and consumption of food is not just a casual activity, but in fact a full-time job.  A wild chimpanzee in Africa must always be on the search for ripe fruit, edible greens, tasty termites or ants, hard-shelled nuts  and yes, even small animals to hunt and eat.

Although we can’t re-create a wild chimpanzee diet, here at the Houston Zoo, we provide our chimps with a healthy variety of food including many types of lettuce, fruits, vegetables, nuts, different types of local plants and a specialized “biscuit” made for primates in zoos.  We also give them many types of treats which make up only a small portion of their diet, but are their favorites, including popcorn, peanut butter, honey and fruit juice.

Lucy enjoys some sweet potato and sunshine

Our chimps did not grow up hunting or eating termites, ants or meat, so this is not included in their Houston Zoo diet, but they are given the daily opportunity to show off their amazing ability to use tools by “fishing” for sweet or savory treats in our termite mound replica.

The chimps enjoy using sticks to “fish” for delicious treats

In order to keep their day interesting and to keep them active, the chimps’ meals are provided at different times throughout the day.  One of their favorite types of food is “browse”, or edible plants collected for them throughout the zoo by our own amazing Horticulture team.  Everyday the chimps get some combination of mulberry, banana leaves, willow, fig leaves or other edible plants.

Mac enjoys fig leaves

Chimps aren’t great at sharing their food with one another with a few notable exceptions (moms and their babies, males “wooing” receptive females, etc.)   They have a fairly stable social hierarchy and the higher-ranking chimps have first access to the yummy stuff.  For that reason, it is important that we make sure the food is scattered throughout the chimps’ entire habitat so that each member has the opportunity to collect food, and there is always enough for everyone.

Feeding the zoo’s animals is one of the best parts of being a zookeeper.  We enjoy giving them their food almost as much as they enjoy eating it!

Give the Gift of Grub this holiday season to help provide tasty meals for our chimpanzees and all of the animals at the Houston Zoo!  Our chimps send their ape-preciation for your support.

Thank you also to TXU Energy for generously matching the first $25,000 in donations this year!

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Jan
12

Give the Gift of Crickets to Houston Toads

Posted by in Amphibians,Endangered Species,Feeding Our Animals

Proud Texans want to preserve our natural heritage, and the Houston toad is a part of that heritage.

Thank you All for your donations so far to our Gift of Grub Campaign. The year is over but you can still contribute if you had been wanting to  but the holidays kept you busy. Help us to feed our 6,000 animals and priovide everything they need to be healthy and happy in the coming year by clicking www.houstonzoo.org/gift-of-grub or our CONTRIBUTE tab on Facebook!

 

AN ENDANGERED TOAD OF TEXAS NEEDS OUR HELP!

Did you know the Houston toad has not been seen in Houston since the 1960’s? It was the first amphibian ever placed on the Endangered Species List and is still considered one of the most endangered in North America. Although it once hopped in the Hous­ton area, rapid growth of the city resulting in habitat loss caused their disappearance in this area. Today, only a few hundred remain in the wild, and only in a handful of rural counties in the sandy soils of east central Texas.

A Houston toad in hand is worth.... lots!

Why should we care about the Houston Toad?
Toads and other amphibians control the insect population and are indicators of the health of our environment. The Houston toad is the only “endemic” toad in Texas. This means this species can be found in Texas and nowhere else on the planet. If they disappear from Texas, they are gone forever. Proud Texans want to preserve our natural heritage, and the Houston toad is a part of that heritage.

 What the Houston Zoo is doing to help Houston Toads
Did you know that at any given time, we care for thousands of Houston toads behind the scenes at the Zoo? At the moment, our Amphibian Conservation Programs Manager, Paul Crump, the Herpetology staff, and our dedicated Houston Toad Keeper are diligently caring for 4,000 endangered toads! When Houston toad eggs are found in the wild, they are carefully transported to our quarantine facility. The tadpoles will eventually emerge from the eggs and go through metamorphosis in a safe environment without threat from predators. In the wild only 2 out of every 1,000 toads will make it to adulthood. They are a vital part of the food web and are food for many other animals. Adult toads are then released back to the ponds they came from with hopes they will now be able to survive and reproduce. This type of conservation strategy has been proven effective in other endangered species recovery efforts. Because they are endangered, we are giving them a “head start” by helping them through this vulnerable part of their existence. A head start means a “favorable or promising beginning”.

What you can do to help Houston Toads
Help us to feed them by donating to our Gift of Grub campaign!

A Bug-Munching Mania
At the Zoo, the tadpoles feed on algae, sweet potatoes and leafy greens until they pop out their legs, develop lungs and emerge from their aquatic environment. Then dinner then switches to crickets – lots and lots of crickets! During the height of our Houston toad capacity in the spring our little toads will go through 1 million crickets per week! And let me tell you,  if you are looking to start a profitable new business, you should look into cricket breeding! Crickets are super-dooper expensive!

We are currently attempting to set up our own cricket colony at the Zoo and plan to add Mung beetles to the Houston toad menu as well.

Variety is the spice of life, even for a toad!

Learn more about Houston toads and how we are helping to preserve Texas wildlife at http://www.houstonzoo.org/HoustonToad/.  You can also pick up the November 2011 Texas Parks and Wildlife Magazine to read all about the recovery of the Houston toad in Texas.

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Dec
31

Give the Gift of Grub to 6,000 animals at the Houston Zoo

Posted by in Feeding Our Animals,Holidays

It’s New Years Eve folks!  The last day of the year to contribute to our Gift of Grub fundraising campaign and receive a tax deduction for  2010. Help us to feed our 6,000 animals and priovide everything they need to be healthy and happy in the coming year by clicking http://www.houstonzoo.org/gift-of-grub/ or our CONTRIBUTE tab on Facebook!

We’ve looked all month in this blog series at just what it takes to feed our 6, 000 animals at the Houston Zoo, and provide what they need to be healthy and happy.

It all starts with our commissary, and while our first five blog posts focus on the variety of items they procure and prepare, this video gives you a true feel for what goes on while the rest of us are still asleep…

Have a safe and happy New Years Eve everyone!

We appreciate you so much for visiting us here to read our four blogs, to comment, Like, Tweet and share them on Facebook.

There’s all kinds of fun and interesting things in store for our blog readers in the coming year so we’ll see you in 2011!

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Dec
30

Gift of Grub Series: Browse on Zoo Grounds

Posted by in Feeding Our Animals,Horticulture

Please consider giving a year-end, tax-deductible gift of grub to help feed our animals in the coming year by clicking www.houstonzoo.org/gift-of-grub or our CONTRIBUTE tab on Facebook!

A snack for Toby, the red panda

This month-long series has mentioned so many kinds of foods that are bought or ordered by the commissary, then further prepared and dispensed by keepers. In almost each post you may have noticed the use of the mysterious term “browse” that many of our animals get as well.

A babirusa with fresh browse

Browse simply means the leaves and tender shoots that our animals might come across to nibble on in daily life in the wild.  We duplicate this by providing browse for them in their habitats.  The thing that may be a surprise to our guests is that we grow quite a bit of this browse on grounds.

Our Coquerel Sifaka dives in

We have a large, full-time horticulture team, led by Joe Williams. Like the old phrase, they are at hard at work outside, whether it’s in pouring rain, cold temps, or high humindity. Monday through Friday they spent between four and six hours doing cutting browse, which accrues anywhere from 100 to 200 pounds of it a day!  

Horticulture Manager Joe Williams and some of his team collect browse grown on grounds almost every day

Most of the plants and trees used for browse grow naturally, so they don’t take a lot of time or energy to plant.  We do add ginger, banana and a variety of bamboos, but those are planted in the Zoo’s overall landscape and when they are normally trimmed, that’s used as browse. 

A little nosh for our South American Tapir

At some point, horitculture may plant a browse garden or pockets of browse in a couple locations on Zoo property.  Proper pruning techniques are used to ensure that the health of the plants or he aestheics of the Zoo grounds are not affected.

Written by Rochelle Joseph, and Joe Williams, Horticulture Manager 

Our handsome okapi say gimme some browse!

It takes $600,000 a year to feed our over 6,000 animals at the Houston Zoo. That’s a big bill!

Please consider gifting your furry, feathered and fanged friends this holiday with a tax-deductible donation  during our Gift of Grub campaign at: http://www.houstonzoo.org/gift-of-grub/ or click the Contribute button on Facebook!

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Dec
29

Give the Gift of Grub: Feeding 800 Birds

Posted by in Birds,Feeding Our Animals

Please consider giving a year-end, tax-deductible gift of grub to help feed our animals in the coming year by clicking www.houstonzoo.org/gift-of-grub or our our CONTRIBUTE tab on Facebook!

At the Houston Zoo Bird department, we make A LOT of diets. We have over 800 birds in our collection and they need to be fed every day.

A handful of our staff are what we call “kitchen keepers.”  We have one main kitchen keeper and some substitute keepers that come in around 5 a.m. each morning to get diet ingredients for 4 out of 5 different areas within the department ready for the rest of us when we come in at 7a.m.

 

Each area will bring a tub out to their section that is full different types of food  – fruits, veggies, different kinds of pellets, a mixture of lettuces, meat, and supplemental food items, like the ones you see below:

 

We prepare over 185 diets –  80 trays and 105 bowls of food — and distribute them in the actual exhibits.

There are a few special birds that get fed differently based on the way they would eat in the wild. Some, like our Cinereous Vultures, have their food given to them as if they were coming across carrion, while Kookaburras are encouraged to fly down to the ground to “catch” their food. Our ducks on Duck Lake are given their food, in pellet form, on the ground to replicate how they would find food naturally. Then the flamingos are given a pellet that is distributed on the surface of their pool so they can eat by filter feeding.

Feeding the birds at the Houston Zoo is a lot of work but it is also a lot of fun!

By Jessica Clark, Senior Bird Keeper

How much does it cost to feed your family for a year? At the Houston Zoo, our annual grocery bill adds up to more than $600,000! With a bill that big, imagine the impact that your support could have. Your gift might help purchase these tasty treats for 800 beaks. Make your tax-deductible donation at www.houstonzoo.org/gift-of-grub or, click our our CONTRIBUTE tab on Facebook!

You can email development@houstonzoo.org for more information.

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Dec
23

Gift of Grub: Primates

Posted by in Feeding Our Animals,Primates

We all eat to live (although some of us live to eat) and primates are no exception. In fact, if you go to visit monkeys and apes in nature, what you will probably see is foraging and lots of eating.

Here at the Houston Zoo, we spend as much time preparing animal food as the animals do consuming it. From the Commissary, where the dietary items are delivered and freshly prepped, to the primate kitchen, where the ingredients are made into individual diets, we are busy nearly all day making sure our animals are well fed.

Primates are primarily vegetarian, so we have a great assortment of beautiful fruits and vegetables to turn into monkey meals.

They get most of their essential nutrition from their primate biscuits: dense little packets of grains, vitamins and minerals that we feed early in the day, when everyone is the hungriest —  sort of like making sure children get their spinach before they can have dessert. Then, throughout the rest of the day, our animals are working hard to look for the rest of their diets, just as they do in the wild.

Part of making sure that our primates stay healthy is making sure they expend calories prior to taking in calories: they work for a living by looking for food that is scattered or hidden around their enclosures.

The bulk of their diets are made up of the many leafy greens that approximate the vegetation that they eat in the forests of their native habitat. The remainder of their food (depending on the species, of course) is usually fresh produce: from blueberries to avocados, these animals get the best, the most healthful and the most delicious of assortments. And, of course, we throw in a lovely array of insects that are the smattering of protein that many of our primates love to crunch on. Mealworms, waxworms, crickets and goliath worms are a tiny bit of dining entertainment that our animals have come to appreciate.

The best part of being a monkey (at least an Old World Monkey, from Africa or Asia) is that most of them have cheek pouches.

These handy pockets are useful for cramming as much fruit into your face as possible and then going off to eat it leisurely and privately, without competition from more dominant group members. For the keepers and guests, watching the animals literally “stuffing their faces” and enjoying their food is the best part of the entire diet process!

Written by Lynn Killam, Primate Supervisor

How much does it cost to feed your family for a year? At the Houston Zoo, our annual grocery bill adds up to more than $600,000! With a bill that big, imagine the impact that your support could have. Your gift might help purchase a tasty steak (or ten) for our tigers. Make your tax-deductible donation at www.houstonzoo.org/gift-of-grub. or, click our our CONTRIBUTE tab on Facebook!

You can email development@houstonzoo.org for more information.

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