Natural Encounters Keeper Amelia with our finally identified Lady Raven.
No longer will we need to sit engaged in guessing, with multiple syllables expressing the gender of Raven. We got the lab tests results and SHE will grow into a beautiful Lady as she gets older. Now comes the fun part, choosing her name! We’d love to hear suggestions from the audience!
Well, (stately raven of the saintly days of yore) doesn’t exactly apply to our kid quite yet. While (s)he is getting much better at balancing and is developing flight muscles, it’s still a bit of a toss up if the intended landing target will be hit or not, and sometimes watching Raven getting from one side of the enclosure to the other can be quite entertaining for the staff! Still a bit of a clumsy juvenile.
We are all getting very excited about the end of quarantine. August 1st is the official day and then we can take her/him to Natural Encounters. We also sent in a few feathers this week to a lab that will run a DNA test and give us the answer to our Lord vs Lady question. I will be happy to stop using either/or gender references and we can hardly wait for the results so we can choose a name! Any bets on whether it be Lord or Lady? What name should we choose?
In the mean time, here are some pictures from our play session today. Raven is very curious about my iPhone. Both of these shots clearly show the blue/gray color of a juvenile raven’s eyes. They will turn brown as Raven matures this year.
Raven checks out my iPhone.
My pretty gray eyes will be brown when I grow up.
5 AM on July 2: The first keeper to arrive in the department checked the hatcher. It was a special day, because they found our first hatched flamingo!!
July 2, 5 AM: The first flamingo chick hatches
Flamingo chicks hatch out covered with very thick white or grey down (they are the softest chicks we have ever had). Their legs are pinkish and they have completely straight beaks. They look so very unlike adult flamingos that the first time you see one in person it is a little shocking.
The first two flamingo chicks. As you can see, they don't look like you'd expect.
After the chick dry off from hatching, we check their umbilicus site (basically a bird’s belly button) and make sure it is clean. We also weigh the chicks. The first chick weighed about 85 grams or 3 ounces – this is about half the weight of an I-phone.
The chick's belly button. Look at those little feet!!
For the first 24 hours of a baby flamingo’s life, it gets nutrition from its yolk sac (the yolk part of the egg is absorbed into the digestive system). Just to make sure the chick stays well hydrated while it continues to absorb its yolk, we provide the chick some warm fluids about 8-10 hours after it hatches. Then it goes back into the brooder box until its first feeding the following morning.
The chick getting warm fluids about 8-10 hours after hatching
When the chick has absorbed its yolk fully, we begin to feed it a diluted formula. This formula is specially made for flamingos out of shrimp, fish, baby cereal, egg yolks and vitamins. The formula smells awful, but is very good for the growing chicks. So finally, about 12 – 24 hours after the chick hatches, we give them their first taste of that food.
The little one after it's first feeding.
Please come back to read and see what’s next in the life of our flamingo chicks!
Editors note: Please let us know what you think of these little beauties in the comment section. And please share their story on your Facebook and Twitter accounts. We’ve made it easy for you to do; simply click their links just below!
As we hope you read in our first post just a few days ago, we here at the Houston Zoo welcomed 10 Chilean Flamingo eggs not long ago.
Once they arrived, we had to make sure they were kept in the right environment. To do this, we put the eggs in an artificial incubator. This machine keeps the eggs at around 99 º and rocks the eggs gently side to side once every hour.
The incubator with flamingo eggs inside
When our eggs arrived at the zoo, we carefully candled them (we held the egg up to a bright light to see what the developing embryo was doing) and then placed them in the incubators. While the egg shown in the picture is not a flamingo egg, it still shows the embryo and the development of a chick in the eggs (the dark circular spot near the center is the chick’s eye).
"Candling" the Flamingo egg to see the baby bird developing inside
Since the chicks’ hatching was looming, we also had to set up the room where they would spend the first several weeks of their life: the brooder room. This is much like setting up the nursery when a new baby is coming home! Laundry has to be done, dishes have to be washed and beds have to be made. We wanted to make sure everything was perfect for the new kids.
New chicks are generally brooded (or kept warm) by their parents. To simulate this we use “brooder boxes,” small plastic boxes that have a heater source to keep the chicks warm and comfortable. For the flamingo chicks, we have been using brooders from www.petiatric.com; the owner was very kind and managed to get 3 new brooders shipped to Houston in just 2 days, so that the little flamingos’ homes would be ready.
One of three new brooder boxes to help the babies grow
One of the eggs had externally pipped on the way to Houston. During the drive, Cory could hear the chick vocalizing in the egg. This egg was placed into a hatcher – a machine that keeps the humidity high and the temperature at a constant 99 º, the optimal temperature for a hatching chick.
As we placed the egg in the hatcher we could hear the chick vocalizing and see the egg rocking back-and-forth from the movement of the chick. We had the good fortune to get a little snippet of it to show you!
Make sure to come back for the next post to follow the chick’s progress. What do you think happens next?
Raven has settled in nicely after the long flight from Alaska and has certainly beguiled us all into smiling in short order! The 30 day quarantine period is always difficult for keepers who are eagerly awaiting their new charges. The clinic keepers are primarily responsible for the care of the animals during this quarantine time, but because Raven requires a great deal of handling, the Natural Encounters staff has been visiting at the end of their shifts to offer some more hands on time. As you can see, Raven is happy to see just about anyone that will offer food, and has quickly learned to step up onto our hands for a treat or a scratch.
Natural Encounters Keeper Kamryn offering a very vocal Raven a get-to-know-you scratch
Natural Encounters Supervisor, PJ....clearly beguiled!
Hometown: Corpus Christi, TX
Section: Clinic- Clinic Keeper
Special Interests/ Hobbies:
Anything outdoors, 4-wheeling in Goliad, TX and fishing.
Interesting Fact:
I have an identical twin sister.
What made you want to become a zookeeper?
I’ve always loved animals . I originally started volunteering in elephants and then was hired as a keeper there. I then transferred to the clinic so I could work with a greater variety of animals.
How would you describe your job duties?
As clinic keepers we are mainly in charge of daily husbandry. That means we clean, feed, medicate, and observe clinic “patients”. We also assist vets with treatments of the animals.
We also maintain quarantine, and its animals. Zoo quarantine is not for sick animals, it is used to keep all incoming animals separate from the zoo collection until thoroughly examined and free of illnesses.
Jenn assists the Zoo's Vets and Vet Techs with many procedures. Here she secures a dove while Vet Tech Ryanne tube feeds him.
What is a typical day like working in the clinic?
Every day is different, you never know what it will hold.
What is your education, training, and previous institution(s) you attended before coming to the Houston Zoo?
I have a one year certification from HCC as a veterinary paramedic.
What sort of advice would you give to anyone wanting to enter the zoo field?
Start volunteering and stick with it. It is a great way to get the experience zoos require and you have a greater chance of getting hired on when you have been a volunteer.
What is your favorite animal story?
My great-grandparents had a ranch in Goliad, TX where I spent a lot of time as a child. When I was about 10 I tried to get the goats and cows to like me and to approach me willingly. Finally, 2 bulls approached me and I was able to hand-feed them. All the time afterwards that they lived on my great-grandparent’s ranch, I could walk up to the fence and call them over and they would come running to me. That was my first big animal experience.
Blue Faced Honeyeater Photo courtesy of: www.plantbiology.siu.edu
Honeyeaters are important pollinators of many Australian flowering plants. All 170 species of honeyeaters have a unique adaptation: a long tongue with a brush-like tip that they use to get nectar from flowers. The tongue can be extended into the nectar about 10 times per second!
Honeyeaters aren’t the only birds that help pollinate. Honeycreepers, sunbirds, Brush-tongued parrots, and hummingbirds are just a few of the birds all over the world who are pollinators. There are 2,000 bird species globally that feed on nectar, the insects, and the spiders associated with nectar bearing flowers.
For more Bee-lieve it or Not facts, come join the Houston Zoo in celebrating National Polinator Week on June 26th and 27th. We will have tables and chats from 9 a.m. – 4 p.m. all about our favorite pollinators. Bee sure to record your pollinating adventures in a nature blog to share at the Swap Shop!
Bumblebee on Lantana
In the U.S., the economic value of pollination services provided by native insects (mostly bees) is estimated at $3 billion each year. Bumblebees are highly efficient in pollinating many crops such as tomatoes, peppers, cranberries, and blue berries. Yumm! Best of all, most bumblebees won’t bother you unless you bother them. When gardening at home, please consider using native plants. Most of all, be kind to pollinators, consider going organic. Insecticides tend to kill indiscriminately and will eliminate a lot of your pollinators. The larger the variety of wildlife in your yard or garden (insects, birds, toads, lizards, etc.) the less “pest” insects you will have. Naturally!
For more information on creating a native garden, visit: http://www.xerces.org/pollinators-south-central-region/
For more Bee-lieve it or Not facts, come join the Houston Zoo in celebrating National Polinator Week on June 26th and 27th. We will have tables and chats from 9 a.m. – 4 p.m. all about our favorite pollinators. Bee sure to record your pollinating adventures in a nature blog to share at the Swap Shop!
Photo taken by Beatriz Moisset
Wait! Don’t squash that bug!
Beetles get a bad wrap due to “messy pollination”. No one ever taught them not to dedicate where they eat giving them the name “mess and soil pollinators”. Due to sheer numbers, beetles comprise of the largest set of pollinating animals. They are responsible for pollinating 88% of the 240,000 flowering plants globally! So next time you stop to smell a Magnolia, think of your beetle friends!
For more Bee-lieve it or Not facts, come join the Houston Zoo in celebrating National Polinator Week on June 26th and 27th. We will have tables and chats from 9 a.m. – 4 p.m. all about our favorite pollinators. Bee sure to record your pollinating adventures in a nature blog to share at the Swap Shop!
Photo taken by Jean-Christophe Vié
On the island of Madagascar, black and white ruffed lemurs are the main pollinators of traveler’s trees or traveler’s palm. These trees are typically 40-feet-high. They lemurs use their nimble hands to pull open the tough flower bracts. They stick their long snouts and tongues deep inside a tree’s flower. As a result, they collect pollen on their muzzle and fur, and then transport it to the next flower. The resulting fruits are a major source of food. It appears that no other creature has the strength and nimbleness to pollinate the palm. This gives the black and white ruffed lemur the award of the world’s largest pollinator!
For more information go to: http://www.fs.fed.us/wildflowers/pollinators/unusual.shtml
For more Bee-lieve it or Not facts, come join the Houston Zoo in celebrating National Polinator Week on June 26th and 27th. We will have tables and chats from 9 a.m. – 4 p.m. all about our favorite pollinators. Bee sure to record your pollinating adventures in a nature blog to share at the Swap Shop!