Today I took my next door neighbor/friend/budding herpetologist Alex out to Red Wolf Sanctuary with me. He just finished a week of zoo camp, but was still ready to go see some more animals and I was happy to oblige. I was glad I brought along some extra help - it would have been very tricky to feed three fawns on my own. Wallace the boy fawn is a little piggie and can be a little bit of a bully since he is so much bigger than the girls. Dixie the littlest girl will only drink out of one specific bottle, and Joey has a short attention span and tends to get distracted by the other fawns' bottles even though she has her own. Needless to say, Alex was a big help with managing these hooligans. The good news is that they are starting to eat solids, including grass and grains. Hopefully we will be able to start weaning them off of their bottles...they went through a grand total of eight bottles this morning, and that was just breakfast!
Dixie
Dixie (front) and Wallace (back)
After feeding the pigs-disguised-as-deer, we said hello to the wolf pups. They are just as friendly as last time, but bigger. Kiowa was having a grand old time trying to pull my hair out of its bun, and nearly succeeded in pulling my scalp out along with it. Their puppy fur is nearly all gone, and being replaced by the denser, more wiry adult fur. The other thing that has really changed is their eye color. Sioux's eyes have changed to a soft honey color, which suits her gentle personality quite nicely. Crioux's are fading from the green-blue to the more classic wolf-yellow color. Kiowa is the only one who has managed to hang on to the striking green color, which contrasts sharply with her black pelt.
After we hung out with the wolf pups, we went to visit with Rosie. She surprised me by being extra friendly today, even allowing Alex to pet her a bit. She was also extra ornery...she tried stealing my entire camera no less than seven times. When that didn't work out, she tried fishing my phone out of my pocket, and almost got away with it too. She must be Swiper the fox's long-lost sister or something.
Next was a visit to the raptors. We fed them today - mice to the owls and hawks and chicken to the turkey buzzards. The hawk was quite hungry today, pouncing on every mouse we threw in and slurping them right up. I even managed to take some pictures today:
Great Horned Owl
Red Tailed Hawk
We visited the bears on our way back to lunch, and they were chowing down as bears are wont to do.
Tecumseh the male Black Bear
After lunch, Alex and I went frog huntin'. This was strictly catch-and-release hunting, but hunting nonetheless. We caught numerous small frogs along the creek and got our boots stuck in deep mud for our troubles. Alex managed to catch four good-sized frogs who had taken up residence in one of the horses' old water troughs. My catch of the day was a frog who I dubbed Freddie (or he could be a toad- I actually think he's a toad, but don't know my amphibians well enough to say for certain). Observe my fine specimen of a frog/toad (as held by Alex):
Freddie the fine frog (or maybe a toad - my herpetology is not up to par)
Thus ends another Saturday at Red Wolf. Next weekend my Saturday will be spent at the Cincinnati Zoo shadowing a vet, which promises to be exciting but also lacking in wolf puppies. The following weeks I am with family in North Carolina, but I should be able to get back to Red Wolf at least one more time before the summer is out (I hope!).
Later-than-usual post today due to an event hosted at my house...I was in charge of watching children at said event, so that required all of my attention and energy. However, before I had to herd children all evening, I was still able to spend the morning and part of the afternoon at Red Wolf Sanctuary. One of the first things I did this morning was feed the baby deer. Wallace and Joey are getting big and super greedy hungry. They each went through two bottles of milk this morning, and even tried to suckle from poor Justin's man parts, which he found to be rather uncomfortable. Once we were able to convince them that no milk could be produced from that particular piece of anatomy, they found the bottles to be quite satisfactory.
The photo I have above is of Joey. You might be noticing that most of my photos of the baby deer are of Joey. Yes, she is a bit more of a diva than Wallace. But Wallace also has this issue with personal space and as soon as you whip your camera out he sticks his nose right into it. My poor camera can't deal with that sort of invasion of personal space, so most all of my Wallace pictures are blurry deer noses.
Anyways, after dealing with the fawns, I made a beeline to the wolf puppies. I got them howling again, and this time I remembered to record it on my camera...in landscape mode! Here, have some wolf music:
Anyways, the pups got vaccinated today. They didn't even blink during the inoculations. It's funny - I've worked at a vet's office for years and have met 100-lb dogs that cry like a baby when you stick them with that needle. But not these puppies. They're all like, "Dude, my siblings bite wayyyy harder than that wimpy needle."
Also, Paul decided to give them a "chew toy" - AKA a deceased cardinal - and all that remained today were some red feathers and a single bird leg (with little talons still attached) that the pups were quite fond of playing tug-of-war with. Even if it did lead to some awkward sibling situations...
My boots continue to be a source of fascination for them, especially for Crioux. He can just about fit the entire end of my foot in his mouth now, which makes me very thankful that my boots are super heavy duty and protect my feet completely from his sharp little wolf teeth.
It's hard to take photos of these guys, since they are always moving and/or trying to eat my camera/fingers/ears. This is what my typical wolf pup photo turns out looking like:
Yeah, so out of the nearly 400 photos I took today, probably only 20 of so are not blurry and do not have wolf pup butt in them. But sometimes I do get lucky and get some good ones. I ended up with more good photos than usual today because Paul has built a "photo studio" in the barn, complete with a green screen. Now, the green screen is there so that the background can be cropped out and something natural-looking can be photoshopped back in. The volunteers had some creative ideas about what backgrounds would be appropriate. Here is one:
I think Kiowa looks quite at home in a Coral Reef Environment, don't you? I haven't had time to appropriately add in backgrounds to any of the photos I took in the studio, but I'll post the "raw" photos anyways.
Now, these photos give an unfair representation of the pups. In most, they look noble and majestic. In real life, they stumbled and fell and pretty much tumbled their way up and down these rocks and logs. It was quite entertaining to watch.
After the wolf puppies, I had lunch and then went to feed the baby kestrels. This means that A) I had to acquire two male mice from Paul's live stock and B) I had to prepare them for the kestrels. This did not sound too difficult. However, it turns out that the mice know that I am only allowed to pick out male mice and not female mice from the mouse tub. The female mice would lazily stroll by hand as I sat poised and waiting for the elusive male mice to come close enough for me to grab. It took me 15 minutes to catch 2 male mice. Feeling glad that I can buy my food at a grocery store and that I don't have to hunt it (because clearly I'd go hungry), I went about prepping the mice for the kestrels. After the mice were killed, this involved cutting them in to kestrel-sized morsels with scissors that have seen much better days. I would have taken pictures, but kestrels (and most baby birds, for that matter) tend to be projective poopers and I did not want to subject my poor camera to such abuse.
Before leaving, I had to say hello to my Rosie. She was feeling personable today, and she let me scratch her behind the ears for a good long while. And she posed for some photos, of course...
Today was a beautiful day for Red Wolfing! It was one of those rare days here in the tri-state area when the humidity is low and there is a gentle rolling breeze. Couldn't have asked for better weather. That being said, we didn't do a whole lot of actual work today, for several reasons. The first is that I am a volunteer, as opposed to a paid employee. This gives me the wonderful opportunity to help but also take photos and cuddle with wolf puppies and baby deer. Secondly, said paid employees already got most of the work done anyways, so there wasn't much for my friend and I to do other than keep the wolf pups occupied. We have such a rough life.
The thing about only being able to come to Red Wolf on Saturdays is that the wolf pups seem to double in size every time I see them. Today I was surprised by how their faces are starting to look less like puppy faces and more like fierce and elegant wolf faces. But the main highlight of my wolf puppy time was the fact that I was able to get all three pups howling. This was after several minutes of me howling like an idiot as Crioux whined anxiously. I think he was worried that I was dying. But after a while I was able to produce an acceptable wolf howl that enticed the pups to join in with me.
Besides the little howling party we had, there was much gnawing of the shoes, socks, pants, camera strap, and ears. Once they had gnawed every piece of available clothing/shoes/bodily protrusions, they were struck by a sudden and severe nap attack. A very successful day, by any standard.
After the wolf puppies, my friend and I put away approximately 8 boxes worth of donated venison and fish into the freezer. Next I drove out to a broken down tractor with a mechanic. The mechanic managed to get the flat tire off, and I managed to get the truck stuck down a mild incline covered by very long grass. I got it back out, but as the mechanic said, I collected enough grass underneath the vehicle to stuff a mattress. Once we did enough work to make ourselves feel slightly useful, we went to feed ourselves some lunch, and afterwards I said hello to my diva Rosie. She deigned me fit to pet her today, so that made me right happy.
After feeding ourselves and playing with Rosie, we went to feed the baby deer. These baby deer are like dogs - they come when called, they like getting their ears rubbed, and they like to like the salt off of your body (and since I am extremely ticklish this can get to be exceedingly uncomfortable). Wallace and Joey were super hungry and it didn't take them long to get to business with their bottles.
On the way back from feeding the babies we stopped by to say hello to Yuma, since I haven't seen her at all this summer. She hissed at me several times, so I count it as a success. She did pose for some nice photos, however...
