3:00 snapshot, #76.

[urbpan]

The point of this snapshot is that I was still doing my morning chores at 3 in the afternoon.

Both of my volunteers called in sick, and so I had to clean all the cages by myself. When I was about an hour and a half into it, I got a call saying that one of the teachers on an off-site program let a bird get loose in a school library. So a couple hours of a day when I had no free time at all were spent with me chasing a fully flighted kestrel around with a net, in a huge room with a 20 foot ceiling.

A new feature of the 3:00 snapshot posts: Disgusting Substance of the Day. Partly inspired by the many comments from people who wish they could have my job, partly inspired by the great diversity of disgusting substances I encounter daily, this feature will highlight the most disgusting substance that I encounter each day. I've been cataloging these mentally for months, and it's high time that I begin to share them with you all.

Disgusting Substance of the Day: Mouse guts dusted with powdered herbal medicine.

Our vet gave us some capsules of some placebo Chinese herbal medicine to boost the immune system of one of our opossums. To deliver it today, I bisected a mouse and sprinkled the powder onto the exposed guts. Some powder didn't land on the gut mass, so I picked up the half mouse and mopped up the powder with the wet end.

Still want to come to work with me?

Comments

[bellelvsbeast.livejournal.com]

Yea like bisecting a mouse and sprinkling powder into it could phase me...:P
I had to do necropsies when I worked in the vet clinic allllllll the time. I could handle guts on a mouse. I had to handle Great Dane guts...now that is nasty...:P
Wow that sucks about spending all that time trying to catch the kestrel...why the heck did the teacher let it go???

[urbpan.livejournal.com]

She must not have had the jess clipped correctly. The kestrel only has one jess, and now I'm thinking I might have to put a second one on.

[bellelvsbeast.livejournal.com]

Oh that would make sense...so she didn't just like throw her hand up and let it go...
haha

[miz-geek.livejournal.com]

Still want to come to work with me?

I don't know. How stinky is the herbal medicine?

[lavenderjones.livejournal.com]

1) I LOVE the angle on this photo!!
2) Your icon is De-Voon!
3) Yes I still want to come work with you, I'll even clean cages, but you still get to cut open the creatures... I've been prohibited from using sharp implements.

[g-weir.livejournal.com]

Dude, anytime you want to come assist me with what I had to remove from a Pekinese's backside today, we can trade.

It's dog WALKER, not dog WIPER, but at times, with some animals, the line gets blurred.

--G

Hell yes!

[aemiis-zoo.livejournal.com]

I NEVER lost a bird during a program. WTH is wrong w/your educators? Are they incapable of noticing when a jess is broken? Don't they clip it to a glove? Don't they check them before they take an animal on a program? I am sorry...

I used to stuff rats with commercial grade ground raptor diet, so I probably wouldn't have a big problem with the mouse thing, although I greatly preferred preparing hoof-stock diet!

Do you know what's in this Chinese herbal medicine? And why do you feed mice to your opossum? Yes, I realize they are omnivores and will eat smaller mammals, I just haven't heard of that as a common practice.

Re: Hell yes!

[urbpan.livejournal.com]

Just a bonehead mistake--she couldn't explain to me how it happened.

I have no idea what's in the "medicine." Opossum diets are very controversial. Ours evolved out of consultations with two different vets. They used to get mice rarely, as treats. Then one mouse a day was added to their diets; and now they get two. It's useful for enrichment, at least, because they go right for it, and I can hide the mouse in a box or tube and they'll work to get it.

Out of curiosity, what opossum diets have you seen? (Skunk diets are even more controversial--what have you seen for that?)

I didn't actually prepare the diets

[aemiis-zoo.livejournal.com]

Opossum - had dry dog or cat food, and other variable ingredients including: fruit, vegetables, yogurt, small fish, hard boiled egg...I think that's it.

Skunk- had dry dog or cat food, fruit and vegetables...I think that's about it.

It's been 3 years or so since I worked with them so I could be forgetting things.

Re: I didn't actually prepare the diets

[aemiis-zoo.livejournal.com]

The skunks may have gotten hard boiled eggs too. I'm not entirely sure, but I know they didn't get yogurt or minnows.

Obviously some sort of a Tom Swayer trick to get us to dust the mouse guts.

[ndozo.livejournal.com]

Today I was outside getting things ready for the flood on Monday and I kept seeing birds and fungi and salamanders and I started missing your 365 posts. I know I could click the link right there, but it would be even easier (for me anyway) if you linked to the 365 post for each date on your 3:00 snapshot. If it's a huge hassle forget it, but there are probably people who read this who didn't get to see those posts, and they are really great.

And I don't want to rub weird stuff on mouse guts and feed it to some poor possum who'd rather be eating a piece of pie. So you have to do it yourself.

Re: Obviously some sort of a Tom Swayer trick to get us to dust the mouse guts.

[urbpan.livejournal.com]

You saw fungi and salamanders today? (welll, yesterday, now)

It was too cold for those things here! Salamanders were out a few weeks ago, in spring, but now that it's winter again they're back in hiding.

What kind of fungi did you see?

Do you mean like "On this day during the 365 urban species project"? (bitterly, I notice this link is to a wild flower)

Re: Obviously some sort of a Tom Swayer trick to get us to dust the mouse guts.

[ndozo.livejournal.com]

I don't know what kind of fungus or salamander. The green and black striped salamander was under a rock I picked up. I'll take a picture of the greyish fungus if I don't wash away in the flood.

And yes, exactly like that. Have you been doing that all along and I didn't see it? (I will feel pretty stupid if that is the case.)

Re: Obviously some sort of a Tom Swayer trick to get us to dust the mouse guts.

[urbpan.livejournal.com]

No, I haven't been doing that--I'd be worried that it was too much like trying to rely on the Last Great Thing I'd done, and not working on the Next Great Thing (whatever that ends up being). Green and black salamanders?! Pics plz!!

Oil pans

[cyanocorax.livejournal.com]

I used to use the same kind of pan when I was caring for captive American Crows. They were the perfect size. Speaking of disgusting, sometimes I found half eaten baby rats in them (I got them from a lab at school, frozen). The crows used to drop stones in the water -- just like Aesop's fable. I don't know if you've got crows, but have you ever seen that before?

Re: Oil pans

[urbpan.livejournal.com]

Sometimes the crow drops stones in the water. He also likes to put his food dish in the water and make a little boat.