Hello everyone! :)
Apologies for my absence, it has been busy. I know I've said it before but it does get crazy really quickly around here especially when I'm the lone intern. I'm so used to doing everything by myself that when I actually have volunteers to help me with anything, I get so thrown off since I haven't had to delegate very much since I just do it myself. Something I need to work on.
This post is going to be about CLEANING. WOO. Clean day is one of our most important because it makes the enclosures pretty and more sanitary...for a little while until a cat poops. :D It also gives us a chance to get all their uneaten meat or bones out of their enclosures. If left too long, decomposition smells REAL bad, and maggots show up, and no one likes picking up maggot-infested carcasses. I'm painting a great picture right now, I know. All the people involved also use the protocol for locking up cats, checking said locks, unlocking the gates, then locking the gates, checking
those locks, and then releasing the cats into their newly cleaned enclosures.
The day starts off as usual, with morning duties which consist of making meds, making lemur food, feeding Bindi, giving the meds, watering all the cats' buckets, and feeding the lemurs. On clean day, these duties usually take place at least a half hour earlier, sometimes an hour earlier than I usually do them. This is because we want to start cleaning as soon as possible. It isn't so fun to clean in the hot sun at 5 pm after you've been cleaning since 11 am. So we try to start before then. When I'm out watering, I keep an eye out for our "difficult-to-lockup" cats and if they are in their lockdown areas, I act quickly and grab the metal hooker hanging on the side of the fence, shut the door and pin it as fast as possible. Our lions, Sammy and Layla, are difficult to lock up especially when she is in heat because Sam won't leave her alone but if she is sleeping on her box in the lockdown, boom. But you have to move as quick and as quietly as possible because male lions are easily worked up. One of our cats, Clyde, doesn't particularly like chicken, which is what we use to lure them into the lockdowns. Chicken drumsticks are like candy for the cats, so when you have a cat who doesn't really care about chicken...your job is a tad harder to motivate them to move. Lately he has been sleeping in his lockdown house, so the other two in that enclosure are pretty easy to get in.
Once morning duties are done, I get the gator ready for the day and load it up with shovels, rakes, bleach, and spray bottles. We usually start in the uppers which is the half of the compound which is near the vet center. Whoever is cleaning that day figures out the positions of who is doing what and then the point person goes and locks up cats. If I'm point person, I grab my chicken and go start with the easy to lock up cats and then if I need help, I'll ask. Sometimes you have to get creative in finding ways to motivate the cats to get up. If chicken isn't working, dragging cardboard boxes behind you on a metal hooker so it seems like it is moving by itself works a lot of the time. Derek once used his hat to get Allucia into the lockdown. He put his hat on the end of a hooker and waved it around and she came running. Once the uppers are all locked up, the point person goes back and helps those cleaning pens.
The rest of group begins cleaning while the point person is off locking up cats. Before any unlocking of gates can happen, someone needs to make sure that the enclosure is "good to enter". The way this happens is by checking that the cat(s) are in the lockdown and that the pin in through the hole in the gate. A good game to play is 'Count the Kitties' which is ensuring that if there are three cats in the enclosure, there are three cats in the lockdown. A senior volunteer or an intern who is keyholder will unlock the gate after the enclosure has been declared good to enter. Once the gate is opened, the enclosure is cleaned of poop, vomit, bones, extra meat, and then a mixture of bleach and water is sprayed around the pen where poop and pee spots were. This is to disinfect the areas for the kitties. If there is just dirt in the enclosure, the entire thing is raked to help aerate the bacteria and turn it over. Once is is clean, all the tools are counted to ensure we don't leave anything in there and then the gate is shut, pinned, and locked again. Someone other that the person locking the gate has to check the lock and pin to ensure it is indeed locked. If the lock is locked and the pin is all the way through, the word "clear" is said, and it is said loud and clear to evoke confidence that you believe that the enclosure in in fact, clear and everything is put back in order. If you are not confident, then you fix whatever was wrong.
It is all about safety. Plan and simple. We do NOT want one of these cats getting out and potentially injuring someone, or themselves. Clean day is pretty simple, if not for the fact that we have about 30 pens to clean. It takes awhile, no matter what. Its easier when there are lots of people to help but sometimes a few enclosures will always take a while to clean. Kannapalli is one of the messiest eaters and he likes to eat on his rock in the nice weather. Scrubbing that rock alone takes a good 10-15 minutes. It is caked with blood and meat bits from his food (usually a head) so it take some serious scrubbing and bleach.
Everything we take out of the enclosures go in the back of the gator and once the back is piled high with bones, poop, and other meat, it gets dumped in the pit. I usually end up dumping once the uppers are done before heading to the lowers because it gives a clean slate and you don't have to keep piling bones higher and higher.
Once everything is done and looking pretty again, I'm not done. By then it is usually about time for night duties! More watering and making sure there is nothing gross in the buckets, and in case there is, we dump them and rinse them out and then refill. If there is algae in the buckets, we swirl some bleach in there and rinse it VERY well and then fill them up. Other night duties is making lemur food which is much more involved than the morning. We have to give them fruits and veggies at night in addition to their morning chow mix. Once that's done, I feed Bindi and do all the dishes from preparing lemur food.
I used to not like clean day whatsoever. I didn't have the routine down, I was awkward at raking and shoveling up poop (believe it or not, there is a technique) and I was just slow in general. But now I don't dread it anymore, and haven't for a long time. It just took me a little while to gets used to it, like everything else here. It can be tedious but if you move quickly, other people will be more likely to move quickly and not dawdle around. It is super important so it happens every four days, just like feed.
Okie dokie, lots and lots of text in this one. Here is a recent picture Derek took :D
Watering Tess
I hope you all have a great day/night/ whatever. :)
One last thing, RACHEL IS COMING BACK. YAYYYY. She is coming to train the new interns for the next term and she's coming a week early so we can go on the field trips I was supposed to go on, and to help me around here.
