#zookeeping

[the-vegan-muser]

I know she could kill me with minimal effort, but it’s hard to take her seriously when she sits like this.

[switchbackhyperloop]

On one hand, I totally get it when people describe dispassion as 'reptilian'. Herpetofauna can be pretty inscrutable to mammals who base so much of their communication skills on facial expressions.

On the other hand, I've worked with a ton of snakes, lizards, amphibians, etc, up close and personal, and they are a bunch of dramatic, emotional, demanding divas. Have you ever been on the receiving end of the Lizard Side Eye of Judgment? I have never felt so distained in my life.

[zookeeperzebra]

what it’s like visiting other zoos as a zookeeper

[local-hellhound-steals-spaghetti]

Hey, idk if you'd know this or not, but I've watch multiple zoo shows where they have a wild equine of some sort and to trim their hooves they always use a tranquilizer gun to put them out completely.

My question is why they don't train them to get hoof trims, with maybe some more minor sedition if needed like domestic horses do? I get that they are wild, but they have trained the giraffes to stand for foot care (at least this one zoo did), so idk why a zebra can't be taught that too. Especially when full sedation is so hard on the body and they're always concerned about them being down to long.

Is it because they don't want to habituate them to humans to much, or is it for safety of the person doing the hoof care? Are full hoof trims just to invasive of a procedure to train these wild equines to tolerate? Mix of all of these?

Really good question! So some zoos do train voluntary hoof trims but it depends on how many zebras are in your herd and how many staff you have.

This is a nice example of hoof trim training being used with a younger zebra, so they have the added benefit of early socialisation and habituation to people.

Also if you have your zebras out in a massive plains habitat, you'll need to be able to train them to come into a smaller area or recall to a station if you need to do husbandry. And

Ungulate keepers can be spread out across multiple species (though it depends on the zoo - that was the case at the zoo I did my zoo keeping course at) and their time is very limited to what they can acheive in that day. And it can also depend on the skill and experience - if no one on the team has experience in cooperative care it can be hard to get a cooperative care training plan going.

My experience has been that a lot of training and enrichment programs will take a backseat over general husbandry/cleaning and paperwork. And it sucks because training and enrichment are so vital to enhancing the welfare of your animals and sometimes upper management just doesn't get that.

So if a facility doesn't have the time, staff and resources to put towards training each individual zebra for a voluntary hoof trim (which could take months), sedation is the next best thing to ensure safety for the keepers and the animals. The stress for a wild flight animal is just going to be way too much for them and they will still need their hooves trimmed regardless.

The risk of complications around overgrown hooves or issues related to hooves are massive, so that has to be weighed against the effects of anesthesia.

As zoo keeping and cooperative care training advances, I've seen some really promising ideas about habitat design encouraging more movement on different substrates resulting in more natural hoof wear. Diet would be another consideration if we wanted to limit excessive hoof growth.

Would love if any ungulate keepers wanted to chime in with any thoughts!

This is a neat little video about why zebras need their hooves trimmed in human care:

Thanks for the question!

[starrypawz]

In the vein of my lemur meme THIS also happened more times than I could count in my past life as a zoo volunteer

[avesandaquatics]

Nobody talks about the walk of shame you have to do when you get into your vehicle at the end of the day and realize you still have your radio on 🥲

[n4shvill3]

does anyone know about the more so bad parts of zookeeping? ive been thinking about becoming a zookeeper to get to help protect endangered animals while also working with my non-endangered theriotypes. i know about zoochosis but im curious about other things

edit: adding onto this, are there any zoos that are particularly bad/toxic? are there any that are really really good?

[charyzard-art]

Here’s another one, I’ve had this idea for so long and I finally sat down and did it.

Since I’m a zookeeper I really want to get into making more animal/zookeeping themed designed and that’s probably the direction my Redbubble shop will take. For now all my older designs are staying up but eventually I will probably take some outdated ones down. My whole shop needs an overhaul.

My redbubble shop is here -v

charyzard Shop | Redbubble

charyzard is an independent artist creating amazing designs for great products such as t-shirts, stickers, posters, and phone cases.