When we got there, and inside the zoo, we went up to the hospital area, and guess what they had. A 4 week old baby rocky mountain goat. It's mother had missed a jump and fallen to her death. The baby has a bad leg, so she couldn't get around. No one knows how long she was out there by herself, but definitely not more that 2 days. Some hikers found her in Montana, and Dr. Mark, the zoo vet went up to get her. Now they are trying to see what can be done about her let.
Her name is Forest. She is very friendly. And her white wool isn't as soft as it looks. It's kind of coarse.
Grandpa couldn't wait to get a hold of her.
And Grandma was right after him to give her up!
Next, everyone loaded into the vet truck, or the zoo van and went down to the giraffes. There wasn't enough room for everyone in the area where they were going to work on the giraffe, so I went up to the giraffe display area and met up with Bekka and Brent and the kids. They gave us so many of the giraffe crackers to feed the giraffes. CJ had other ideas, he thought the cracker was for him!
Meanwhile, back down below, they put the giraffe in this really tall chute. Like a cattle chute, but obviously it had to be a LOT taller. Then they pulled out the ultrasound to see what the baby looked like in the giraffe. Unfortunately it was so crowded in there, and the space so small, that all Grandpa could get was pictures like this: Lise looking at the ultrasound screen next to the giraffe.
This is a bottoms up view of the giraffe. They are really very, very tall.
And here is a photo of a giraffe that was up with the visitors. Don't you just love the come hither look she is giving you over her shoulder?
Here is Dr. Mark, Dr. Lise, and Dr. Holly all looking at the ultrasound screen and discussing what they are seeing in the giraffe. Did you know that baby giraffes weigh about 175 pounds when they are born? And I thought the 100 pound baby horses were big!
After they were done with the giraffe, we all went back up to the hospital. And Forest was just crying to get out of her crate! Of course, some of us weren't totally enthralled with the goat, especially when she tried nibbling the chin! (Dr. Holly and S- who is almost 2 years old).
Then Dr. Lise had to hold Forest too.
Dr. Lise brought the x-ray machine, so that they could x-ray Forest's hurt leg. So Dr. Mark held Forest and the plate, and Lise took the x-rays. This was the next step to trying to fix the leg so that Forest could eventually go with the other mountain goats at the zoo. They live in a rocky, hilly area so she needs all 4 feet to get around.
After the xrays, poor Forest was really hungry, since she had missed her feeding. The kids got to try feeding her, and Miss M was really eager to feed the baby! Seems there's a little mama in all of us! (Kelly is a horse vet tech and volunteers at the zoo).
There was another orphan at the hospital. This one was very shy, and she wouldn't come out of her cage. She did finally get curious, and this is as far as I saw her come out. She is a coyote, and she is going to be used in educational programs when she gets acclimatized to humans.
Of course, after all of this, we had to do some looking around, and get lunch. You can see that we had a very busy day, and naps were in order!
7 comments:
Totally cool!!! Is the leg fixable?
all the pictures are great! glad we got to go with you!
I don't know if the leg is fixable, but they are looking at it. Sunday, they said that the bones didn't look deformed, which would make it a contracted tendon issue, and they were discussing that. Also the possibility of surgery.
I don't know anything about horses, apart from the fact that I think they are lovely animals. I did like reading your blog though. Hope the little goat can be fixed up and returned to the mountain.
What absolutely delightful pictures! The photos of the giraffe made me chuckle.
I loved the little coyote too.
Thank you for sharing those. :-)
Where did this giraffe come from? It's not the usual farm animal. I'm thinking a zoo, but why did it end up at this farm? (Stuff like this always makes me feel sad that my daughter had to grow up in the city -- she missed so much amazing stuff)
The giraffe is at the zoo here in town. My vet is a horse vet, and she has the equipment to do what the zoo needed done, so she was asked to come and do it, and she was told she could bring her staff and families, so we went!
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