How to give a moose a manicure

About 5 days ago we had so much snow built up that Snickers, the porcupine, literally walked out of his enclosure.  We found him the next day tucked underneath the observation deck all cozy and warm.  We had him back in his house in less than 10 minutes no problem.  The naxt day we noticed that Jack, our bull moose, had quills in his front left hoof.  I am not sure that this happened when snickers escaped or if snickers quilled Jack through the fence.  Anyways, we needed to get the quills out before they worked their way any further into Jack's leg. 

 We also decided that since we were going to dart Jack in order to remove his quills that we might as well trim his hooves.  Hence the name of the blog. 
When we have to sedate an animal we always wait about 10 minutes before going in with them so that they are nice and comfortable....... and asleep.  Jack just layed his head down and helped the procedure go as planned.  He did very well. 



Gilly, on the other hand, was getting in my way!

 Jonathan and I began removing the quills while Mike, the executive director, trimmed his hooves. 

Once everything was done we needed to lubricate Jack's eyes.  After they are sedated the medicine can cause their eyes to dry out so we always apply a thin layer of special gel in their eyes to avoid dryness.



Here, Mike is just keeping an eye on Jack and making sure that he is waking up around the time he is supposed to.  We also hang around to make sure the calves don't bother Jack as he is waking up. 

Once Jack was lifting his head up I was able to lubricate the other eye.

We saved the quills so that we could count how many Jack actually had in his leg.  It was a grand total of 76 quills!  It is amazing how so many quills can be in such a small amount of area.  It makes since that a porcupine can have an average of 30,000 quills on their body at one time!

Well, the day is coming to a close.  We just did our first puppet show of the year!  The show went smoothly...especially for having about 50 1rst graders in such a small area!  They were a great audience.  Next week we are going to be very busy with more education programs.  This is going to be a very busy year....but I can't wait!
Goodnight Lower 48,
ErIn