fur babies

Skies are blue. babies being born left and right. bottles being made 6 times a day.
yup.  summer is here in full blow.  The bison are still calving and we are at around 30 calves running around in the field together.  It is really hard to actually get a correct number on how many we have now!

   This time of year we also rotate the bison on pastures.  You can see this pasture was ready for a break.  The bison are grazers so of course we get free lawn mowing at the center when needed.

We always have 2 or 3 pastures available with fresh green grass so the others can recover when the bison are rotated.

Every year someone gets the wonderful job of "dragging" the fields on a four wheeler.  Dust is everywhere!  But I am sure you aren't just covered in dust if you think about what else is in the ground......yuck!   However if blood, fecal, and whatever else animal related grosses us out, we may be in the wrong profession.

Sarah had to drag all the pastures so she could then spread grass seed on it to get it growing again.

So reindeer are just domesticated caribou.  They are currently growing their antlers which are covered in velvet.  The velvet is supplying the antler with nutrients causing the antler to continue to grow.  These are just about done growing for this year.  When we notice a white coloration appearing this means the velvet has already started to die off and eventually the velvet is shed and we see the common antler appearance that most of us are familiar with.    Sven is sitting in the front.
He is a 2 year old reindeer that we use in education programs.  He gets his daily walk at 10:45am every day to meet visitors and teach them about reindeer.  they are also shedding their winter coat which is why he has a bad hair day.

The moose don't want their winter coat anymore either.

now onto the fur babies!!!!!!

  

 We had a musk ox calf born on 5/12.  We wait about a month nearly before introducing them to the public.

Meet Tsuni

This picture was when she was 2 days old.

She may not seem to thrilled to be getting this bottle and she wasn't.  However we still offer them a bottle and just the presence of us gets them use to us sooner.

Tsuni was more interested in trying to nibble my chin.

Tsuni was very excited to see Doug Lindstrand taking photos of her.

She isn't camera shy.

Oh did I mention we have another calf?  

Meet Nami.

Nami was born on 5/26 and definitely see Tsuni as her big half sister.

Intern Allison Dahl from Fairbanks, AK was lucky enough to have Doug Capture a feeding she did.

All the photos in today's blog were captured by Doug Lindstrand.

Thanks Doug!

more fur baby photos coming soon.









Now for a picture of my fur baby.

goodnight lower 48,
Erin and Zelda