Mystic Aquarium

Well, I arrived safe and sound in South Africa. I am very tired. All flights went well, last one was just very long and cramped so I did not get much sleep. Margaret picked me up at the airport and gave me the option of going to the hotel to rest or going in to work.  As much as I would have loved to sleep....I felt the need to hold up my end and follow Laurie's example and offered to get right to work.

Well, today is my last day working at SANCCOB with the staff and penguins. Yesterday Nola asked where I would like to work for my last day. I had experienced all of the areas, so it was just a matter of thinking where my favorite place was.....I guess it would be Pen 8 with #600!

I started my day early again. I helped tube feed formula to the weakie chicks in pen 1C and then headed up to the 8am meeting. During the meeting I found out that I would supervise pen 8 and had the pen by myself. It wouldn't be too bad; there were 19 in A, 4 in B, and 19 chicks in C.

I started my work day at 7:30am. I was assigned to ICU and Candice was my supervisor. My assignment was the “baldie” pen. There were about 20 chicks that had lost their juvenile plumage and were bald. They looked like plucked chickens. They couldn't stay outside because they were at risk of overheating and hypothermia. When you pick them up their skin is so hot. I felt really bad for them. However, aside from being bald, they are in great shape and eating pretty well. I named that pen the “terror dactyl” pen.