Lovie has gained a gram each day now. Good progress! Today he started eating from the syringe on his own. Which means he's feeling much better!! He just has to continue to gain weight for the next few days and we're in the clear. Good ol' Lovie bird!

Lovie is struggling a bit the day after surgery. I personally know how it feels that day after... crappy. He's having to deal with the physical pain of having surgery on his beak as well as learning how to move about without the curve of his beak. He can't climb the bars on his enclosure and he can't pull himself onto a perch. He's already missing two toe nails so he has trouble gripping perches anyway. But once he gets a hold of a good perch he stays there. So we're hoping he adjusts quickly.

He's not eating, which isn't that surprising since he mostly eats seeds and it would hurt me to see him crack open a seed right now. Most birds will only eat their favorite foods when they are feeling under the weather, so Lovie isn't interested in much right now. Since he had lost weight before the surgery he was weak going in. My priority right now is to maintain Lovie's strength. Since he's not eating on his own I've been feeding him with a syringe (mashed up pellets, banana, and peanut butter, delicious!). Sometimes this can be hard to do with an adult bird, but Lovie is so sweet and gentle that he's taken to it with resignation. As long as he keeps his strength he should start eating on his own again soon. So until then, Lovie will get fed his mush 3-4 times a day.

Lovie, the lovebird, went into surgery today. He's back home and resting up after his stressful ordeal. He's been struggling with a fungal infection in his beak since he came to Animal Wonders. In the beginning it was small and the vet diagnosed it as a bruise inside his beak. When the "bruise" did not grow out as his beak grew, it was apparent that it was not what we thought. The dark spot slowly grew bigger and he was prescribed anti-fungal medication. We had to wait to see if the dark in his beak would grow out, when it did not, we had to take more invasive measures. The vet, Dr. Card, dremmeled the infected part of his beak down and then cauterized the area. He went on anti-fungal medication again and we were hopeful that it was taken care of. As we waited for his beak to grow out we watched carefully for a re-occurrence. His beak grew in different than before and it was difficult to tell if the dark area was infected or just the beak trying to recover. Lovie started dropping weight and we knew that he was not well.

He went on an anti-fungal medication again as well as an second anti-fungal applied topically. His surgery was scheduled and we kept him as comfortable as we could. He was still active and quite chipper, though his discomfort was obvious as he continually rubbed his beak and readjusted his lower mandible.

Today he was anesthetized and his beak was dremmeled back until there was no infection left, then cauterized again. This time the removal was a bit more aggressive in hopes that we could kill the infection for good. His beak is very short and he will have to learn how to eat with his new beak, but tonight he did munch on some banana. We're hoping the double anti-fungal and the removal of the entire infected area will beat this and he will be able to move on with his life.

He is such a love and we only want the best for him. His sweet personality should continue to be shared with many more and we're doing our best to make that happen. Hang in there little buddy, we all love you so very much!

The animals have been busy this weekend doing Creepy Crawly shows for all those kids in costumes enjoying the holiday. Boo, the smokey ghost millepede was by far the biggest hit. He was made for Halloween! Fluffy the tarantula, the cockroaches, and Professor claw the emperor scorpion were also stars. The kids enjoyed being creeped out by the many legged and no legged alike. Lizzy, the legless lizard, had her debut at the Missoula Children's Museum where she taught the audience the real difference between lizards and snakes (it's not the legs).

So from the animals and from us, Happy Halloween!!

Last week Animal Wonders and the animals were honored to meet many Montana teachers. We presented the animals and our educational programs at the MEA-MFT conference that we held right here in Missoula. This was our first time participating in the conference and we had a lot of fun!

It's interesting giving a presentation to an audience that isn't there just to have fun and learn something in the process. Fortunately the teachers were very forgiving of our somewhat juvenile jokes and childlike references. k-4 is of course our target audience, though the adults in our audiences seem to relive their childhood intrigue more often then not. We purposely kept the presentation true to what the teachers could expect in their classroom so they would get a good feel of what we're all about. It's one thing to hear or read about what Animal Wonders does, it's a whole different thing to experience the animals for yourself. We hope that we made some new advocates for live animal education. The Animal Ambassadors are eager to teach about wildlife and their environments in more schools in Montana. Wouldn't it be a wonderful thing if all of our next generation knew what a brush-tailed bettong was, why they are important, and how we can help them and prevent a similar situation from happening again. Click on the link above to read about Quigley our brush-tailed bettong.

Our goal is to spread understanding and knowledge of wildlife and their environments across the state of Montana. We only have one zoo in our entire state and it's not focused on international animals. We would like to change that. By allowing the students to see, feel, learn about, and experience the animals up close in their classrooms, the students will be able to make a connection to the real world. They will be intrigued and inspired to learn more about the animals and their environments. This could lead to a heightened interest in zoology, biology, or general science that they would not otherwise have pursued out of their own curiosity. We hope to inspire that spark in their curiosity which leads to appreciation and enjoyment of science education. We would love if you would like to join us in this vision. Please schedule a presentation or sponsor a school today. We have had numerous requests from schools who are looking for a scholarship or private donation to help sponsor presentations for their students.

As I've mentioned before, any new animal that comes to Animal Wonders must go through a 30 day minimum quarantine period. During this time they receive their initial examination from the vet and then we watch them for signs of illness that may come to the surface during times of stress. There is usually some amount of stress for the animal to be relocated and adjust to their new environment. Sometimes this will trigger a dormant illness. We want to do our best to protect the animal residents that already reside here so that is why we quarantine.

Right now we have three animals in Quarantine:
Sunny, the Pacific parrotlet
Patches, the guinea pig
Lizzy, the Russian legless lizard.

Since they are all from different animal groups (i.e bird, mammal, reptile) they are safe from contaminating each other during quarantine so they can be housed in the same room. So they do get some interaction with other animals during their Quarantine period, and us as well.

Sunny loves to explore the room! He climbs on the plants and basks in the sunshine on the windowsill. He likes to watch Patches shuffle about and keeps a close eye on Lizzy when she's crawling around. Sunny only has another week before he's free and clear and gets to move into the Bird Room with the rest of the flock. He's successfully eating a very nutritious diet and we will continue to file and monitor his beak growth until it is normal.

Patches needs another trip to the vet to test for a respiratory infection as he's been sneezing a bit. If we were not diligent about this, when we introduced him to Pepper, the Patagonian Cavy, we would be spreading the infection. So every time we interact and play with Patches we thoroughly wash our hands and never use the same tools to clean him as we do to clean another mammal.

Lizzy is doing good. We are anxious to move her out of Quarantine into a larger enclosure since she has shown us she would like more room. We are learning what her favorite foods are: ground turkey and crickets. She does not like mealworms! She is unusually calm for a legless lizard and we are excited to show her off to her first audience!

We are SO excited to welcome our newest Animal Ambassador, Lizzy the Legless Lizard!!!! Legless lizards are one of the coolest most interesting animals on this planet and we are so very happy to be able to share this with our fellow Montanans! Unlike snakes, lizards have external ears and eyelids. They close their eyes to sleep and to remove debris  from their eye. They also have actual holes in the sides of their head, just like humans, to help them hear sounds. This is what makes up the difference between snakes and lizards, not those obvious things called legs.

Lizzy is adjusting to her new home and will be able to join the rest of the scaly crew after she completes and graduates from Quarantine. We must check her for any little critters that might have stowed away waiting for their chance to breed, travel, and infect another scaly friend. Which would not make Pearl, the tegu, Blueberry, the skink, Argos, the uromastyx, or any of the other reptiles very happy at all. Lizzy will be housed in a non-glass enclosure due to the fact that legless lizards tend to want to burrow and search for visible holes in their enclosures. They do this almost constantly and if they think they can get through the clear glass they will rub their noses raw. Lizzy came in with a sore on her nose, most likely due to this behavior, so we are hoping the change in enclosure will help her settle in and relax by hiding in a dark den or under her substrate.

We can't wait to show Lizzy off! Want to be the first one to see her?? Schedule your presentation before someone else gets to be first in line!

Sometimes we don't know why things happen, but they seem to just fall into place like they were always meant to be. Animal Wonders has taken in another furry little friend that will soon become a proud Animal Ambassador!

We have not settled on a name yet, so for now he will be called GP. That's right, a guinea pig. We don't normally take in small common pets because we couldn't possibly rescue, house, feed, and care for all of the little guinea pigs, rabbits, ferrets, hamsters, gerbils, and mice that needed homes. However, sometimes things happen for a reason. When we welcomed Cheeks the Netherland Dwarf Rabbit, we couldn't foresee what an amazing Ambassador he would be. It just sort of fell into our laps. So when little GP popped up, it just seemed it was inevitable. GP will be housed with Chili Pepper the Patagonian Cavy once he has graduated from Quarantine.

GP was deficient in vitamin C, which is crucial for rodents in the cavy family. Luckily it was discovered soon enough that he was quickly supplemented and has since made a good recovery. We hope that his personality meshes well with Chili Pepper and that they are able to become good friends. If you would like to suggest a name for Mr. GP, please email, call or send a message via Facebook and we'll put it in the running.

With the additional fires burning west of Potomac, we have been hit with a pretty thick layer of smoke in the valley. While the lack of breeze is great to keep the fires from whipping into a frenzy, the stagnant air lets the smoke linger and settle. It is not bad enough to really worry about the birds, though they are staying inside until this passes. We hope that the fires are contained quickly and our feathered friends can once again bask in the last few weeks of summer sunshine.

Sunny visited the vet today and we're hoping the only culprit that he's battling against is poor nutrition. We tested him for other common ailments and found him negative for anything contagious. Sunny will remain in Quarantine for 30 days and if he shows no signs of illness he will join the flock and find a new friend and companion. We don't know who that will be yet, may times friendships take us by surprise.

We also believe he is struggling with is malformation. His parents could have had poor nutrition, or he was handfed improperly when he was young, or he came from unhealthy genetics. Whatever he's been through we're happy that his owners tried their best to give him what he needed. It's always a sad story when a loving family takes in an animal that needs special care and the "seller" doesn't give the new owners the proper information to make it a happy healthy environment for all involved.

For now, Sunny will undergo a complete change in his diet to make sure he's getting all the nutrients he needs to grow beautiful healthy feathers, a strong clear shiny beak, smooth feet and toe scales, and gets the twinkle back in his eyes. This will take time and energy and a lot of patience, but we're up to the challenge! He seems to have settled in quite quickly and even enjoys stepping up on our fingers and exploring the furniture and plants in his room. Today Sunny has been "laughing" like a tiny little munchkin and he's been muttering something we can't quite pick out. Let's see if we can get him to learn some cute little words!