Dart frogs jumping
🎵On the tenth day of Christmas my keeper gave to me ten lords a leaping!🎵
Today our dyeing dart frogs received extra misting. Misting makes their food, wingless fruit flies, more active in the habitat. Their activity means that our frogs must hop around to catch their food!
Do you love our dart frogs as much as we do? Consider checking out our Amazon wishlist to show them your appreciation! https://www.amazon.com/hz/wishlist/ls/26RAB8PTDZ2HR?ref_=wl_share
Your generous donation from our Wishlist provides essential tools & resources enabling us to continue our mission of delivering “exemplary animal care" through enrichment.
#HometownHutchinsonZoo #12DaysOfChristmas #VisitHutch #ShopLocal #ZooWishList
🎵On the ninth day of Christmas my keeper gave to me nine ladies dancing!🎵
Our sandhill crane, Doodle, regularly interacts with her keeper as enrichment. Sandhill cranes use dancing as a way to communicate, especially when finding or bonding with a mate. This dancing involves jumping, running and wing flapping. Doodle is imprinted on humans, so dancing with her keeper Molly is an important and regular social interaction!
Although you might not be able to see our sandhill crane because she lives behind the scenes for the winter, you have probably heard her calls while at the Zoo. She sounds like something in between a trumpet and a goose's honk!
#HometownHutchinsonZoo #12DaysOfChristmas #SandhillCrane
🎵On the seventh day of Christmas my keeper gave to me seven swans a swimming.🎵
Yesterday our Wood ducks, Redheaded duck, Mallard duck, and Hybrid Redheaded/Wood duck, all received their food in the water. Many ducks eat by “dabbling” so we can encourage our ducks to do this by tossing their food into the water instead of leaving it in their bowl.
Which has been your favorite "12 Days of Christmas" enrichment so far? Share with us in the comments!
Interested in sponsoring some enrichment for our zookeepers? Check out their amazon wishlist online: https://www.amazon.com/hz/wishlist/ls/26RAB8PTDZ2HR?ref_=wl_share
#HometownHutchinsonZoo #VisitHutch #12DaysOfChristmas
🎵On the 6th day of Christmas my keeper gave to me six geese a laying.🎵
Nick and Gideon were each given a whole hardboiled egg in shell hidden in a fake nest. Red Foxes like to do what we call “caching”, where they hide food to eat later. Our foxes like to cache larger items, so we give them each a whole egg to encourage this natural behavior!
In the video, you can see as both of our foxes pick up an egg and bury it in the mulch of their habitat. This is that cache behavior!
#HometownHutchinsonZoo #12DaysOfChristmas #VisitHutch
🎵On the fourth day of Christmas my keeper gave to me... four calling birds!🎵
Birds will naturally vocalize with others of their same species in the wild. So, by playing wild bird sounds, we can usually get our birds to call out. Some of our birds are what we call “imprinted”. This means they spent a lot of time around humans during their formative years (think very young rehab birds or pets). To have these birds call out, we usually have to get a little creative. For instance, to get our crow Stash to call out, his keeper plays him the sound of people imitating crows, as opposed to actual crow calls. Sometimes our other staff at the zoo will come make fun noises for him to see if he calls back!
#HometownHutchinsonZoo #12DaysOfChristmas #VisitHutch
…And we’re back with more #Zoolympics! Our ocelot Nico spent some time this morning working on his alley-oop. With an 18 foot vertical leap, Nico would surely help bring home the gold for the USA against France today in basketball. #hometownhutchinsonzoo #ZooLife #VisitHutch
Next up to show their Olympic prowess are our mini farm yards! Our middle yard and goat yards had a “field hockey” show off to see who reigned supreme.
Which yard do you think should win gold?
#ZOOlympics #HometownHutchinsonZoo
Welcome back to the day 1 coverage of our "ZOO"lympics events here at the Hutchinson Zoo!
While our fearless parrots were busy competing in gymnastics, our Sulcata Tortoises were busy bringing home the gold in soccer! Although the game had a slow start, our tortoises were able to pull through the win. That lettuce never stood a chance against our food-motivated (and surprisingly quick) armored athletes.
#ZOOlympics #HometownHutchinsonZoo
Happy zookeeper week to all of our rehab keepers here at the Hutchinson Zoo!
Today we will be highlighting all the hard work our rehab keepers do today on our social media stories today. Our behind the scenes view will be a little different today because we cannot talk in our rehab room. This is to better prevent imprinting on humans for our rehab patients, and to set them up for success when it comes to a future release.
We will also be doing a tour of our rehab facility today from 1-3pm as well. So come on by today to celebrate our rehab team!
#HometownHutchinsonZoo #NationalZookeeperWeek #WeAreAZA
Today our sulcata tortoise feeding included carrots! We have seven sulcatas and they can be challenging to enrich. Our keepers give them opportunities to move and stretch as they forage for food. Do you love tortoises? If you are interested in meeting them up-close, check out Hutchinson zoo.org to learn how you can meet and feed them! #hutchinsonzoo.org #visithutch #WeAreAza
Our North American River Otters, Theo and Whimsy, out on their Easter egg hunt! Hunting for food is a natural behavior for our otters and we always give them opportunities to seek and find food throughout the day. Today they had find hard-boiled eggs hidden in their habitat. Eggs are a regular part of their diet. #hutchinsonzoo #visithutch #WeAreAza
Got the Monday blues? Studies* show that watching this video of our otter wiggling will reduce your stress! 🦦
#HometownHutchinsonZoo #OtterCute #RiverOtter
*Not a real study but we think it works!
📸 Clip from Zoo Camp
