Meet Ricky!

I would like to take a moment to introduce you to a new friend. This is Ricky, the Patagonian Cavy. Ricky's previous home was in the zoo's South American exhibit. He had a huge, natural looking habitat, complete with water fall and pond. He shared the exhibit with two other cavies, a pair of King Vultures, lots of Squirrel Monkeys, a sloth, several Sun Conures, a few agouti, and Mike the capybara. The South American exhibit is usually a lovely, harmonious place...until recently.

Ricky has a perfectly nice female cavy to ummm...relieve any sexual tension. He has, however, shown absolutely zero interest in her. Instead, Ricky prefers to "show his love" to Mike the capybara. Now, Mike is a lot bigger than Ricky and does NOT like being the recipient of all Ricky's "love." Mike has let Ricky know this repeatedly by biting, kicking, and clawing. Stupid Poor Ricky just wouldn't learn to leave Mike alone. In order to keep Ricky in one piece, the keepers had to pull him from the exhibit.


Ricky now lives alone back behind-the-scenes. His enclosure is still roomy, but not as large or as pretty as his previous home. To make sure he gets enough exercise, he gets at least one daily walk. I had trained on walking Ricky last week so this morning, David and I took Ricky for a walk.

Ricky likes to nibble on the grass.


Ricky likes to run and hop. Sometimes we run along with him.



I already introduced you to this new friend, Lurch the Screech Owl. The Ranch House Assistant calls her Precious, and I think that name fits better than Lurch.


I trained on handling Lurch/Precious last week so today I showed David how. Unfortunately, he doesn't like any of the pics I took of him with the owl (I thought they were fine.), so you only get to see me.

In case you're wondering where KJ was during all this, he went to the Texas Renaissance Festival with his fighting group.