Bulletin From the Barn: March 30, 2011
Giant Anteater Update From Keeper Marie Magnuson
See photos
All is going very well with the anteaters these days. While the weather hasn’t always been as warm as we would like, there have been enough nice days for them to get outside and stretch their legs, and to give people a chance to get a look at Maripi and Dante’s latest edition. He is growing fast, as all giant anteaters do, and is more than 20 pounds already! In the wild a pup stays with its mother for only ten to 12 months at which time it is adult size, though not fully adult—more like a big teenager.
He is still so much fun for the keepers to work with since he is quite comfortable with us. He has only gotten off his mother’s back in the yard once that we know of—not counting that first day when he fell off, which wasn’t his idea. But inside the barn is another story. He is roaming around on his own inside quite a bit and will walk right up to the keepers and sniff our shoes.
To make sure that he has the opportunity to learn how to be an anteater, even when he can’t go outside, we give him a number of different items to practice his skills with. Rotten logs to tear apart looking for ants and termites are a natural for him. We often give his parents treats inside of a rubber dog toy called a kong that has a hole just the size of a hardboiled egg. To get the treat they have to use their tongues to eat just as they would if they were eating ants from and anthill. We see the pup sticking his nose into the toy after his mother has finished eating the Jell-o or peanut butter from her kong. He is just starting to show an interest in solid food and this is one of the ways he will learn what he should be eating.
Young anteaters will pretend to charge at their mothers and then wrestle around with them in play. We give our little guy a plastic toy called a weeble (it wobbles, but it doesn’t fall down!) and he can bat it around and play fight with that even if Maripi isn’t up for a game.
So don’t worry that he's getting bored inside the barn. Between the eating, the playing, and the sleeping, his schedule is pretty full!
I hope everyone got a chance to vote for their favorite name for the pup. Maripi will be making the final decision next week, we hope. The exact date will be decided when we're sure that the weather will cooperate.
