Medicating Animals

In this blog I will be delving into the trials and tribulations of medicating our animals on carnivore section and who is good as gold and who could do with improvement!

Our animals have access to round the clock veterinary care and sometimes they need to be medicated for various reasons to keep them in top tip shape, giving medication to certain animals can be quite a challenge and they don’t always play ball!

Medicating also requires weights from the animals to give accurate dosing so scale training is also a great help.

So lets go through some of our section to point out the well behaved ones and the not so well behaved!

Hallie – Smooth-coated Otter

Gold star for her excellent scale behaviour, holding perfectly still on them for an accurate weight.
Will shout at you if you take too long to set up the scales.
Will take meds in fish tails with great ease!

Aroon – Moon Bear

Will take any form of medication as long as a marmalade sandwich is involved.
Will present his bum for injections on cue.

Mika – Moon Bear

Will be initially offended by the offering of medication.
As soon as Aroon wants it, she will eat it.

Troy – Tiger

The best boy for scale training. The rest of the class should take notes.

Papa – Binturong

Will take meds as long as it doesn’t interrupt his sleep schedule.
Has to fit inside a singular grape.
Stood on the scary new scales after 5 minutes of stamping at them, then realized they’re ok.

Binx – Puma

Not trusted with the very expensive scales.
Will only take meds hidden in pieces of meat smaller than a 50p.
Will train well except on the day its needed.

Shadow – Arctic Wolf

Very smart and catches onto suspicious behaviour from keepers.
Will shake said suspicious meat so the meds come flying out.
BUT , when the meds are for his brother and not him, will steal meds.

Jill and Storm – Short-clawed Otters

Thoroughly inspect all food items for contraband.
Will carefully set aside medication and carry on about their day.

Roots – Lynx

Is above suspicious smelling medicated food.
Will not speak to you again for 5 business days.

Colonel Tom – Cheetah

Will scale train perfectly every time.
Will edge closer to Kikay when it’s her turn in the training barrier until she tells him off.

Kikay – Cheetah

You must give her at least 15 minutes to get up.
Will only lay down in training barrier for a chicken drumstick, a chicken wing will not suffice.

Loki – Jaguar

Will present bum for vaccinations.
Very gentle when taking food.

Luna – Jaguar

Very smart and highly suspicious when offered medication.
Extremely keen for training and will try to push Loki off of the training shelf.

Duke & Tora – Tigers

Duke will take medication but only if Tora does it first.
Tora will train well until she gets bored and falls asleep.
Duke will train well once Tora has tested the waters for him.

Persistence, training and trial and error all play a role in medicating animals, to find ways that work best for each of them. From finding the perfect reward, timing the meds with their regular feed and even training animals to voluntarily take medication. Just one of the many ways in which our animals like to keep us on our toes!