Seasons Change: Winterizing the Sanctuary

The Keeper Journal

Meeting the challenge 

With any new season comes the possibility of inclement weather. And we rely on our tried and trusted procedures, as well as innovative ideas, to help us, and the animals adjust. By making it a priority to keep them comfortable and dry during the winter, we can ensure their comfort, no matter the season!

A Day in the Life of a Keeper

Part 2: The Afternoon Routine

In this week’s Keeper Journal, we’re going to pick up right where we left off following the completion of all our morning responsibilities and take a look at the wide variety of tasks on our afternoon to-do list.

It can pretty much be assumed that every afternoon involves cleaning of some kind. With over 80 animals on the property, there’s always something in need of cleaning. We might be scheduled one day to clean Alpha, home to the lions and tigers because Calvin and Hobbes’s pool is starting to look a little murky. Or, we might need to plan on detailing Bravo, housing our sweet cougar Noni, because the blackberry bushes are wreaking havoc on all the other trees and shrubs. 

So we gather up our supplies, making sure we’ve got enough straw to refresh den boxes, extra batteries for the weed whackers, and something fun and tasty for enrichment, and head out, rain, snow, or shine. 

Even though regular cleaning is definitely part of the routine, it isn’t as boring or tiresome as it might sound. We get to experience the cats and their unique personalities, watch them engage with their enrichment, and, since the cleaning schedule changes so frequently, it’s not very often that you find yourself cleaning the same enclosures week after week – because just as we have to keep things new and exciting for the cats, we’ve got to change things up for us keepers as well! 

Once we’ve completed the day’s big clean, we usually find ourselves with a little bit of leftover time for projects. These projects might include anything from landscape maintenance to crafting new structures to enhance the lives of cats.

One of our most recent projects included designing, building, and installing lockout crates on every enclosure. These lockout crates help streamline feeding, helping us make sure everyone gets their proper amount of food and meds, as well as minimize potential scuffles between roommates. After all, no one likes it when someone takes your chicken heart. 

Another project we completed, and which we’re all rather proud of, included building a quarantine crate in our domestic cat house. This crate, which is large enough to fit all five of us keepers inside, was crafted from wood and wire to create a small little “room,” so to speak, in which we can house new cats or recovering cats, or anyone who just needs some extra care and attention. Without causing them undue stress by moving them elsewhere, this large crate allows us to keep a kitty in an area familiar to them, while still making sure they get the right amount of food, TLC, and medical care necessary.

Mabel, who recently underwent surgery to remove the cancerous cells from her nose, was the first to test out this keeper-made quarantine crate, and we’re pretty confident that so far, her reviews have come back positive. 

Once we get our projects wrapped up, usually around 4 p.m. each day, we begin closing procedures, locking up all perimeters, checking livestock water levels, making sure meat is ready for the next day, charging the golf carts, and marking down any end-of-the-day notes. Of course, while this is all routine and what a daily afternoon schedule usually looks like, it can be upset and changed around in the blink of an eye, depending on which cat needs what when – after all, they run this place. We just work here.

A Day in the Life of a Keeper

Part 1: The Morning Routine

A commonly asked question the keepers receive is, “What do you do as a keeper? What does the day look like?” 

This is a great question and one we’d like to address for all those curious souls, especially those potential interns wondering what it would be like to work at WCR. This week we’ll give you a glimpse into our busy morning routine.  

Our days typically start around 7 AM, (we work ten-hour days) where we all stagger sleepily, coffee in hand, into Food Prep. Food Prep could be referred to as our Keeper HQ – it’s where you’ll find all the cleaning supplies, the laundry/locker room, the fridge where we keep all the diets for the next day, and all the medications. The walls are covered with whiteboards detailing how much food each cat gets, what doses of medications some of them need, projects to be completed and, of course, the daily schedule and to-do list. 

We spend the first couple hours of the morning weighing out the diets (most of which are made the day before), adding the needed meds, catching up on notes, and talking out the plan for the day. Then, as the diets are completed, we separate and feed our respective areas. 

The sanctuary is sectioned off into six sections, or perimeters – Alpha (tigers & lions), Bravo (cougars), Echo (cheetahs), Charlie & Delta (servals and bobcats), and the small cat pens where we house the smaller savannahs, Bengals and domestic cats. Typically, one keeper feeds “big guys” – Alpha, Bravo, and Echo –another handles Charlie/Delta and a third takes the small cats.

During feeding, we pay attention to their behaviors. Is someone eating slower than usual? Did another cat sift out all their meds and refuse to take them? Did so-and-so not eat as much as we expected, or only eat one kind of meat? How the cats eat can tell us much about their overall health, so paying attention to a seemingly small detail is a very important part of our jobs. Any irregularities we make sure to keep notes of so we can notice patterns of behaviors or any potential warning signs.

Feeding takes two to three hours, and post-feeding includes washing all the dishes and preparing diets for the big guys and small cats for the following day. Charlie/Delta we make day-of, so we don’t worry so much about that. Diet prep includes weighing out the appropriate amount of meat for each cat, paying attention to their likes and dislikes to ensure they eat everything! Just like your house cats, some of our cats can be quite picky, like Safari who refuses to eat liver or Uche who really loves a crunchy turkey gizzard or chicken neck.

We feed them a combination of raw chicken, beef, and Nebraska horsemeat, as well as the occasional venison, rabbit, quail, or fish, as friends of the sanctuary, will sometimes donate different kinds of meat if they have an overabundance. We’ve noticed how sometimes the cats grow bored with their food occasionally, so we always get excited when people help us freshen it up for them!

During diet prep, it’s inevitable that a keeper will walk into Food Prep and ask, “Hey, has livestock been fed?” In addition to the cats, we make sure the donkeys, cows, pigs, sheep, chickens, and turkey get their breakfast, too...it’s hard to forget about them, the donkeys will yell at anyone who walks by the fence as a reminder to bring fresh hay asap. 

Once all that’s been completed, it’s time for us to take a lunch break before starting in on the afternoon’s tasks.