She may sometimes choose to wear relaxed boho scarves on her outdoor adventures, but don’t let it fool you. Jamie is all work and no play.
Sanctuary
Potty Talk!
I thought I would answer one of the questions from Diana’s blog post, “Inviting your Questions“. Also, if you have a burning question you have been wanting to ask, post it in Diana’s blog comments and one of us caregivers may make a blog and answer it!
So, let’s have an uncomfortable conversation. The question that everyone wants to know, but may feel too awkward asking. Poop, everybody does it. But, where do the chimps do it? I will be addressing this topic because it’s a fair question and one we get asked a lot. We do our best to not have poop in the videos or pictures, but the truth is it’s there.
In the wild chimps will use the bathroom and then keep traveling. Chimps in captivity unfortunately do not have that luxury of leaving it behind them. The chimps mostly poop or pee off of ledges. We see that chimps in the wild poop out of their nests in trees too. This could be why captive chimps are often using ledges. Kind of cool! Some chimps have specific spots, most others do not. There are some enclosures where they do tend to pick spots to go use the restroom. For example, the chimps often use the bathroom in the corner of the Greenhouse off the platform. It seems to be a good spot, out of the way where individuals won’t step in it. Though that might not be the pattern for everyone. In the playroom, they often go off the loft, or a barrel, or the cement steps near the drain. In the front rooms, they may use the restroom off the platform, a cement step near the drain, or again a piece of enrichment like a chair. In phase one, it seems the 3 also prefer to use a ledge. However, Willy B will pee anywhere… We clean each enclosure every day and spot clean at night. Sometimes after we are done cleaning and invite the chimps back into their space they use the bathroom right away and that is their choice. It is their home. Which is why we will spot clean before we leave for the night, because we want them to have a clean house, no one likes stepping in poop, so we do our best, but regardless there are 10 chimps and they have to use the bathroom.
Have you ever heard of fear poop? I don’t think it is a real term, but we use it. From time to time the chimps may have an altercation. When fights happen the bowel movement may let go, so to speak. Often after a fight it is a bit messy. In these cases, poop or pee could be anywhere.
Now one question you might also be wondering. Do chimps toot? Does it smell? The answer to both is yes. They have a diet of fruits, veggies, and nuts so I would say of course farts are going to smell, but not always. Just like us humans. For the chimps, there is no stigma for flatulence. They don’t laugh at each other or think it is gross, because well everyone does it! Even us, don’t lie :). Missy often lets one go when running! I mean do you see how fast she runs, there is no way anyone could hold one in going that speed!
Okay, here is a fun fact! Their pee does smell after they eat asparagus!
See that wasn’t so bad, right? Now I have some photos. We would never post photos of them using the restroom, because, well that is rude. Wouldn’t it be horrifying if someone took a photo of you and posted it. But, I have some photos to show as examples of the ledges they may use.
Ahh, yes, that is a nice ledge. It’s a little out of the way where no one is walking!
This photo is in the playroom. Look at all those options!
This platform is great for sleeping and also going to the bathroom over the ledge!
Another fun fact! Front room 4 is known as the portrait room because it has such great lighting. However, front room 4 is also know to be the potty room from time to time. It could be because this is a get ledge to do it!
These are the cement steps I am referring to. It’s the perfect place to stop and take a quick number 1 or 2!
The front rooms in phase 1 also have great platforms for pooping.
The mezzanine can kind of be a free for all. There are ledges and so many chairs to choose from.
See, Missy runs the toots right out of her.
Let’s not forget Young’s Hill. Because it is such a large outdoor enclosure, it is hard to find all the poop. For this area, we let nature do its thing.
Now, let’s stop thinking about poop and just look at some chimps. 🙂
Negra in a pile of blankets.
Mave looking into her own reflection.
Willy B grabbing his favorite blanket while trying to listen in on the neighbors.
Willy B being groomed by Mave.
Don’t worry, it is just a scab on Mave’s head that someone just freshly groomed.
Burrito climbing the Twister!
Jamie waiting for Burrito at the bottom.
Foxie.
Foxie exploring the Hill with her dolls. Construction is really coming along!
Honey B <3
Okay, one more of Burrito!
Adventure Awaits
Yesterday, as I was helping clean the Playroom, I noticed Foxie sitting at the door that leads to Young’s Hill.
Was she contemplating going outside? Was it too cold for her? Was she just waiting for somebody to return? I admittedly stopped cleaning and watched her for a few minutes. After some time, others began to return from their patrol around the hill.
Jody returned with some fresh picked greens.
Then Jamie returned with Burrito right behind her.
After their return, almost everybody spent the rest of the time on the top platform waiting for us humans to finish cleaning.
It’s hard to say what Foxie was thinking or why she herself didn’t choose to go outside, but today was different.
When cleaning was done today, Jamie requested Kelsi and Anna to go on a walk with her.
They were soon joined by Missy and Burrito. All three of them thought it was an amazing idea to sprint up the hill, which included making Kelsi and Anna sprint as well.
While Jamie, Missy, and Burrito were running around with the human caregivers, I caught two familiar figures out of the corner of my eye.
Jody and Foxie decided to have their own little adventure.
The Adventures of Jody and Foxie aren’t quite like the others. They can be equated to being like two old friends taking a walk in the park. Really just a casual stroll through the outside enclosure. If someone takes an interest in something, the other stops and waits for them.
Foxie decided to try to climb one of the structures. As she did, Jody waited for her.
When they were done with their adventure, they headed back inside the Greenhouse.
Right around the time Foxie and Jody decided they had enough adventure, the Trio’s adventure was coming to an end as well. It should come to no surprise that Missy was the first one to make it back. She usually sprints the entire hill, leaving everyone else in her dust.
Jamie and Burrito were not far behind though.
You may have noticed Jamie’s attire might have changed from the beginning of their adventure to the end. Both Anna and Kelsi told me she started out with a scarf, then half way through it turned into a waistband, and at the very end it turned into a sash. We never know how the chimpanzees will react and interact with the different enrichment items they are provided. Sometimes they are a hit, sometimes they fall flat. Jamie though has an ability to shape the items in such a way to her liking. We don’t give her instructions on how to use an item or force her to interact with it. It’s always her choice and her way. I cannot wait for Jamieween to arrive!
And here are some bonus photos I just wanted to share from earlier in the week:
Bedtime stories
Bedtime stories! We received several wonderful questions from Diana’s recent blog post, “Inviting your questions,” about the chimpanzees’ bedtime routines!
We run a pretty tight ship here for a variety of reasons. In part, because we have a lot we need to complete each day! Another reason is because, as you might imagine, it’s really important for former lab chimpanzees, or anyone living in captivity, to have a routine in which they know what to expect and when to expect it. And while we still allow for, and adjust the routine to suit the chimpanzees’ choices, it definitely helps facilitate our ability to do things such as shifting the chimpanzees out of areas we need to enter to clean each day when they know what’s happening.
So with that in mind, we serve dinner at 4:30 and believe me, the chimpanzees’ don’t need a clock to tell us what time it is! (As a sidenote, with daylight savings time happening soon, this will be changing to 3:30. We humans adjust our schedules with daylight savings in order to allow the chimpanzees to have the maximum amount of outdoor access with daylight they can, so while we work from 9:00 am-5:30 pm in the spring/summer, we “fall back” to 8:00-4:30 for autumn/winter). While someone serves the chimps their dinner in the greenhouse or front rooms, the lead caregiver for the day takes the opportunity to spot clean the playroom (where the seven tend to sleep), put out extra blankets for night nests (we pass out at minimum 70+ blankets each day) and distribute their after-dinner evening enrichment (food puzzles!). At the end of dinner we hand out night bags (small bags full of nuts, seeds, dried fruit and popcorn) and just about the time they finish these, the playroom is about ready for them to be given access to again for the night. Once they’re given access, they are pretty excited about searching out their puzzles. Then when they’re done with their puzzles they promptly start building their night nests. The chimpanzees are typically all in bed by the time we wrap up the day (with the exception of boss lady, Jamie, who is very busy).
Where do they sleep? By nature, chimpanzees are arboreal sleepers and in the wild they climb trees and build nests each night by tucking and weaving the branches around them. Only mothers and infants share nests so while our resident chimpanzee friends are weaving nests of blankets, none of them share a nest, though they will often sleep near one another. They usually all build their nests upstairs along the windows (maybe their version of climbing up a tree, they have a good view, and it’s extra warm up there!). Though they have separate nests, Annie and Missy do have an endearing habit of occasionally weaving their individual nests together into a figure eight. You can kind of see it here (they are super fluffy right now with all the amazing blankets people have been donating!):
Willy B on a shelf in the front rooms:
Sigh…Willy B is a handsome devil:
Here’s Honey B in her amazing night nest! A very sweet thing that she does once she lies down in the middle of her nest is to pull a blanket up to her chest, tucking herself in:
I wanted to have photos of everyone in their nests, but you know, it just doesn’t go that way when you plan for it, so hopefully this has given you an idea. Important bedtime notes!
- Mave, Honey B and Willy B are people who go to bed early! (Like me!) Once they are in bed, they expect the lights to be turned off, the door to close and the humans to get out.
- Burrito operates on “go” all. day. long. But once he’s in bed, he also expects lights and humans out! He gets furious with us on those long summer nights with Jamie or when we go in to do a final chimp count for the night (to make sure everyone is accounted for, safe, sound and secure) if he happens to be in bed. I’ve tried countless times to capture the look on his face! He literally stares at us, incredulous, and angrily waves his arm at us clearly saying, “Get outta here!” I know, it’s impossible to believe until you’ve seen it and though we apologize to him profusely it makes us giggle every time.
- Foxie often has a bedtime routine of playing pass the troll/doll with her caregivers until she’s ready to fall asleep. Sometimes I will be quietly walking down the human hallway getting ready to lockup when “plink!” Orange Marmalade drops down from the heavens above, landing in front of me. I’ll look up only to see Foxie’s toes and fingers through the caging, wiggling and waiting for me to toss her doll back up to her. Also, Foxie is one person who still has no interest in building a nest. She prefers, for her own reasons, to shirk any blankets, often aggressively pushing them aside, and chooses to sleep on a shelf or just enjoy the heated floors. It’s emotionally appealing for us to envision her in a cozy nest, but she chooses as she pleases and her and her doll du jour seem happy curled up together, which is all that matters. And yes, she sleeps with her dolls every night.
- And this brings us to the boss. Jamie’s bedtime routine is that she wants her chosen boots and books passed through the food chute to her before we go. Sometimes she takes this time to groom with us, have us model the boots, or look at her books with her. But just as often she takes them and carries on with her own agenda for the evening while everyone else is in bed. As I mentioned earlier, she is often the only one still awake when we leave for the night. She’s busy, you know. The boss’s work is never done. She reads, scouts around to see if any food puzzles still have any treats missed earlier, or sometimes just enjoys her solitude in the greenhouse for awhile, listening to the night sounds, holding her boots, thinking whatever amazing thoughts we all know she has rumbling around in that amazing head of hers.
Here she is earlier today looking at her newest book about apes. She tears out very specific pages she finds fascinating and carries them around or nests with them. It’s one of my favorite things to see what we find the next day in her nest, what her interests are:
For the past two days, she’s been particularly fascinated with this page:
The final thing for the evening is lights out and it’s one of my favorite moments with the chimpanzees. Why? Because of nest grunts! I had a recording of this that I posted on FB ages ago and have to dig up as it’s just not something I usually have the phone out for. But it’s a vocalization that chimpanzees make to one another from their night nests. A way of checking in with one another for the night, saying all is well. Kind of like a chimpanzee version of the decades old show, “The Waltons,” where everyone in the family yelled goodnight to one another when the lights went out. And so it is here. We turn the lights out and whether we say goodnight in English or chimpanzee, nest grunts echo and build throughout the chimp house until all falls quiet. I say “I love you. Rest well and we’ll see you all in the morning.”
As far as morning goes, the chimpanzees are mostly awake by the time the humans arrive and either sleepily playing with one another, quietly enjoying the morning sunshine in the greenhouse or view from the window, or still curled into their warm nests until breakfast is served (this if often where you will find Negra and Missy). This is another favorite time of my day as the chimpanzees are typically all really joyful, excited to greet the humans, playfully wrestling and chasing one another as their excitement grows for breakfast.
Hoping you all have an equally cozy night in your nests, grunting to loved ones near and far, resting with ease, dreaming in wonder.
The Wonder of Progress
It’s been a crazy year, but it’s been very exciting for us to witness the steady progress on the new enclosures.
We’ve shared a few updates on the blog over the past few months (1, 2, 3) so that you all can get glimpses of the expanded Chimp House and see how the chimpanzees are coping with all of the commotion.
Today’s post includes a short video of the ongoing construction (and some clips of the three patient chimpanzees who have been taking it all in, day by day).
Willy B and his Dipper Tube
Willy B is quite the tool-user! As you can see, enrichment doesn’t have to be expensive or complicated to be effective.
It was a busy week for the block masons working on the new playrooms. You can see the walls taking shape now that the scaffolding has been taken down. Next week – fingers crossed – the roof goes on and we get ‘dried in’, so to speak. That should ensure that construction can continue even if the weather turns bad. This morning’s dreary snow/rain was an ominous start to the season.
Meanwhile, on the other side of the ranch, the cows were thrilled to regain access to their winter pasture. I’ll have to share the video of them running through the fields in another post.
Burrito in a Box!
Let’s talk about Burrito! This guy, he is seriously funny. Burrito seems to be a never-ending ball of energy these days. He has never been one to turn down a game, but recently it just seems like he is lighter. To be honest with you all it is exhausting, but in the best way! We caregivers may not have the same stamina as him, but we don’t care! If Burrito wants to play, we play! Seeing him truly “living his best life” feels like a breath of fresh air. Perhaps going through the things he has gone through this year is making him live life to the fullest. He is really an inspiration for me and I am sure for all of us really. Burrito is that bright light that everyone needs right now.
So, now that I am done with the sappy stuff. For those who may be new to the blog, enrichment is very important for chimps who live in captivity. Enrichment comes in many forms. For example, Honey B loves those giant rolls of construction paper. We will put that out for her to nest with or roll around in. We also put out enrichment everyday with a variety of different toys, dolls (of course), and other chimp approved materials. We have themed days so no day is the same. Monotony is boring! Enrichment can sometimes be social, like interacting with caregivers or saying hello to some neighboring chimps or cattle. Then there are things like food puzzles, where the chimps have to work to figure out the puzzle to get the nut or peanut butter. And let’s not forget the amazing Young’s Hill with all its climbing structures either! I hope you all enjoy this video of Burrito playing in a cardboard box!
Here is Mave working on a firehose cube:
