Tuesday, June 10, 2008

The Very Hungry Snake

We have loved going to the homeschool zoo classes at our local zoo! This week however, was a little more exciting than we anticipated! The class was about animals in the rainforest. First the teacher read a story about the rainforest...


Next comes the part where we get to see and touch the rainforest animals...First Miss Meg brought out the hissing cockroaches to pet!
Next came the Rainbow Boa Constrictor...He slithered under the chair while the teacher told us about him. I snapped the following picture as the teacher was trying to unwrap the snake from the chair. I didn't get any more pictures of this part, as a few seconds after this one, that naughty boa chomped it's teeth into Meg's finger, and decided not let go!
**Now for the safety tip of the day: Meg, remaining amazingly calm, asked me -the brave zoo keeper rescuer- (ha ha!) to fill a nearby jug of water, and then pour it down the snakes throat! Thankfully it worked and the snake finally let go! We summoned another zoo keeper to come help, and that was the end of the snake show for the day! The kids watched quietly the whole time, but this gave us quite the exciting story to tell later on!!

All the zoo keepers were very surprised that this snake bit! It's been handled many times by Meg, and others, and has never bitten anyone! It was a very hot day (95 degrees) and they think the animals were probably all a little stressed. BTW, it had just been fed not too long ago, so he should not have been hungry! I don't think he'll be out to play any time soon! I think this one has probably lost his outing privileges!
We also got a private tour of the monkeys and also the new zoo renovations for more rainforest animals.

Last we got to see parrot feathers, and primate bones. We also made rainforest pictures to bring home.
What an exciting day!

2 comments:

Robbie Isbell said...

I'll bet all the kids folded their arms when they saw the snake tried to take in a finger! I would! Did Miss Meg have to be rushed to hospital or something?

Ree said...

The kids were very serious, but very calm!

Thankfully, Miss Meg is doing just fine! (We saw her today, and her finger has healed quite nicely!) This type of snake does not have venom, so no hospital visit was required!