One of Steve’s job duties at the zoo is to bring in new enclosure design methods. He is also to start teaching the zoo staff how to construct electric fences. An opportunity has already arisen for him to start this work. The porcupines needed a new outdoor enclosure. Due to the winter weather here, many animals just would not survive if they were kept outside all year round. They have heated indoor areas for winter and are brought to outdoor enclosures as soon as the weather is good enough. An area of the zoo, previously used for tortoises had already been selected for the porcupines, so Steve got to work building the first electric (or “Hot-wire”) fence ever at Kyiv Zoo!
Apparently electric fences are not used much for livestock in Ukraine, so sourcing the correct equipment was a bit of a mission. Fortunately all the essential components could be bought. It didn’t take him long to get the enclosure and fence completed. As the zoo has never had such a fence before, some of the keepers were understandably nervous about the fence and worried that it would hurt the animals. Steve explained many times that it was just a minor shock and would absolutely not hurt; the animals would get a minor shock and then learn to avoid the fence. One of the Department Heads offered to test the fence so he could check if it was ok. After a few minutes of plucking up enough courage, he put his hand on the fence, got shocked and pronounced that he was happy with the fence!
Once all that was completed, we could start with Steve’s plans for furnishing the enclosure. Porcupines like to dig, they are mostly nocturnal and they like to hide – not an easy species to develop a good enclosure for. Steve started with a large metal tunnel as a hiding place for the animals, carefully placed so they could hide in it and still be visible to the visitors. He then ordered 15 tonnes of soil, much to the bemusement of zoo staff – they couldn’t figure out what he was going to do with all of it. It was a huge pile, even I couldn’t see where it would all go, but Steve had a plan. Mostly it involved us and a few keepers shovelling the soil into wheelbarrows, dragging it into the enclosure and putting it where Steve wanted! So, we started by completely burying the tunnel and Steve arranged logs around it so the soil would stay in place. Steve then created a series of hills and mounds with the soil and I jumped up and down on the hills to pack the soil down! Great fun! We finished about 8 hours later by covering the floor of the enclosure with a deep layer of soil, more logs and some HUGE rocks brought as a special gift to the porcupines by the education officer. Totally exhausting day but a fantastic enclosure! I ached for almost two days. Thank goodness for long bank holiday weekends.
Apparently electric fences are not used much for livestock in Ukraine, so sourcing the correct equipment was a bit of a mission. Fortunately all the essential components could be bought. It didn’t take him long to get the enclosure and fence completed. As the zoo has never had such a fence before, some of the keepers were understandably nervous about the fence and worried that it would hurt the animals. Steve explained many times that it was just a minor shock and would absolutely not hurt; the animals would get a minor shock and then learn to avoid the fence. One of the Department Heads offered to test the fence so he could check if it was ok. After a few minutes of plucking up enough courage, he put his hand on the fence, got shocked and pronounced that he was happy with the fence!
Once all that was completed, we could start with Steve’s plans for furnishing the enclosure. Porcupines like to dig, they are mostly nocturnal and they like to hide – not an easy species to develop a good enclosure for. Steve started with a large metal tunnel as a hiding place for the animals, carefully placed so they could hide in it and still be visible to the visitors. He then ordered 15 tonnes of soil, much to the bemusement of zoo staff – they couldn’t figure out what he was going to do with all of it. It was a huge pile, even I couldn’t see where it would all go, but Steve had a plan. Mostly it involved us and a few keepers shovelling the soil into wheelbarrows, dragging it into the enclosure and putting it where Steve wanted! So, we started by completely burying the tunnel and Steve arranged logs around it so the soil would stay in place. Steve then created a series of hills and mounds with the soil and I jumped up and down on the hills to pack the soil down! Great fun! We finished about 8 hours later by covering the floor of the enclosure with a deep layer of soil, more logs and some HUGE rocks brought as a special gift to the porcupines by the education officer. Totally exhausting day but a fantastic enclosure! I ached for almost two days. Thank goodness for long bank holiday weekends.
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