Nijeeah's husbandry duties

So I guess I'd consider myself rather lucky, being that I've only had one husbandry duty thus far. Perhaps I wouldn't consider myself that lucky because that duty was to clean the snake cages. At this point, I've sort of conquered my fear of snakes. It's actually my favorite thing to do now, handle the big snakes (but shhhh....let's keep that on the D.L.).

So with cleaning the cages, the plus side is also getting some snake time. The downfall being that the actual cleaning part. There I was on Monday afternoon in classroom A with my fellow high school intern Kieontay, as well as the almighty Kate. I was prepared to take down these snakes and their cages until we happened across George's [Eastern king snake] cage, which read "Some privacy please. It's time for me to regrow my skin." We took a peak in and there it was on one side, George, and the other side, his shed. It was pretty cool, that is until we opened the glass window of his cage. We were then bombarded by this wretched smell. I guess that's what you get when he's been fed and he's gone a few times. But I didn't let this stop me. I came with a purpose and a goal and I was ready to accomplish this task. Or so I thought. I preceded to reach me hand in (once George was removed) and take out the contaminated newspapers when my hand actually met a large chunk of the famous Eastern king snake's fecal matter. I was completely grossed out of course but Kieontay and I continued to tackle this cage, one piece of poop at a time. We felt quite accomplished when the mission was completed.

-Nijeeah