Hi guys.  Welcome back to Animal Wonders.  I'm Jessi and I thought you guys might like an update on Huckleberry, our beaver.  I have to clean out his bedding, 'cause he's made it pretty dirty and I thought you guys might like to tag along.

(Intro)

First, I'm gonna go say hi to him so I don't startle him, but I want to bring him his breakfast first.  Yeah, you wanna come on out?  Wanna say hi to everyone?  I have your favorite foods here.  Oh, you tell me about it, you grumpy guy.  You just want your food.  Here you go.  Yeah.  

It's nearing the end of winter, but it's been really cold and Huckleberry, he doesn't care about the cold so he keeps going in his water and then he comes out all sopping wet and then it just freezes.  This is where it's getting real dirty over here, 'cause this is where he comes out of his pool.  Buddy.  I can't do anything about that in the freezing cold.

Alright, mostly what I'm trying to clean out is any of this bedding or substrate that may have been soiled from him climbing out of his pool, because beavers poop in their water and he makes it really dirty, so I wanna make sure that he has the cleanest possible space.  This is a temporary enclosure.  It was actually made for an American mink, but our mink passed away and Huckleberry was rescued and so we've made use of it, so the struggles that we're having with this enclosure, namely it having a cement floor, it won't be a problem because very soon, he's going to get a new home.

You can see he's made, like, these big piles in here and shoved things into the corners and around rocks and essentially, he's doing what a beaver should do.  He's practicing building a lodge and he'd be doing that all winter long, reinforcing his lodge, making sure it's nice and cozy because he doesn't want to get cold in the winter.  Those of you who think that Huckleberry's cute and might have dreams of having a beaver of your own, we clean this like, every week and it is just, it's a lot of urine and poop water.  Don't ever forget poop water.

You can see it's icy right here and that's not from his water dish.  That's actually his frozen pee because he thinks it's a good idea, I guess, or just doesn't even care, more that he doesn't care, he just pees wherever he wants to and when we come close, he gets excited and he wants to come see us and then he pees, and so he's peeing right here on the front, which again, we get to wait to clean until we have a nice warm day and it thaws out, but until then, I'm just gonna cover it with a whole bunch of new shavings and hopefully he'll leave them there.  

So mostly I want this, all this bedding is to soak up whatever water he's bringing out of the--his little pool and kind of giving him a thermal layer or a barrier against the cement down here.  We're also gonna use some forest floor here.  This is cypress mulch.  Break this open.  This is actually a donation from one of our awesome supporters from our Amazon wishlist.  You guys can see how we use it for these guys, for Huckleberry.  He goes through this quite a bit and what he's going to do is just move this around wherever he wants to put it to help him build his little, his little lodge.  What do you think, buddy?  You got all new bedding.  Guys, look what he's doing.  He is totally making it his home, and you, you little troublemaker, look, he's pushing it all away from the front of the door.  Is that to your liking, buddy?  Ope, not quite.  That looks nice.  Good job.  

Alright, now that we're nice and clean, I'm gonna go get some more things for him to play with.  You guys all know that beavers chew on wood and they actually eat the layer right underneath the bark.  That's a huge source of their nutrition in the wintertime, so we also give him branches, and there we go, we have a nice, comfy, clean, and cozy beaver home.  Thank you guys for hanging out with me and seeing how Huckleberry is doing.  He is growing fast.  He's gonna get huge, so I just wanted to keep checking in on him and let you guys see how he's been growing.  

Thank you guys so much.  If you want to go on an adventure with us every week, subscribe to our YouTube channel, AnimalWondersMontana.  Thanks guys. 

(Outro/Credits)