Welcome back to Animal Wonders.  Some of you may have seen me mention some enclosure improvements a month or so ago, and with so much going on around here, I haven't had the chance to share them with you yet, so today I'm going to give you a little tour of Lollipop the skunk's new home.

(Intro)

Lollipop is our striped skunk.  She's five years old and very much settled into her individual personality and how she engages with the world and those around her.  Lollipop has been housed inside since she came to live at Animal Wonders, but I've always made sure she got outside on walks, exploring the forest as often as possible.

I've been interested in moving her outside for a couple years now, and we've finally been able to make it happen, so let's go check out her new space.  Now, when I say she's outside, I mean she's exposed to fresh air and gets to experience all of the seasons.  She also gets to have a completely natural light cycle, which is so important for animals and difficult to replicate with an indoor enclosure.  

The other thing that you can see is that she's not completely out in the open.  Her enclosure is protected by a sturdy roof and a solid wall, which is really important for our Montana winters.  Skunks don't like deep snow and if we didn't have a sturdy roof, it would collapse under the heavy snowfall.  

Lollipop is sleeping snug and cozy in this little den box we made her.  How are you doing, pretty girl?  Oh, hi.  Lollipop is really enjoying all the new sights and smells and we're watching her carefully to make sure she's staying healthy and isn't too stressed out by the change.  

The transition to being outside was specifically timed for late summer/early autumn so she could really acclimate to the fluctuations in temperature.  The days are hotter than her old indoor enclosure and the nights are cooler, and to make sure she's staying warm enough, we've given her several comfy beds to snuggle into, and one of them has a heat pad if she feels the need to be extra warm.

Since it's the end of summer, the days aren't overwhelmingly hot, but if she does feel like she's getting too toasty, she has access to a cement wall and stone floor which keep her cool.  Skunks have bare pads on their feet so standing on a cool spot feels just as good to them as it does to us.  Let's keep going on this little tour and check out some more features of this enclosure.

She has lots of toys.  She really likes stuffed animals which she can push around and shove into things.  She has plenty of furniture that she likes to climb on and under and she has this nice little hut that we use for foraging.  Her mind and body crave digging and ripping and foraging for things, so all the stuff in her enclosure is used to that end.  She mostly uses her awesome claws and her sharp teeth to get ahold of something and rip it apart, and over there is her digging play box so she can get her paws dirty.  

The reason that we don't have a full dirt floored enclosure is because we want to make sure we can get her home really clean if she makes a mess with some juicy fruit or decides to pee and poop everywhere.  We always make sure Lollipop has plenty of blankets because she really likes snuggling up in them and you can't really see them because they're all shoved in this box over here.

I've also give her climbing logs so that she has to use her exploration skills and flexible body to maneuver around them.  This will keep her body and mind healthy and active.  

Skunks love their food so much that it's easy for them to become overweight very quickly.  It's even a problem in wild skunks if they have an abundant food source.  If they do become overweight, it puts a lot of strain on their organs and it decreases their lifespan, so the logs and all the rest of the furniture in here helps keep her active and healthy and because she can engage in the natural behavior of foraging, she's happy too.

Well, as you can see, Lollipop is pretty sleepy.  All she wants to do is curl up in her cozy blankets and sleep the day away.  She'll be awake and active this evening and ready to investigate all of the new things I'm going to do to her enclosure right now.

I have a lot of fun trying to make things interesting for her, so I've got some fun toys for her.  She likes stuffed animals.  Look at this.  So, I wanna see what she does with this stuffed toy.  She tries to get these little guys out of there.  I have some treats that I'm going to hide inside of this so that she has to rip it apart to get to 'em and I'm gonna wrap that in a little blanket.  She has to really smell for it.  It's just another fun blanket, she can do whatever she wants with that.  Hide these in here, and this has a little bit of stuffing in there.  I'm interested to see if she pulls it out and like, uses it, or if she just like, shoves it to the side.  Alright, here's her foraging bin.  It actually has a paper bag just crumpled up inside there so there's lots of folds to have to maneuver the food out of, and I'm going to actually bury some food in here so she has to really look at how to get it, and the last thing (?~5:01) little fish there.  There we go.

I'll try and get some footage of her checking out all of her new things tonight and if I get the footage, here it is.  

(the footage)

Thanks for letting me share Lollipop's new home with you.  If you love Lollipop and want to get something special just for her, you can go to our Amazon wishlist and pick it out yourself, and if you'd like to go on more animal adventures, don't forget to subscribe.  Thanks.  

(Endscreen/Credits)