Hi guys.  We're here at Animal Wonders.  We're in the cavy romping room.  This is Kizmit, the African crested porcupine and Chili Pepper the Patagonian cavy is hanging out back here.  Hi, buddy.  He'll come and join us.  There he is!  Today we're going to do something a little bit different.  Oh, he's cleaning his toes, guys.  I don't know if you can see that, but it is adorable.  

We are going to be answering some questions that people have Tweeted me and while we hang out with these guys and that's what we're gonna do today.  It's gonna be fun.

(Intro)

Right now, Kizzy is chewing on my pants.  I'm going to attempt to keep petting her while I get my phone out and get our first question.  Hi.  

What are some of Kizmit's favorite things? 
Let's see, she loves to chew on everything, so she likes wood.  You can see she's ripped off a bunch of this bark here.  She likes tearing apart grass, things like this.  She loves food.  Right now she's chewing on the tripod.  Sorry, guys.  A bumpy ride there.  She's a rodent so that's just like, she loves to just chew on things, so it's, it's fun to give her new things to chew on.  Sometimes she chews on my shoes or me or she also likes grooming me.  Can you guys hear her?  She's doing little groomings.

Alright, let's go to our next question.  What's the most difficult part of caring for Kizmit?
Along the same lines, providing enough things to keep her stimulated.  She has very, very strong incisors, so she can chew through a lot.  She's chewed through--hey, there you go--wooden planks that we had up.  We have everything covered in metal now because she just loves to chew so much, so we give her wooden blocks and tons of sticks and cardboard, she likes destroying cardboard, so I would say just keeping her stimulated, making sure she doesn't get bored, hurt herself trying to chew on things that she shouldn't be.  

Alright, let's go to my next question.  How old is Chili Pepper?  
He was born in, oh, now I forget his birthday.  July, I believe, and he is six and a half years old, so this coming summer, he's going to be seven.  

Oh, Kizzy is at the tripod again.

Is there a story behind the Animal Wonders logo?  How come you chose a monkey and who designed it?
Well, the logo is the Nazca Lines, one of the Nazca Lines, and we modified it just a little bit.  We took out like a funky toe or something like that and one of our friends originally designed, made the original design and then that was changed as we got a really cool marketing grant and that's when it became orange and the reason we chose that was because my husband Augusto, co-founder of Animal Wonders, he's Peruvian and he really likes primates and it's kind of a natural fit, you know?   Nazca Lines are in Peru and it's a primate.

Ooh, if you were not running Animal Wonders--oh, I got one of them chewing on my--don't chew on those cords.  The next one is, if you were not running Animal Wonders, what would you want your current job to be?  
If I could have any job in the world, I'd probably want to go out and explore wild places and see what wild animals were doing, ones that we haven't studied a lot, like the red eyed crocodile skink, but I don't know.  I love teaching a ton and like really getting feedback from audiences, so you know, teaching?  Maybe I would combine the two and be a teacher during the school year and during the summer, I would be an explorer.  I'd be Indiana Jones.  

How do you combine family and work?  Do your kids help out with the care of the animals?
I love that question 'cause anyone who's had kids know that "help" isn't really helping.  I mean, they're adorable like, trying to sweep something into a dustpan, but it doesn't really work out that way, so "sure", they "help" take care of the animals, uh-huh.

How's it going with our beloved baby beaver?
Oh, I have to keep telling people he's a baby beaver 'cause he's gotten so big, they think he's not a baby anymore, but he's only five months old and he's huge.  He is.  He's like 15 lbs and he looks, he looks big but he's gonna get like, four times as big as that, so he's doing really good.  He's adjusting to the winter, like, it didn't even phase him.  He's just like, what, 20 degrees?  I'm gonna go swimming, I don't care.

How big will Kizmit get and will she need a bigger enclosure?
She's pretty much topped out.  She is just over a year old.  She turned a year in early November.  Hi, sweetheart, your quills are in my calf.  In general, at about two years old, they're going to max out on their size, so you know, this is, this is pretty much what she's gonna be, but she may, she may grow in girth a little bit and maybe just a slight bit bigger and she will not need a new enclosure.  This space is just fine for her.  We've even purchased her her official crate which hangs out in here with her and she just goes in and out and gets really comfortable with it.  It's huge.  It is chew-proof, and it gives her a nice, nice bit of space to travel in.

And last one, if you could have a dinosaur, which one would you pick?
Well, that's easy.  I would have one that I could actually have, a peregrine falcon would be super cool, because birds are modern day dinosaurs, but if I could have like, an old fashioned dinosaur, I don't know, deinonychus would be really, really cool.  I mean, not like, T-Rex or something like that, 'cause that would be awful to clean up the poo, so yeah.  Yeah.  A deinonychus.

Thanks for hanging out with Chili Pepper and Kizmit and me answering all these questions and thank you guys for everyone that asked those questions.  This was really fun.  I didn't get chewed on too much.  Here you go, bud, yeah.  It was fun.  We should do this again sometime.  Thanks, guys.  

(Endscreen/Credits)