This is Capi, the first arrival of the new year. A horribly emaciated Keel Billed Toucan. For comparison I have put another photo of one of our toucans that is about the same age as Capi. All her colors are totally off, she is pure bones. She came from a drug raid in the port of Limon. Her brother unfortunately did not make it and he died before they could bring them to us. Very Sad, I start off my New Year's blog with Capi because THIS IS WHY WE STARTED THE TOUCAN RESCUE RANCH TO CARE FOR THESE BEAUTIFUL ABUSED TOUCANS.
She is so thin I can actually see the veins going thru her beak, she is one of the worst cases we have received. Already her yellow feathers are looking better after only one week, so I will be posting frequent updates on her for all to see.
More toucans arrived yesterday from Minae. These young Swainson's came in
malnurished, with the wing and tail feathers all cut up...and guess what...the first time I have seen this horrible practice...look carefully, they CUT HIS UPPER BEAK. Whom ever had him was afaid he might bite them. Someone who attended a tour recently asked me if this was a normal practice because they had seen some other toucans in Costa Rica with beak trims...I had not heard of this before, but she was right...here he is. Fortunately we chop the fruit in large enough pieces for him to pick up without any problems if he were out in the wild he might have trouble with little berries. Below is one of our toucans for comparison, these look like black and white versions of the Real birds.
Issy's enclosure is a work in progress, we are adding more vines and branches and a tire swing....and she is always very excited to make the work impossible and just hug Jorge :)
Sunday morning around 8am the phone rang and Jorge answered, he said, yes, we have toucans...yes, we have sloths...Oh no...Oh no...hummmm, yes I see...by that point I was making hand signs to him to see what was going on...
The phone call was about a baby sloth that was high up in a tree on this man's farm. His rottweiler had killed the sloth's mother and the baby was crying. They cut a long branch and got the baby out of the tree and they were calling us to bring him over. He came from Moravia that is about 20 min. away. The dog also suffered wounds and they were on their way to take the dog to their vet.
A very nice man and his son in law showed up with the baby who weighs 900 grams. (the same size as Milo when he came in) a bit larger than Twili who weighs 600grams. The little one, named Ty has a bite in his neck and ear, and an infection from a large Tick that we removed. I was in a bit of a panic last night when I took his temperature and was on the phone to our wonderful vet Janet at 10:30pm. A sleepless night (of course, we have sloths!) but this morning his temperature had returned to normal. Here is a photo of our vet Janet and her partner in practice Gaby examining little Ty. He is now on antibiotics and we hope he tolerates them well.
When we do tours people often ask us how we support our efforts, we survive on donations and our B+B for income. The majority of our costs are out of pocket. Our Vets are wonderful, but not cheap and we are constantly needing funding for all the vet care that they provide, and that our animals need.
The first night I had him in this box with blankets and he woke up and decided the stool made a good jungle gym.
Jorge had to babysit little Ty all day sunday, when he wasn't sleeping he was crying from all the trauma and changes, and would fall asleep again only when Jorge held him. He is now doing better and has adapted to new sights, sounds and food.
A very busy start to a new year! Our guest house is now complete, will write in the next blog about our guests at Christmas, we were full and had some wonderful people visit, and will post some photos of the completed new little house.
Once again I feel blessed to be here and able to help and validated in our work here at
The Toucan Rescue Ranch. Happy New Year!
