The secret life of keeper pockets

Laundry day. My most dreaded day of the week. There are very few things that can make it enjoyable. But when you work as an Animal Care Specialist, even something as ordinary as doing laundry can become an adventure. Work clothes get their own special laundry basket—and let me tell you why.

Come along with me, Senior Bird Keeper Kelsey M., as I walk you through laundry day as an Animal Care Specialist.

Keepers are known for their cargo pants, and there’s a reason why this stereotype rings true throughout the animal care field: pockets! When you spend your days maintaining habitats, training animals, and facilitating the breeding of many different species, every pocket is valuable real estate.

When you’re halfway up a 12-foot ladder with a drill in one hand and a perch in the other, having screws and washers conveniently within reach is a must. Just don’t forget to take them out before you head home. I learned the hard way that a single-three-inch screw can blow up your dryer.

Working with birds means I must have snacks on me ALL the time. No, not for me, unfortunately. I can find those snacks overflowing on our office table or in the always-refreshed cake container in the fridge. (Thanks Uncle James and Auntie Lauren!) The snacks in my pockets are for the hundreds of birds we take care of at Zoo Atlanta. If a bird does something I want to reinforce, I don’t want to find myself empty handed. Land on the scale? Pocket treat! Go through the shift door when called? Pocket treat! Target? You guessed it. Pocket treat.

Now, it sounds like my pockets should be emptied out by now, right? Not necessarily. Sometimes, our little feathered friends don’t do the behaviors we ask of them. And that’s OK! That little treat just goes back in the pocket. (Don’t worry, we’ll try again later).

It’s also important to leave some pocket space open because you’ll never know what you’ll need the space for throughout the day. If you see someone walking through the Zoo with golf balls in their pockets, it’s probably me! And I promise you, I have never—and will never—play a single round of golf in my life.

But dummy eggs? Those are in my wheelhouse. Once a bird is finished incubating their dummy eggs, I gather them up and distribute them throughout several pockets. Our white-faced whistling ducks have had up to 15 eggs at once before! That’s a lot of pocket real estate.

And then there are the things we simply forget we put in there.

I asked my team about some of the strangest things they’ve found in their pockets after they got home. The list included frozen mice, syringes, medication bottles, a ½C measuring cup, and fecal collectors (full fecal collectors, might I add).

So, laundry day can be a bit of a scavenger hunt when you spend your days taking care of birds at the Zoo. As you can imagine, I have learned to thoroughly check my pockets before running any load of laundry. Ever washed and dried a frozen mouse before? Fortunately, I haven’t either, but I might know a guy, and the results aren’t great.

So, the next time you see a keeper sporting a pair of cargo pants, just remember: Those pockets are doing a lot more work than you might think.

Kelsey M.
Senior Keeper, Bird Team