Marshall asked the crowd what they thought Caa might like to dine on.

“Mouses,” one of the children answered.

“Yes,” Marshall said. “That’s what they eat.”

The zoo feeds the snake once a week, two frozen mice per slither buffet.

-Messenger photo by Hans Madsen
Avery Akins, 5, of Harcourt, gets a little help with her hand raising for a question from her grandmother, Deb Coughlon, of Gowrie, during a visit from Blank Park Zoo educator Melissa Marshall and some of the zoo’s animals at the Heartland Community Room.

“They’re not alive,” she said of the mice. “We heat them up though, which is super gross.”

In the wild, or with a live mouse, Caa would of course have to take steps to get dinner to stop moving.

“She gives them a great big hug before she eats them,” she said.

While Caa the snake was the grand finale to her presentation, she led off with Linguini — a domesticated rat.

“He’s domesticated,” Marshall said. “They need us to take care of them.”

-Messenger photo by Hans Madsen
Melissa Marshall, an educator with the Blank Park Zoo, holds onto Linguini, a domestic rat she brought along Wednesday during a presentation hosted by Gowrie Public Library in the Heartland Community Room.

At the zoo, Linguini lives with his friend Alfredo.

“In the morning when we come in they’re waiting for us to bring them a snack,” she said. “He lives a nice and easy life of eating and cuddling with his brother.”

As she talked about Linguini, he cuddled up in her arm.

“They’re kind of like little puppies,” she said. “They’re very cuddly.”

Rats, according to Marshall, have an excellent sense of smell.

-Messenger photo by Hans Madsen
Melissa Marshall, an educator with the Blank Park Zoo, shows off Henrietta, a silky bantam chicken during her presentation in the Heartland Community Room in Gowrie Wednesday.

“He can smell really well,” she said. “In some places they’ve been trained to sniff out bombs. Instead of a police dog they’ll have a police rat.”

The children got to guess at his diet too.

“Cheese, grass, sunflower seeds, chips,” they shouted out.

“Nope,” she said. “What he does like is a bunch of veggies and rodent pellets. We also give him frozen peas.”

The one thing Linguini has never had — linguine.

“I don’t believe he’s had linguine,” she said.

Her next animal was Cherry.

“He’s a tomato frog,” she said. “She’s bright red and she looks just like a tomato. Her sister’s name is Roma.”

The species is only found in Madagascar and yes, she’s mildly poisonous. The species secretes a milky substance that isn’t good for you.

“She’s only dangerous if I took a bite out of her or licked her,” Marshall said. “I’m not going to be licking any frogs today.”

Her main diet is crickets.

He habit of hopping would be tiring.

“Can you imagine jumping everywhere you go,” she said. “I’d get really tired.”

The avian world was represented by Henrietta, a silky bantam chicken.

Her species is raised more for show than anything else.

“She actually has a bluish black skin and meat,” she said. “You’d be eating blue meat. They’re used more for show chickens and they’re not the best at laying eggs either.”

The bird is more feathers than chicken and getting one wet is a bad idea.

“If she got wet she would look like a sad little puff ball,” Marshall said. “We would have to dry her off with a towel or a hair dryer.”

Deb Coughlon, of Gowrie, brought her granddaughter, Avery Akins, 5, of Harcourt, to see the animals.

Akins’ favorite?

“The chicken,” she said.

She got to touch Caa the snake.

“He was bumpy,” she said. “Not gross.”

Coughlon liked the tomato frog.

She, too, petted Caa.

“I found it was kind of dry with a little bit of slime,” she said. “But smooth.”

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