Hello Everyone,

Please meet Chi Chi, our new arrival. She is an 18 year old white handed lar gibbon, (Black!), who weighs about 18 lbs like Tang and is very vocal with a lovely voice. She was unable to sustain her last two pregnancies due to a condition known as placenta previa. She had little to no monetary value to her breeders at this point, so since she was “unproductive” she was to be culled…

We will not dwell on the circumstances that lead to her arrival here other than to say that we were rushing to meet a literal deadline to bring her in, so we hurriedly constructed a small cage for the spiders to use temporarily, Koan and Kelpie are not thrilled, but they are going to get a lovely new 30+ foot cage in the very near future, (when funds and labor permit!), so they simply have to deal. We then gave their big cage to the new gibbon so if we had a named storm come along before we could get the spiders cage done,, we could physically accomodate all involved. Kelpie and Koan can be handled and moved to safety manually, where the new gibbon would require much more stressful capture and containment. This way, Chi Chi has a lovely secure nighthouse for safety in the event of a storm

Chi Chi is very sweet and seems to be adapting well to her new surroundings, but never having had a nighthouse before, she is not so sure what to do there. She loves her shelf and her little hanging rings. So far we know she loves sweet potatoes, (cooked only!) and mangoes are good. Apparently her diet has been limited and she is still not sure if some things are safe…peas, bok choy and honeydew are being eyed with suspicion, along with brocolli, califlower and kiwi…to mention a few. Tamarind seeds are a big yes! (Thank you Diane and Debbie for those!!)

We hope some of you can join us for a cage raising for Kelpie and Koan on Saturday the 26th from 8 AM til ?? and Sunday the 27th as we erect the new cage for the spiders. Man power will be needed to carry and place the large cage panels into place. In the mean time, we are moving forward with the night house accomodations, such as flooring, interior cage welding etc… The new cage will be dressed with barrels, brachiating poles, fire hose for swinging and so on… The two little spider monkeys will be grateful for your help, (as will we!!)

See you all soon,

Debbie M.
The Talkin’ Monkeys Project, Inc.