Comments On: Apes and Monkeys

Primate Housing-- Choosing Cage Wire by Patricia Blancaneaux
* Several points can be addressed when choosing a cage wire for monkey enclosures. These include cost, what size and strength mesh is appropriate for the kind of monkey you have and how durable the wire is.
* Chainlink- This is a woven wire that requires stretching onto metal or wooden frames. Because there are no welds to break, chainlink is a very durable wire. Also, chainlink does not rust or deteriorate, making it a good long term investment.
Standard size chainlink is used for adult capuchins, guenons (Trouble's cage), spiders, macaques and apes-but squirrel monkeys, especially when young, and infants of other species can climb out through the wide mesh! Chainlink does come in a smaller mesh, which will hold adult squirrel monkeys and some infants. It is also more expensive. Both of these wires come with vinyl coating-an additional expense. What is the advantage of vinyl coating? Perhaps it is a little more temperate for little monkey hands-also more attractive to most people. Coated chainlink wire can be ordered in green or black.
*Welded Wire
Welded wire comes in a variety of gages-the smaller the number, the heavier the wire. With a cage built of 16 gage wire stretched on wooden frames, one monkey owner had a number of welds break fairly quickly with use from capuchins and guenons. A carpenter advised that if the wire had been more tightly stretched, it probably would have held up better. Not wanting to risk the possibility of more broken wire, a heavier gage was used for the next cage.
Twelve gage wire is a sturdy wire for even large spiders and macaques. With welded wire, vinyl coating serves more of a purpose than with chainlink. I would highly recommend buying welded wire with vinyl coating. The first roll of 12 gage wire I used had rusted at the joints while standing outside for approximately 6 months in the weather-even before a cage was built from it. This happened quickly because the water hung onto the roll more than it would hang onto a cage wall, but it shows what can happen as welded wire ages in weather. Not only was it unsightly, but on its way to deteriorating, so the roll was not even used. Vinyl coating eliminates the rust problem. It is more expensive, but people, it is also the most attractive choice for cage wire. It comes in green and black, both environmentally compatible. Black seems to show soiling less, so I prefer it over green.
I used the following meshes-2 x 2" and 2 x 4" in 16 gage and had a lot of weld breaking with 6-10 pound monkeys. Again, the most satisfactory wire for me has been the 12 gage 1" x 2" black vinyl coated wire. This size holds even infant squirrel monkeys and to most people, it is also the most attractive choice for cage wire. it comes in green and black, both environmentally compatible. Black seems to show soiling less, so most people prefer it over green. The following are meshes used by myself or friends-2" x 2" and 2" x 4" in 16 gage and had a lot of weld breaking with 6-10 pound monkeys. Again, the most satisfactory wire seems to be the 12 gage 1" x 2" in the color black. While holding infant primates and allowing human observers a fairly good view of the cage's inhabitants, it is sturdy enough for large 20 to 30 pound monkeys to hang from without breaking. As an even more impressive test of its strength and durability, the hamadryas baboons at a local zoo are also caged with this same vinyl coated wire I" x 2 " 14 gage wire.
For spiders (and other big monkeys who like to hug), 2" x 2" might preferable to 1" x 2"-that is-if you want to let them reach their thick upper arms out in order to give hugs. While some hardware stores carry limited supplies and types of wire, special wire outlets such as Flynn & Enslow in San Francisco, California, can be found in the yellow pages under wire. Brad and Trouble
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BI LLIE By Carl and Darline Rimensberger
This is more of an escape from the long arm of the law. Up until about three years ago our weeper capuchin Billie was not kept caged. We let her run free outside. She just stayed in our yard and the next-door neighbor's yard. Sometimes it was a little difficult to get her to come home, but she never ventured away from the two yards. About half the time she was on top of the roofs of the two homes. The neighbor's house had a skinny tree about 25 feet tall with no branches. Billie loved to climb to the top and then leap to the.roof-top. The tree was more like a pole and would sway back and forth about 10 feet at the top, and it was the funniest thing to watch her.
One day a man came to our front door on business. As I opened the door he extended his hand to shake mine. Billie was on our roof observing. She is very protective of me did not approve of anyone touching me., so she leaped down from the roof and nipped him. She didn't even break the skin, but the man was so apprehensive about it that he consulted his doctor. Two days later we got a call from the Animal Control officer. He said to say goodbye to Billie as she would have to be picked up, killed and tested for rabies. I argued with the officer, telling him that Darline had been bitten dozens of times with no rabies consequences. Billie thinks that I'm her mother and has never bitten me in all her seven years. Every time that I scold her or admonish her in any way she will run over and bite Darline. I can't hand Darline the phone or anything, and any contact is not approved by her. The officer said the law is very strict. Any time a human is bitten by an animal, that animal must be tested for rabies, which is done by examining the brain.
There is no way we could have allowed that, so we quickly put Billie in her carrying cage, put the cage in the car, got our toothbrushes, notified our daughters and headed for the state line in Nevada. We also contacted Judy Rettig to see if she could take Billie for a while. We stayed in Nevada for one night and then came back to a motel in Salt Lake, not daring to return to our home. Then we made arrangements for a plane ride for Billie. Our son-in-law took her to the airport and she was off to Indiana.
I spoke with Alex Fraser in New York several times for suggestions. He apparently notified Kevin Ivester in Georgia and soon after I received from Kevin literature stating that simians could not transmit rabies. A copy of that information was sent to the Animal Control Board with the note that we did not have Billie anymore--she had been shipped back to her birthplace in Indiana.
Meanivhile I was given a citation and had to appear in the Third Judicial Circuit Court, state of Utah, before Judge R. Reese. I had to get an attorney and he entered a plea of not guilty and requested that the matter be set for pre-trial conference. At the conference hearing I appeared before the judge, who then pronounced a penalty of a $3OO fine plus a suspended ten days in jail. Several weeks later we flew to Indiana and brought Billie back home. Since then we keep her in a cage all the time, one indoors and one outdoors. Brad and Trouble
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In The Wild -- Tail Of The African Guenon (By Sanderson)
With aggravating persistence, troops of monkeys crossed my path, swinging and crashing through the trees, sending a cascade of shimmering leaves billowing away as they passed. Uttering little conversational croaks, they ran along monstrous branches, their tails looped behind them--animated jugs of exotic design with fantastic handles.
At one time I was standing immediately beneath a troop of green monkeys with white noses (Cercopithecus nictitans). I watched them stripping the thin bark off young shoots, which they gobbled greedily--although succulent fruits were within reach all about them!
I started wondering whether people really understood the use of this monkey's tail. Only in South America do monkeys use their tails in a prehensile manner, grasping branches when all their hands and feet are otherwise occupied. Zoologists say that the long, straight tail of the African Monkey is used for balance.
I watched this troop of putty-nosed guenons feeding and saw them moving about their daily business. The trees stood side by side in ranks, their foliage sometimes intertwined. Still, great chasms constantly lay across the monkeys' paths, which they crossed in flying leaps.
To accomplish this, the monkeys take a short run, jump upwards with their arms outspread as in a swallow dive, and sail head- long through the air. This is the point at which the tail comes into play. By its long, trailing weight, it soon alters the monkey's position from a nose-dive to a perpendicular position analogous to our upright stance. The monkey then lands, not on top of the branch, as one might assume, but on the side of a mass of leaves and smaller twigs--with its arms and legs spread-eagle fashion. It grasps the foliage in an all-embracing hug and then scrambles to safety.
Brad and Trouble who I have seen gracefully spreading his arms with his tail sailing behind him in a free fall leap.
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TRINKET By Ruanne Hollander
In the Spring of 1971, after spending the afternoon at a small neighborhood attraction known as the Tropic Gardens Zoo watching and feeding Corn Kix to a chattering band of free-roaming squirrel monkeys, I did what I had known in my mind all along that I would probably do--go next door to the Tropic Gardens Pet Shop and purchase the one squirrel monkey that they had for sale. Inconceivable as it may seem today, I paid twenty-five dollars for the monkey and another twenty-five for its cage. With no real knowledge in the world of monkeys, except for what was written in a small book, Know Your Monkey (which I purchased at the pet store) I loaded monkey and cage into my Wagoneer and headed for home. Impulsive? Of course. Ill advised? Probably. But I was newly widowed and my philosophy was, instead of feeling lonely and sorry for myself I'd do something I had always wanted to do--own a little monkey. And since there was no longer anyone whose opinions I was obligated to consider., that is just what I did.
I kept the monkey in her cage, which was adequate for one monkey, on a wheeled cart in my dining room where she could look out the window while I was at work. I worked the 3-11 shift in the Emergency Room of a nearby hospital and when I got home I would move the monkey and cage into a room that I used as a hobby and sewing room, protecting everything with newspapers, and let her out of the cage to run around for exercise and to get to know and interact with me. In no time at all she would come and sit on my shoulder or knee, accept treats from my hand and use me as a place to rest when she got tired of ricocheting around the room.
One evening when I was particularly beat from my stint in the E.R., I went through our usual routine of affording her a place to be let loose and exercise. When I stretched out on the daybed in the room to watch her antics and also to rest my tired legs, I inadvertently dozed off. Suddenly I was awakened by two gentle little hands separating the upper and lower eyelids of my right eye, and a curious little monkey face peering down into my exposed eyeball. I lay very still, trying not to laugh and not wanting to startle her by moving suddenly. I suppose she thought I had "gone away" somewhere and she was trying to "find" me. She was so very gentle and serious about the whole thing and seemed quite relieved when I slowly sat up and began talking to her again.
Her name was Trinket and I had her for twelve years. By the time I had her for a year I heard of the Simian Society and joined the Phoenix chapter. Then I really started to learn about monkeys, as the late Margaret Osborn, a former SSA National President, was a member of the chapter. She said that Trinket was probably about five years old when I got her. Trinket died of natural causes when she was seventeen years old. I am, as are we all, still learning about monkeys. Brad and Trouble
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TRINKET By Ruanne Hollander
In the Spring of 1971, after spending the afternoon at a small neighborhood attraction known as the Tropic Gardens Zoo watching and feeding Corn Kix to a chattering band of free-roaming squirrel monkeys, I did what I had known in my mind all along that I would probably do--go next door to the Tropic Gardens Pet Shop and purchase the one squirrel monkey that they had for sale. Inconceivable as it may seem today, I paid twenty-five dollars for the monkey and another twenty-five for its cage. With no real knowledge in the world of monkeys, except for what was written in a small book, Know Your Monkey (which I purchased at the pet store) I loaded monkey and cage into my Wagoneer and headed for home. Impulsive? Of course. Ill advised? Probably. But I was newly widowed and my philosophy was, instead of feeling lonely and sorry for myself I'd do something I had always wanted to do--own a little monkey. And since there was no longer anyone whose opinions I was obligated to consider., that is just what I did.
I kept the monkey in her cage, which was adequate for one monkey, on a wheeled cart in my dining room where she could look out the window while I was at work. I worked the 3-11 shift in the Emergency Room of a nearby hospital and when I got home I would move the monkey and cage into a room that I used as a hobby and sewing room, protecting everything with newspapers, and let her out of the cage to run around for exercise and to get to know and interact with me. In no time at all she would come and sit on my shoulder or knee, accept treats from my hand and use me as a place to rest when she got tired of ricocheting around the room.
One evening when I was particularly beat from my stint in the E.R., I went through our usual routine of affording her a place to be let loose and exercise. When I stretched out on the daybed in the room to watch her antics and also to rest my tired legs, I inadvertently dozed off. Suddenly I was awakened by two gentle little hands separating the upper and lower eyelids of my right eye, and a curious little monkey face peering down into my exposed eyeball. I lay very still, trying not to laugh and not wanting to startle her by moving suddenly. I suppose she thought I had "gone away" somewhere and she was trying to "find" me. She was so very gentle and serious about the whole thing and seemed quite relieved when I slowly sat up and began talking to her again.
Her name was Trinket and I had her for twelve years. By the time I had her for a year I heard of the Simian Society and joined the Phoenix chapter. Then I really started to learn about monkeys, as the late Margaret Osborn, a former SSA National President, was a member of the chapter. She said that Trinket was probably about five years old when I got her. Trinket died of natural causes when she was seventeen years old. I am, as are we all, still learning about monkeys. Brad and Trouble
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