Kusco, the white danger.

Dear readers.

Wondering who Kusco is? He is a white spring buck at the wlc and he arrived with his two friends, Bizmark and Kronk. He has currently hurt his leg by means of a cut of some sort and so we had to catch him to take care of the wound. Upon catching him we had to use a very large net but this stressed him out even more and he unfortunately jumped the fence and hurt himself even more.

When we caught him we moved him to one of the dark boma's with Zena so he would not be alone. He has relaxed being in a dark space and he is still walking on his leg. We treated the wound with SOS on Gauss and then a bandage. This was redone every second day but now it is healing quite nicely so we are now treating it as an open wound. This means we are leaving the wound open and treating it accordingly allowing it to dry. We also removed the outside factors that could hurt it like keeping him safe in a boma for the whole day so the wound will not get dirty and nothing could hurt it like sticks or sharp objects.

Holding him down without hurting him and making sure he is upright because he could drown. Ruminants push up their food and if lying down incorrectly he could drown.

SOS sprayed on the gauss and then applied to the wound for sterilization purposes.

The wound after 2weeks of treatment in a closed wound environment.

In the enclosures

Dear readers.

During the day we feed and work with the animals, enriching them through playing and changing their environment. Here are a few examples of how we have implemented this:

We have given Lex a carcass to eat for dinner as she would not have the full amount of meat every day in the wild. We call this skipping her and the next feed amount does not change accordingly. This also helps for their weight.

The lion cubs have a cage inside the enclosure to keep mishka in while we have lion interactions with guests but they don't only play in it, they lie down on it as well and the roof then dips and breaks. So we attached plastic boards to keep it stable.

Gunther is playing with Lex and her water pond.

One of our first years help out in the old lion enclosure to ensure that the line of electricity is clean and neat for checks and to prevent them from escaping.

Change of weekends

Dear readers.

In life we do not always have everything as planned or do everything as set out previously. This I learnt the physical way, because it has happened to me. We have 4 second years and two staff members so divided it works out perfectly having every second weekend off. But now here is the catch, experience...

It has been decided that Christelle and I need to swap weekends to balance out the veterinary experience bit on each of the weekends and so this means I work two weekends in a row and get a few days off during the week and she gets her two weekends off so the switch happens in the end. This is where the work environment kicks in and you have to learn how to deal with it correctly so everyone walks away happy.

So in this working weekend we had a lot of jobs to conduct and thanx to Karen's helpful list every morning, we get things done! So we started off by cleaning out the fridge as there is blood everywhere and there are a lot of things that can be chucked because of the amount of time it has spent in there.

We had a bit of a surprise when we went to feed the aviary animals because to our dismay we found a bird wing, eaten half with the meat still attached to some of the bone. I immediately reported the find and found out that it is a rat infestation that is causing the death of our birds. We are planning on replacing the electric wire around the aviary and implementing a new system so they can not reach or enter the enclosure and hurt the birds.

We also have a daily routine to uphold and part of it is to prepare the milk feeds during the afternoon so a few feeds are already prepped for the next feeding. This helps us save time and the milk does not go sour as fast as it would have if not separating the feeds as soon as it arrives at the wlc.

 We also worked in a bit of class time lecturing them on cleaning and the things that they still short in their files. They only received their learning material in the past week so they are behind in their workbooks but we are working very hard at it and will try finish everything in this week as it is their last week at species care.

A quiet end to a busy weekend.

Sanitising the boma's

Dear readers.

At the wlc we have two dark boma's for the purpose of keeping new animals in so they don't stress out as much from the new surroundings. These boma's are also used for the baby antelope to sleep in during the night because we don't want them to get cold. These boma's have been used for a couple of animals during the year and now we have found signs of diarrhea from one of the healthy Kudu's which is a sign of bacteria in the boma.

Plan of action:

1. We removed all the animals and old grass from the boma so the bacteria can be removed. 
2. The ground cover underneath had to be loosened wit a pitch fork so the salt and water can soak in underneath the soil and sanitise it completely.
3. The salt had to be loosened and crushed because it had compacted together, and then sprinkled all over the ground cover so it covers completely but not a very thick layer because if you use too much salt the new animal will stress out because there aren't any smells of other animals making it feel alone and too much salt can burn the noses of animals.
4. After salting the ground cover , we wet the whole area so it can be absorbed  into the soil and sanitize it from harmful bacteria.
5. After drying, the ground needed to be covered again with hay and grass for soft walking and sleeping purposes.

The boma's are finished now and ready for any new or baby animals.

The new kittens*

Dear readers.

So we have been training on how to work with the new kittens and we have decided on names for them as well. They are two males and they are the cutest little cats I have ever seen. Their names are Apollo and Oryn and they get fed during night shift. They get fed 28ml Esbilac every 4 hours, which is a puppy milk replacer, to give them the nutrients and minerals that they need and would have gotten from their mother had they not been removed. We removed them from her because she carries them around underneath the neck, hurting them and we would like to hand raise them so they can be sold to interested people.

Their water bottles need to be reheated every feed so they can keep warm during the night. When feeding them you must not force them and they must be stimulated with every feed because this is hoe their mother would have done it had they still been with her.

They are getting their teeth now and their nails are very sharp when working with them. Their food quantity is according to 15% of their body weight as they are babies and they use much more energy during the day as a normally active animal.

Going out in the veld...

Dear readers.

So in the rare case of something happening outside the wlc and we need to go either check it out or handle the situation, we get to go along sometimes. This has happened with the Impala that we checked and moved out of the road and now we had a porcupine arrival at the main gate that we had to go fetch. We struggled to get it out of the catching cage but eventually succeeded by forcing it to move over to the next cage so it can be transported to the wlc. The over all condition of the animal was great so we let it free in the Tambuki area because it is already full grown and can fend for itself. They brought it in because it keeps digging up their pumpkins and destroying their crops but they don't want to kill it.
Porcupines cannot shoot them at predators as once thought, but the quills do detach easily when touched.They are released on Sondela because they crate holes for the warthogs to sleep in and they contribute to the biodiversity of the farm.

Working weekend

Dear reader.

So we have been divided so each weekend has two 2nd years working with the staff members and then the allocated 1st years. Our weekends have been very busy as they are the busiest times of the week. We have a lot of tours, feeding tours and lion interactions that we must conduct during the day in between our daily tasks that need to be done everyday.

We teach the 1st years how to speak to guests, what to tell them when working with the lions, how to help them if they are feeling uncomfortable and how to help us on our feeding tours as we are the only one's allowed to do them because we can go into all the enclosures.

We were also called out to the veld because the guests found a dead buck alongside the road and we had to go remove it. We could not determine cause of death because there was almost nothing left of it but most probably it was a car that run it over into the bush and then the jackal ate it because we found jackal close by when we arrived.

We still have every second weekend off and we work very well together as a team.

New arrivals

Dear readers.

We have had a few new animals come into the wlc over the past couple of weeks and some of them have left us again to other farms or have unfortunately not made it because their health was not too good when they arrived.

Firstly our two Kudu's are doing very well and they are now getting their personalities and welcoming any new antelope species. We place others with them so they can keep calm and relax when they see that we are not a threat. Houdini the male only feeds underneath your legs and I have been declared the expert in this! Dandy is still small in size but she can run very fast and she loves being by Houdini's side.

Dandy

Houdini

In other news, we have unfortunately lost the waterbuck, the black impala, the nyala and the grey loerie.Not all at once of cource but over time and the cold played a very big role in this.

We have another new arrival, a spotted eagle owl that was brought in on my night shift. He was driven over by a car and the right wing is severely injured. He was very droopy when he came in but has recovered very well and now has his own enclosure to live in. We created an owl house for him to hide in and a ramp made of branches so he can move around like he wants. The rest of the wing had to be amputated but he is eating his food and he comes out to say hi at night on our night shifts.









We had a Large spotted genet also come in from a neighboring farm because he kept stealing and eating their chickens. They brought him to us because they did not want to kill it and so the health was evaluated along with his age. He was in very good condition and full grown so we let him go up in the rocky areas on Sondela.

We now also have a new bushbaby. We have not decided on a name yet but we are currently working on a cage for him. He is kept in a warm basket and goes with us on night shift up to the room to keep warm and play around in the room during the night. He gets fed yogurt and eats by himself.

Most recently we have been blessed with two baby serval kittens from Savanna our female serval. Bacardi had to be removed from the enclosure so she won't stress about him wanting to hurt them. We had one person go into the enclosure everyday to check on them and now we have removed them from her to be hand raised. They are fed Esbilac, a puppy milk powder mixed with water, and the amount with each feed was determined by their body weight. We take 15% of the weight because they are still babies. They are two males and we can decide on their names, any good ideas??

Our last new arrival was named Lilo, she is a steen bokkie and still very young of age. She must have been hand raised as she does not scare to humans, she drinks from the teat and she had a collar on which indicated people walked with her on a leash. We have no indication as to where she comes from but this is the cutest thing I have ever seen!

Lilo

Lilo

Good luck to all our new animals and we hope you enjoy your stay at the wlc. They are a very good learning experience to all of us as we get the chance to learn how to work with them and what their behaviour is. We also need to attend to their needs and give them care during the night as they need to be fed at certain times.

Happening right here!

Dear readers.

So the year is in full swing an our 2nd group is doing great! In terms of us 2nd years, we had a task on animal enrichment and we are currently busy conducting the project. We presented a plan for two animals each and now we need to get the materials to make it happen. The two animals that I am working on is the caracals and the honey buzzard.

I have presented my enrichment ideas to the manager and staff of the wlc and so the project is in full swing. We need to record everything we do nad post it as evidence to cover the criteria of the task in our portfolios. My methods of recording is to fill out a form, take photos and make videos.

We are all very excited to conduct our projects and I will keep you pasted on our findings.

The 1st group

Dear readers.

So we have our 1st group of 1st years and we started with animal care. In these past couple of weeks we have been busy with our ETD courses so we will be able to coach and facilitate the 1st years. We will be giving them class and coaching them on the job. We are assessed to see if we are able to do these jobs and then we will teach them on the job.

The first group were a little behind in terms of their POE because our planning fell flat and we did not decide who does what with them. We did their assessments with them during the day and during night shift and their workbooks and evidence were done in their own time at home.They were a very nice group to work with because they were hard working and they have the passion to learn. Their next course is site guide where they will learn more about nature and how to work with guests on a game drive.

Now we have our second group and there is only one girl, this definitely does not stop her from performing. She does everything with the guys and sometimes gives them a run for their money! We have 4 boys and one girl and they love learning about the wlc animals. We started off with animal care so they will know how to evaluate an animals behaviour before entering and during the time that they are inside the enclosure. They are doing very well in terms of the daily jobs that need to be done, helping with feeding tours and catching animals when needed.

They work very well in a group and they are a very help full bunch! They are receiving class from us 2nd years in the different unit standards and they are doing very well in the on the job training.

We are also doing very well in our course as 2nd years. We had to get to know a whole different system as our portfolio's are now on the internet and we now upload all the evidence that we have. It took some getting used to but we are getting the hang of it. We have a very knowledgeable person teaching us, Michelle, and she shows us what not to do because she did the course last year and knows the hick ups that they had. We have academy days every Tuesday and Thursday so we can do our tasks, get some research done and finish uploading evidence.

This year started off on a great note and I hope it continues in that same manner!