The finish line*

Dear readers.

Today we had a bit of a unique situation as we had an injured baby zebra on the farm and we had to retrieve it. It had a hurt hoof and it looks like it was ripped off by a trap...

She is still very young and she has been hurt very badly. She ran on the leg the whole way when they went to dart her so she hurt it even worse. They cleaned the wound and gave her shots to numb the pain and to boost her immune system.

The maggots had to be removed with a tweezer and the dead flesh had to be cut off. The cleaned it up and bandaged it with a plastic bag around the wound so we can keep it moist with SOS which will help with the infection.

After bandaging it they wrapped it up with gauss and they got polo bandages for the other legs so they could be supported. She will shift her weight to the other legs because she cannot use this one. We also had to dip her for the tic problem she has and we had to constantly check her breathing and heart rate.

She needed to be taught to drink and when she was herself again we tried to get her to drink but she does not know how. You need to force the teat into the mouth keeping the tongue under the teat so it does not block the airway. She drank a little bit but then unfortunately crashed. They tried cpr but it was not meant to be. When they are so young, they do not always make it.

Jacob and Emmet

Dear readers.

Jacob and Emmet are the two blue wiler beasts we have in the 4ooha. They grew up at the wlc and when they got too mischivous and large for the holding area we let them go in the 400ha so they can graze and move freely.

This weekend the unfortunate thing happened and they got out of this fenced off area and they were raizing havok in other areas where people were. We had to drive out and call them with boskos so they would follow us back to the 400ha so we can lock them up.

They also come to a certain sound of your voice so we had to call them the whole way, and then we safely closed them up again out of harms way.

 

In the pictures we are calling them and using the food so they will follow us back to the 400ha.
They have grown a lot since I last saw them, but they are still the same old Jacob and Emmet*

School holiday weekends*

Dear readers.

This weekend we had quite a busy time. We had a lot of guests that had booked for tours and interactions. We had big and smaller groups throughout the weekend and everything went great. We had no serious problems but there were a couple of mistakes made by reception.

We had two new arrivals in terms of animals and we received a volenteer for the rest of the week. The one animal is a dove and the other a genet. The dove was brought in by guests and the genet was caught by dogs on anoother farm and so it got severely hurt.

 

These animals needed housing immediately, in other words we had to sort out a cage for the both of them.




We had to remove the grass in the giraffe boma because the post mortum was done on it and so it is full of bodily fluids. When the grass was removed we found maggots and we got a couple of them together and fed them to animals like the Civet, the honey buzzard and other carnivores.

The tours for the weekend went smoothly and we had great help from the 1st years.

Post mortum of a tall wonder*

Dear readers.

We have had deaths at the wildlife centre befor but none as sad as this one. We have unfortunately lost Matilda, one of our female giraffes. She was a friendly, loving character that formed part of our family.

She was examined by a vet at the centre itself so we can determine the cause of death. All conservation students were called together to help with the process and to learn from it. We used the post mortum as a learning oppertunity and aeveryone wore gloves that helped to evaluate the body and organs.

We had to open her up and check for any swelling or inflamation to the organs. He stomach was full of food but she had not defecated in a while. As the inspection went on, the vet took a sample of the skin, organ membranes and the stomach contents for testing in the lab. The brain had to be taken out as well for testing because when she would bend down to drink, Cheecky the zebra could have kicked her to the head. She also had blood coming from her mouth the night before her death.

All students helping had to wear gloves to protect themselves from possible diseases and to prevent any bodily fluids from going into possible wounds on the hands of the students. She will be missed and we will be receiving the results to the tests in a couple of weeks.

Codee the hidden softy*

Dear readers.

Since we have had Codee the white lion male, he has not been approachable at all. He would never let us near him and he had given a few guests a nasty fright when they take part in a lion interaction with the other cubs.

We moved him to Lex so they could form a bond and be companions to each other, this will let them feel more at ease because they are social animals.This is a video of the move and Lex's first reaction to the intruder in her enclosure.

Keep in mind lex has always seen us as her companion and she has accepted us as her pride members. By being in the enclosure whilst a new lion enters, you force lex to come across as a little over protective. That's exactly what she did, she kept herself between Codee and us and she kept showing her teeth to him.

Codee's natural instincts was to be submissive towards her and lie down most of the time so she can smell him. The feeding was interesting because they had to make sure her pieces of meat were a little bit bigger so she does not finish first and come steal his. This went very well but now we implemented the feeding cages and they get fed in separate cages.

To our surprise, the other day when we went in to clean the enclosure, Codee came up to us and was looking for the attention Lex was receiving! He kept rubbing up against Lauren and he did not pull away when she rubbed him and scratched his back. This is amazing to see especially because he is not in a normal state of mind, but we will be sure to go visit more often, now he has the personality to match the cute face*

Logbook entry 09.06.2012

CAPTIVE ANIMAL MANAGEMENT LEVEL 4

Subject: Logbook

Team members: 1^st years, 2^nd years, Lauren and Vaatjie.

This morning I conducted the feeding tour with Heinrich and it went very well. We explained to them beforehand what to do and what not to do so they knew how to help us make the tour an unforgettable experience.

This morning I fed trigger on my very own for the first time and it went great. I still have a bit of worry for that one day that he might try and challenge me but I’ll handle it when it happens, for now whenever Lauren and Karen aren’t there I can still get the job done.

We did spot checks and we locked up code and lex in the feeding cages to give their enclosure a good clean, picking up the bones and cleaning up all the droppings. We also tried to clean and fill their dam but the drainage pipe was placed at a very useless place as it is higher than the surface of the dam so all the water can not drain. We cleaned it as best we could and refilled it.

We fetched the milk, dumped the waste and prepared the feeding for lunchtime which at this stage is only milk. We cleaned out the outside clinic and checked the conveyer belts to see if they need to be washed or not. I conducted a lion walk and interaction today and we cleaned out triggers enclosure as well so the guests don’t look straight into his droppings on the roof of his sleeping area.

The pigs we received had to be removed due to the fact that they were rotting and we could not use the meat anymore. We had a couple of people help us load the pigs onto the bakkie and they took it to the vulture restaurant. We cleaned out the fridge afterwards and threw salt once again to sterilize the soil.

This evening I am on night shift and we have a new animal that I need to feed at 8pm and 12 if he is not fast asleep. It is a loerie baby and Lauren created her own mixture to feed him as pronutro does not have enough protein. She mixed egg yolks, papaya and milk to create a drinkable paste that you feed him out of a syringe 5ml at a time. He drank very well and I had to sleep by Alley once again as she may not be alone.

Aviary birds

Dear readers.

So after we received the 50 new birds in the aviary from Mabula, we have been increasing our food supply there every morning and evening because they are more birds to feed. We have been feeding them fruit bits and seeds but thanks to one of the first years we had a new invention to get the birds to come closer and interact with us during feeding times.

Dean created a seed biscuit that can hang in trees or you can hold onto it for the birds to come eat. Since this, they have become very tame and they are very clever.

 There are a couple of parrots amongst them and they are picking up the noises of the other birds and the whistles we make to get their attention. They will come sit on your shoulder or head and they will eat out of the plate when you have food in your hands. This is a very nice experience for the guests and we will make use of this mostly for the kids and the elder people that are more interested in birds.

  These are the first ones that really came to make friends but word is spreading and one of these days we are going to need to check ourselves before leaving the aviary to make sure there isn't one hiding on you head!

Logbook entry 07.06.2012

CAPTIVE ANIMAL MANAGEMENT LEVEL 4

Subject: Logbook

Team members: 1^st Years, 2^nd years, Lauren, Karen and Vaatjie.

This morning I worked out the scoring sheet for the 1^st year’s files on a big white sheet so they can keep an eye on the percentage of their files.

We all came together at the owl enclosure after the feeding to conduct spot checks with the new group and so we also used the opportunity to teach them about animal behaviour. Lauren and Karen taught them about each animal and what to keep in mind when working with each of them.

Before lunch I took the group and explained to them about the preparation of the milk, why we prepare future feeds and how we calculate the amount of dencavite if the milk is not enough. After lunch we had our OHS meeting scheduled but it did not take place as planned. I conducted a lion interaction for 5 guests and then came the highlight of the day, the pig slaughter.

We heard the bang of the truck on the highway and a few minutes later we were called to go help load the pigs. The truck was transporting farm pigs to be slaughtered but if they are bruised they are not of much quality and they will be seen as waste. So we took this opportunity to go load the pigs that were too injured and the pigs that had died in the accident.

 They were brought to the wildlife centre to be cut in half, to remove the intestines and then used as meat for the animals. The only problem here was that the amount of pigs counted up to 30 and the fridge was not cold enough to freeze that much meat. Some of the pigs also went to the township on Sondela because the fridge was too full already.

The pigs were slaughtered until 7pm that night and we cleaned the fridge afterwards to get most of the smell and blood away. We threw salt on the ground where the blood puddles were sitting because it needs to sterilize the soil so the bacteria does not grow and make the animals sick when they eat from the ground. This evening I am on night shift with Cynthia.

 

Logbook entry 05.06.2012

CAPTIVE ANIMAL MANAGEMENT LEVEL 4

Subject: Logbook

Team members: 1^st ye4ar group, Lisette, Gunther, Christelle, Lauren and Karen.

This morning we did not have a feeding tour so we did the feeding and I conducted a tour with the guests who slept over the previous night. They were elder guests and so I had to walk slowly and they were only interested in certain animals such as the birds and babies. I took them on a tour around the whole centre before they had to leave and they had a lot of questions. They were very happy with the experience and they assured me they were coming back for another visit very soon.

Today we received two new volunteers from Canada, they are not with Ecolife and they were to be staying with us for the week. They lived in the village and they helped us on night shift with the babies and with the daily tasks during the day.

This afternoon I conducted class for the new class and Faatjie did their induction with them. We sorted out the night shift roster, the weekends, the cleaning roster for the classroom and decided on a meeting date for the 1^st year group.\

I went to class day at the academy after lunch and made finishing touches on the legislation slide shows. This evening I am on night shift with Tian.

This evening Abbey came back from the vet and they could not do the x rays on her as their machine had broken. Abbey, the lion cub, is very weak and she does not drink as much as she should. She tries to drink and you can see she wants the milk but as soon as she tries to she pushes away the bottle as if something hurts her. She had to get a sub coetaneous every two hours which is a shot underneath the skin so she can keep hydrated. I have no experience in this so Lauren took care of her for the night and she unfortunately only made it until the next day lunch time.

This evening we also implemented the new heaters, they are flat surfaced and they were attached to the wall so the babies could lie against them for heat during the cold winter. We had to lift them up a bit because the heat is a bit too hot but it is definitely working with the red lights to fight off the cold. We now need to sleep by Alley at night so she is not alone but with the new heaters, who is complaining?

Oryn and Apollo

Dear readers.

The two brothers, Oryn and Apollo, have been growing and getting their own personalities since you have last seen them. They still sleep inside the clinic during the night but they have been moved outside during the day so they can get some sunlight and play in a bigger space.

They play with the rope we placed inside the enclosure and they keep jumping on each other.

The transformation from a couple of days to 2-3months of age:

Progress report*

Dear readers.

We have a bird house called the aviary, this word comes from the scientific name for birds namely aves. The aviary is a house built with a dam, river flowing to the dam and a  lot of plant species to house various types of birds. Up until a couple of days ago we had a few species like Blue bellied roller, Honey buzzard, peregrine falcon, Barn owl, fruit doves and bearded barbets.

We received about 50 birds from Mabilingwe  to place with these species in our aviary, and for the most of them we still need to figure out the species name to tell to guests.Here are a couple of pictures I took of the ones not moving around too much.

 Wish us luck on the list of names! And if anyone knows the names to these birds please comment on this blog, Appreciated!

SOS: Oryn Super Oxidized Sollution

Dear readers.

We are currently trying a new product that promises to cure injuries and heal wounds. The name of this product is Oryn SOS and it has done wonders on some of our situations.

Firstly we had an operation done on a Sable antelope and used this sterilizer to clean the wound during and after the operation. The wound had healed very nicely and kept it clean.

The wound had been kept clean and thanx to this the Sable had a short recovery period. The steel piping had been removed a couple of weeks later and the wound was clean and healed.

We now have another Sable suffering the same injury to the leg and now we can use the product that has been tried and tested and proved to be the perfect sterilizer for the job.

Another case we used this product on is when the serval cat had lost his tail due to either chewing it off himself or it had been chewed off by another animal. Unfortunately we can not place the culprate but we immediately jumped in to fix the wound. There was a separate enclosure cleaned and sprayed with SOS to clean the inside of the cage. The wound had to be fixed by a vet and we had to place a barrier on the neck of the serval so he could not fiddle with the stitches. The wound had been cleaned with SOS every day to every second day because the serval had a lot of stress. The diet of the animal also had to change because we had to make it easier for him to eat to get him to eat all his food and stay strong.

The serval with the barrier to prevent him from fiddling with the wound.

The enclosure sprayed with SOS and no grass because it can go into the wound and hurt the animal.

The first signs of it working showed in a couple of weeks because the wound started to close up and the hair started to grow back.

The purple on the fur is Necrospray to dry out the wound and keep it from bleeding. When spraying the wound with treatment you need to be very careful as this is a wild animal and could bite or scratch you. When working with this animal you use gloves and you need to cover the head with a blanket or towel so it does not know where to strike or grab.



The other animal that we treated with SOS is the white springbuck. This animal had a very large and deep cut on his leg, so much that the skin hung from the leg. We had to catch him and treat the wound, covering it with sterilized gauss and bandage.

The wound had to be covered because it attracts bacteria. It needs to close up mostly and dry out before we could let him walk around outside with the others. We had him in the holding bomas with a companion or two so he wont be alone. As soon as the wound had dried out and he was walking on the leg normally, he was let go to be with the others again.

These are the posters made with our animals as the proofing candidates and this proves that the product works.

Back view of the packaging box.

The front view of the packaging box.

Photos of our animals used for the proof to show people that the product works.

Uses of the product and why it works.

All uses of the product.