(Wild one)

Dear readers.

Getting back to work after an off weekend is tough but not when you have the friendly animals of the centre to come back to. Comming back also means we have to get used to any newly arrived animals and this past weekend was a parturition weekend. The farmyard kept sending us baby goats and sheep as soon as they were born because at one stage the baby is deformed and then the mother keeps rejecting the little one.

We need to make sure the babies get collostrum and we need to make sure that they are warm and comfortable with a mother or companion with them in the enclosure. In other news we have 2 new volenteers that have arrived and they have been a big help. They help in daily activities and sit and play with the babies so they can get used to human contact. We now have Ocean from France, Audri from France and a vet student from town that came to help us because the practice is quiet today.

Scarlet our baby caracal.

Choppie, the lamb found in the freestate

Appollo, our serval kitten and companion to Scarlet.

Feeding the kid goat on night shift.

The mother goats in the outside boma

The cats are getting very big and today we received an Nyala bull carcass that was dead at mosselleselle tent camp. We needed the meat and this profound event just happened to save us for another couple of days. The 1st year students are busy with the body and the centre is doing very well with boskos orders as ssb keeps asking for more packages. We also have a newly arrived Oryx once again and she is a couple of days old which means there is a good chance that she received collostrum from her mother and will survive. 

The run over hare we found this morning, used as feed.

$Barley grain$

Dear readers,

As 2nd years we get a lot of projects during the year that forms part of our course and at the moment we are busy researching a food culture we can use at the wildlife centre for our animals. My culture that I chose is specifically aimed on the feeding of herbivores and can also be used as enrichment for the cat species in their enclosures.

Barley grain is an organic grass that grows all year round and has no waste product after use. It can be fed to various types of species and is filled with nutrients and minerals. I want to grow this grass at the wildlife centre for feeding purposes and to enhance the aestethic value of the centre because at the moment we have a lot of open space covered in sand and dead leaves.

This grass will give us the oppertunity to beautify the centre, feed the animals organically and it will help enrich enclosures which will make them visitor friendly. At the moment I am busy with the research on how to grow it the best possible way at the centre and my research must be in the form of a presentation so I can present it to the manager for approval. I am very excited about this project and so I went to the supplier to check out the ways of growing the grass.

They have created a way of growing it with the least effort needed, they created a harvesting house that gives the seeds a place to grow and provides UV light and water which is all the seeds need to grow. The growth period in one of these houses is 6 days then you can take out the whole sheet and feed it leaving no waste products. When taking out a sheet you just replace it again with a new one so it can start to germinate which happens in 24 hours!

These are the seeds in the trays in which they grow inside the harvesting house.

This is what the seed looks like after one day, this is a germinating seed.

This is the harvesting house when opened with the UV light and irregation system it needs to help the seeds grow.

This is your end product after 6 days of growing and this sheet can be fed just like this to various animals such as sheep, goat, horses and herbivorous wildlife.