11/05/2012

This morning, while Lisette and me were doing spot checks and started to clean the owls cage, this means raking up all the feathers, taking out the bowl that was left there from the previous days feeding, with the 1^st years, we found a dead chicken under one of the trees. Most of the chicken was eaten up but the feathers were all still lying there. We think that this may be Savanna (female serval) that escaped a few days ago from her cage with Bacardi(Male serval).

Savanna wasn’t hand raised when we got her so she still had her natural instinct to hunt for herself. Because she has been in the wild life centre for so long she knows that there is food here. If she was hungry this would be the first place that she would return to. The chickens were easy food to catch because Paulina (worker that cleans around the Wild Life Centre) usually puts the chickens back into their enclosure in the evenings to protect them from being caught during the night. Except this night Paulina wasn’t there to place them back into their cage and the rest of us forgot about them.

When the chickens sleep they are at their most vulnerable and it was easy prey for Savanna to catch. Because they are mostly nocturnal animals this was the time she would be searching food.

We have an enclosure where the Kudus (Dandy- female and Houdini- male) and Zena-female Oryx Gazelle, sleep and stay during the day. This enclosure has a bonnox fence that is too small for them to fit through so that they might escape, but what happened was, when we were still bringing them in during the night so that they could be warmer inside because they were still small babies, it was quite hard to catch Houdini and Dandy because they weren’t used to being caught and it is their natural instinct to run when someone is chasing them, so we would be a few people that tried to get him into a corner so that there would be no way for him to go. The result of this was that sometimes they would jump into the fence itself to get away from the people moving closer to him as he would see it as the only escape route. They don’t notice the fence because it doesn’t have any covering like netting over it so that they can see the fence so when their stressing they would try and go right through it.

This resulted in the fence wire being bent or the holes in the bonnox being made a lot bigger, or the wire even breaking. There was a lot or loose wires sticking out through the fence that could hurt the animals in the enclosure itself, or the animals passing the enclosure that are free roaming in the wild life centre or even the people and guests passing the enclosure can get stuck on the wires. Me and Gunter bent over the loose pieces of wire to make it safer for the meantime. We tried to move the wire back to the place that it was to make the holes the same size as it was but the wire was damaged too much. Once the one hole was back to its original size, another hole would be bigger than it should be.

We called Daniel (worker) to come fix the wire properly with adding other pieces of wire and by using the proper equipment.

A different approach than bottle feeding

Tried to teach the serval kittens to drink their milk out of a bowl rather than bottles with teats. They ( Lauren, Karen) decided to try this because when we were feeding them with the bottle they were just chewing the teat that we tried to feed them with and not suckling properly.

We also changed their milk from Esbilac puppy milk replacer to a mixture called lion milk. It contains egg yolk, milk, cream, gelatine and cooking oil. The amounts of each ingredient vary according to the amount of milk you want to make. We had to change them from Esbilac to the new milk because we were running out of Esbilac and Esbilac is really expensive when brought from the veterinarian.

What we did was pour the amount of milk that each of them had to get into one single bowl. It was then a process that requires a lot of patients and determination. You first have to show them the bowl, sometimes they just want to run away. Another problem that we had was keeping them near the bowl. Because they were still kept in a small cage inside they just want to play the minute we take them out of the cage.



Introducing the kittens to the milk



Apollo not being really interested in the milk

Trying it but rather just want to play with it

After introducing them to the milk in the bowl we would dab our fingers into the milk and onto their mouth. Every time we did this you would bring your finger closer to the bowl so that they move closer and closer to the milk. Oryn licked the milk up a few times but he pushed his whole nose into the milk and this resulted in it going up his nose. He sneezed a few times and didn’t want to drink the milk any more.

Apollo tried a few times but wasn’t really interested in drinking the milk, he just wanted to play.

On night shift Lisette still had to feed them out of the bottle so that they would still get their nutrition and enough food in because they didn’t drink all the milk that they were suppose to that day.

We will try everyday to see if they get better at drinking out of a bowl.

Just another day at work

: What: We didn’t have a feeding tour this morning so we prepared the food with the new students that came in on Wednesday. They were still new with most of the things so we helped them.

After feeding we did spot-checks with the 1^st years. We placed new grass in Cookie(large spotted genet) cage and cleaned the corners of the cage where she always defecates.

We placed new grass with the small tortoises and new grass in the peregrine falcon cage. They cleaned the caracals dam and picked up all the feathers that was left over from the chickens that they were fed the previous day.

I gave Oryn (serval kitten) antibiotics because of the blood that he had in his faeces. It was given Sub cutaneous (under his skin).

We placed the kittens outside for a while in the cage where the bush baby sleeps so that they can get out of the small cage that they’re in all day. They really enjoyed playing around in the grass and on the tree stumps that is in there. It was good for them to get out for a while. It will be better to find a cage that we can place them in during the day because the cage that they are in now is too small and their growing quickly now. The kittens are becoming more active and more playful and they get frustrated in the small cage. The only worry that there was for placing them in the bigger cages was that we had to remove all the branches that was in the cage. They start climbing on everything and they don’t really have good balance yet. It is a big possibility that they will fall off the branches and can get seriously hurt.

I went to town to fetch the lion cubs. Karen took them to the veterinarian in the morning for a check up and because they both got diarrhoea. The vet said that they had Coccidiosis, and prescribed them some antibiotics and dewormer. They also placed the younger lion cub on a drip because she was dehydrated, not eating and really flat (not having any energy). Hey placed dextrose in her drip. They had to place a stick next to where the drip goes into her vein to prevent her paw from pulling back the whole time. If she pulls her leg against her body the whole time the drip stops running and this results in the drip being clogged up. We had to check the drip every half hour to make sure that she wasn’t lying on it which would result in the drip not running anymore. We had to place her in a small cage under the red light so that she would still keep her normal temperature and not get cold but could only move around in a restricted space and not pull out her gelco and to prevent the other lion cub from chewing on the drip line.

One of the 1^st years brought a baby Impala in that he found on the service road. She got hurt on the inside of her leg. We cleaned the wound with SOS disinfectant even though it wasn’t that bad.

We mixed “Springbokkie mix” milk for her which consists of 120ml full cream, 1.5 L milk and 6 egg yolks. She drank half of the 50ml that we gave her but she was stressed out a lot and we (Me and Lisette) had to catch her in the outside boma where we placed her with “Lilo”, the Steenbok that we have. She was jumping up against the walls until we caught her quickly.



Baby Impala that was brought in




Drip that was in the lion cub



Game Capture

 Chemical Darting is fun!

On 01 May 2012 we had to dart a few Impala ewes that had to be transferred to one of the farmers farm.

We went into the felt at 10am to start darting. First we drove around trying to locate the ewes in an area that would be easy to dart and move them. When we found them, we set up everything. The transport trailer into which we had to move the Impala after darting them, was parked under a tree in the shade to keep it cool.

Transporting trailer

 

The procedure to follow was, when the ewe was darted with A3080, we would track her with the tracking device placed in the dart to the place where she finally fell down.

When we got to her, the first thing to do was place her in Sternal ( lying on her stomach with her feet folded in underneath her), lifting her head up and pulling the tongue out. Someone had to monitor her to make sure she is still breathing and that her breathing was normal.

 

 

Moira or Jeanine would then tag the ear with a specific number tag and use the tag gun. The ewe had to be tagged in her left year and they had to watch out for the veins so that they don’t push the tag through the veins.

While they were busy tagging the ear, I would inject the ewe with Vitamin BCo, Vitamine ease and Dectomax.

We would then load her onto the stretcher and onto the back of the bakkie, still monitoring her, and then move her to the transport trailer. Once the ewe was loaded into the trailer I would inject her with M5050 that was the antidote to reverse the sedative.

After all the Impalas that we darted were loaded into the trailer, we went to the Wild Life Center to load the Impala that was caught the previous day into the trailer.

They parked the trailer at the front of the crush and lifted the ramp to the level of the trailer to make it easier for the Impala’s to get into the trailer and so that they don’t trip when trying to get from the crush into the trailer.

 All and all it was a very fun, yet hot and exhausting day!!

Owl getting injured

One of the most common accidents we get involving owls is that the get stuck in electric fences or normal fences while their hunting. They fly into the fences and get their wings stuck which usually results in them spinning and getting caught in the fences.
If they had no prior experience with such fences(i .e.,birds of the year or ones
raised in areas lacking fences), they might simply have perceived the fences as movable
vegetation which would have caused in significant disruption to their flight.
The owls that collided with power lines must have done so under different circumstances.
The power lines were higher in the air, and a hunting owl would probably have been flying
closer to the ground, thus avoiding them. The owls may have been flying to a hunting post,
possibly the power line itself or its supporting pole, and somehow collided with the line.
They possibly were forced into the line by a gust of wind.

"Mossie", The Verreaux Eagle Owl

When this happens we try to help these animals in what ever way we can, but it still happens that these owls wings have to be amputated. That's where our one sanctuary owl-"Mossie" comes from. She was caught in a power line and they had to amputate her wing.

Bandaged wing of a Barn Owl. The left wing got hurt but we had to bandage the wing closely to the body because it was to heavy with the splint attached to it.

Here's the owl before we bandaged the wing. You can see that the left wing is hanging and the owl is not using the wing or keeping it close to his body.

We got this one Barn Owl in from a farmer, the owl had a broken wing. This probably resulted also from colliding with a wire. We bandaged the wing and placed a splint in to keep the wing from bending or getting hurt even more.

CLASS TIME

To work with the animals and enjoy all the fun stuff, the students need to have class as well. The first years have 5 unit standards to cover. They consist of Animal care,Feeding, Cleaning and Maintain, Ecology and Pant care. In the 4and a half weeks that they spend at the Wild life Center we have to cover all this work and do field assessments with them.

First years busy with class

Field assessments is where they are being assessed while doing the work. They get marked on things like the way they prepare the food for all the animals, that they prepare the food in the right way and cut the food in the right sizes to suit the animals, they also have to be able to explain why they do it a certain way etc.

It sound easier than it is to cover the work because it has to be done between the physical work that we're doing here at the Wild life Center.
This physical work consists out of feeding, cleaning and maintaining the cages etc. around the WLC.

Birds in our Aviary

In our Aviary we have a lot of different birds. They came from other Aviaries for the viewing pleasures of guests. There's Pearl spotted owls that is one of Southern Africa's smallest owl species. They are active by daylight.

The people that brought them in found them on the ground and thought they were hurt, but this is normal behavior for these owls to walk on the ground because they eat small insects etc.

They are in a big enclosure where they can fly around and they can still search for their own food in aviary, even though we give them food.

These owls feed on a variety of prey on arthropods, insects, bats and small rodents and they are an endangered animals specie.  

The variety of birds in the Aviary are:

•Bearded Barbet’s

•Violet Turaco

•Hartlaub’s turaco

•Blue Bellied Roler

•Splendid Glossy Starling’s

•White Bellied Go-away bird 

White tailed Jay 

Bearded Barbet

Violet Turaco

Hartlaub’s turaco

White tailed Jay 

Blue Bellied Roler

White Bellied Go-away bird

Splendid Glossy Starling

New arrivals*

Kittens always brings a smile to anybody's face except when you have to get up every 4 hours to feed them...
Our two new arrivals are two serval kittens of about 3 weeks old.
They came from our own wild life centre and is being hand-raised by our staff and students.
"Apollo" is the lighter one of the two boys and "Oryn" is the darker one of the two.

They get fed every4 hours, and are both on 28ml of Esbilac puppy. Esbilac is a milk replacer which gives them the required nutrients and vitamins they would have gotten from their mother.

Feeding the Animals

Peanut and Matilda

Zena our baby Oryx Gazelle

Feeding a black Impala

Dot our baby Zebra

Feeding Dandy the baby Kudu

Mkadee the giraffe

Feeding animals is part of our daily routine. It takes a lot of time out of your day having to prepare all the food for the different animals we have. There is the birds that we need to prepare fruit for, all the animals eating meat that we need to prepare meat for by cutting it and giving each one the correct amount. And the babies that still get milk. The exact amount needs to be weighed off for each animal according to their body weight

When lion cubs aren't feeling to good

Toska, our one lion cub wasn't feeling to well. She had a bit of diarrhea and she wouldn't eat. We took her temperature, which I'm sure must have been quite uncomfortable and her glucose value from a drop of blood from her ear. Luckily she's looking a lot better now! She's back to her old self and eating like a real lion.
This is Toska lying inside the cage in their enclosure.

Wild Life Centre

Flies can be really irritating so shoo fly is always a good option to put on the cubs ears. Keeps the flies off of their ears and stop them from being irritated.
This is one of our 7 lion cubs we have here at Sondela. They are 6 females and 1 white male lion Kodee.

First week done and dusted

So the first week and half of the second week have passed! It was filled with first aid, including CPR, a bit of biology and role playing.
Then there was fire fighting, it was exhausting but still exciting!
We also did communication skills, customer care and body language.