Hey everyone,
Well it's been a busy day today and yet another scorcher under the South African sun!
As you know from last nights blog, i spent the night with Gabriel, the 4 month old cheetah cub. What an experience! He's such an adorable little guy, albeit very mischievous... I wasn't sure whether I'd get much sleep but surprisingly i did! It took me a while to coax him in, but as soon as he came in he collapsed on my covers with a look that said 'can we play?' we did for a bit and then he laid down alongside my makeshift bed, i laid down with him and we both fell asleep.. Him staring at me until he couldn't keep his eyes open. I woke a few times in the night and he'd rolled around a bit but all night he was by my side and slept solidly from 9pm to 5am. When my alarm went i woke up and he was lying there looking at me, made a little whimper as i ruffled him and then followed me out. So sweet, and such a privilege.
As today is a new week, we've now moved teams and were now on the cheetah side. My first task was observations which basically involved walking around every enclosure and checking on where the cats are and what they're doing. We do this every hour at 8, 9 and 10 and then again at 3, 4 and 5. Just after finishing, we got a call from a dairy farm saying they had a dead cow and did we want it.
I went with keal to collect it... The dairy farm was about 30km out of town, it was nice to go on a little outing. We arrived and sure enough, there was this massive dead cow, the workers lifted it up with a digger and just dropped it in the back of our truck... It must have weighed around 800kg, it was insane. We drove it back and the workers at the farm took it away to chop up! Its now in the freezer waiting for big feed!
Once again, Gabriel decided to climb a tree! Such a scamp! I helped get him down and in return i now have my first cheetah scratch!
Just after lunch today, the water stopped... The typical response being welcome to South Africa! Apparently last time this happened it was of for 4 days so we started making plans on what to do. Fortunately we have our own borehole on the farm so we knew we'd have water for the animals, but we have a house of 13 so it could be a problem. We decided to get lots of water bottles and filled from the bore, so we have plenty to boil for drinks, food and basic washing. As soon as we got home though we all just jumped into the swimming pool. It was so refreshing! Just as I've been writing this though the water has just come back... Phew!
The feed for the cheetahs is a little more involved. They still get chicken but whereas leopards etc just get 1 or 2, for the cheetahs it all needs to be weighed to specific amounts for each cheetah. Some of the cats aren't tame so we have to take care, they hiss a lot but we still managed to get the food to them. These are the ones that form the main breeding programme on the farm. The tame cheetahs, dew, Eden, faith and gabriel are much easier. I chose to feed faith, bless her she's so funny. I cant remember if i posted this but she had meningitis when she was 1 month old that has left her a little wobbly on her legs, with crossed eyes, and a tail like a pretzel. It's unsure if she has brain damage but she is the happiest of cats and so loving. She takes ages to eat though and each time she took a bit of chicken, she moved away with it to eat but then sat there looking at me and I'd have to take another bit to her. 45 minutes later we managed to get through it all!
All in all an entertaining but very tiring day, tomorrow is shopping day again which always gets everyone excited!
Good night world!
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