Farmyard update - January 2012

The event of the year on our farm happened in November, when one of the meerkats had three babies underneath the tools container! At the beginning, the little babies only poked their heads out around 6pm when it was cooler. Mommy would then pick them up by the back of their necks with her mouth and pull them back under to their “den”. 

As they got older, they would start to spend more time outside, and we actually had to post a sign on the gate saying “Please drive slowly – look out for baby meerkats” to avoid any accidents!

After Norman spent over a month hatching her egg that would not hatch, we removed it from her and she is now back to normal. She has made good friends with Kip, a baby goose that was raised by Marlice. The two of them look almost identical and they now walk around together and love visiting people in rooms and offices.

Our little Lily has become very tame lately, and she can often be seen coming up to volunteers or staff. She even can be hand-fed now. Her preference are green apples, although she also seems to enjoy the rose plant that is outside the staff accommodation area very much...

Oscar the rooster gave us quite a scare some weeks ago, when we discovered him sitting in the water hole in the morning! It seems like he had fallen into the water and must have spent the whole night in there. When we rescued him, he was very cold and shaking all over his body. His faithful mom Jo cuddled him up in a blanket, gave him some sugar water, and held him until he had reached his normal body temperature again. She has also promised to give him some swimming lessons in the near future!

Our resident dog Lala has been spotted chasing the chicken and the baby meerkats around a few times. We were a bit scared that Lala would harm the babies, so we created a very nice camp for the meerkats (next to the chicken pen), and they spent their days very happily digging holes in their own little camp. Lala watched them all day from the other side of the fence, and it often looks like she is hypnotized by the little meerkats!

As we thought that the captivity was a bit unfair to the meerkats, we now let them roam around freely again, but we had to get Lala a muzzle, which she will wear for a few weeks, until the baby meerkats are big enough to defend themselves!

The year on the farm ended with some very bad news. On the 30th of December, when we were going to bring in Picasso into the office as we have done every single afternoon since October 2008, he was nowhere to be found. We spent hours looking for him everywhere between all of us, but our beautiful African Grey had completely disappeared. The morning after, a volunteer saw him outside the farm area, but when he got closer, he opened up his wings and flew away into the horizon. 

We are very sad that Picasso is gone, he has been a loyal friend to all of us for a long time. We hope that he has found a new life in freedom or a new family to take care of him. We will miss you, Picasso.