R. I. P. Swingkat

Swingkat did not re-appear. I hope that he simply died from heartstroke and is now somewhere in the depths of the mob`s burrow.

He was a very funny and affeactionate kat and cared very well for the babies last year in summer. You can watch him here with the pups:



We always loved his playful antics.

He was the first to discover that it is warmer, when he is close to the heat lamp.

He started latching onto the heat lamps and climbing into the lamps of the inside elcosure, as soon as he was able to reach the lamps. That`s why we called him Swingkat or Schaukelmännchen in German.



He was also always very close and affectionate with Möfzi, grooming her and cuddling her, even when all the others did not. He was the cutest meerkat in the mob, until the babies arrived last summer.

R. I. P. Swingkat, we hope you are well, wherever you may be.

Another bad news: Swingkat has been missing for 4 days now!

Yesterday I already found Swingkat was missing from the mob.

Today I talked to one of the keepers and he told me that he has been missing for 4 days now.
He also reported cases of vandalism in the animal park.

So maybe one of our worst nightmares has become true: someone may have kidnapped Swingkat.

And I am afraid, we will never see him again, as whowever did this will certainly do no good to this kat.

This is one of the worst days since Jolly Roger`s death before Christmas. It is even worse, for we do not know what happened to him.

If anybody out there has seen or heard something, stumbled upon suspicious videos or pics, please contact me!

Swingkat is a male meerkat, 6,5 years old, all teeth missing in lower jaw, he has a shaved patch close to his right front leg, where the fur has not grown back completely yet. He is rather small and delicate with dark fur and a very round face with "pup-like" feature. Swingkat pics can be found in the October postings.

Dont´even think about...

... having a meerkat as pet!

Anniversary meerbag and current goings on at the mob

Today we went into the woods for a short photosession to commemorate the 1st year anniversary of the Meeeeeerbags:
the MY-MEERKAT collection was launched one year ago on Dawanda.

This is a replica of the first Meerbag. So, it's a limited edition collectors item!

We also collected some wild garlic flowers which ended up in a salad this evening (in the weeks before the leaves of the same plant delivered some delicious pesto).

And of course we brought some dandelion for "our" kats.
Here you can see Möfzi receiving her gift of flowers.

Möfzi had been very awkward and slow in her movements after the kats were released from their four-week "imprisonment" - to review the incident, the entire mob had been kept inside because of Swingkat's pneumonia. It isn't always possible to reintegrate an animal after it has been taken out of the group for treatment, and so it was decided to keep them all together.

However as Swingkat's disease took far longer to be cured than was initially expected, this became a very stressful experience for the kats.

Recently Möfzi has become much less apathetic and while she is still moving slowly and carefully she is much more interested and takes the initiative in exploring her surroundings. According to a keeper's statement she is also better "in charge" of the mob again. This confirms our own observation that while there is still some bad blood, she isn't subjected to the same kind of harassment as we observed after Jolly Roger's death.

Stubbytail seems mostly back to normal but Orlok is still behaving strangely, now he's mostly getting on Stubbytail's nerves.

As a "senior citizen kat" the long period of forced immobility simply cannot have been good for Möfzi but she is improving. We don't know exactly how old she is but as far as we can trace it we would guess she is most probably 10 years old at least.

Sometimes she causes unnecessary trouble for herself as here you can see her taking the shortest, but most difficult way up to the main lookout hill in the enclosure.

What was very funny today was, that as we were discussing Möfzi and Sayuri with Matthias (one of the keepers) Möfzi was sitting right in front of us and always folowing us with her eyes as if she was closely listening to our conversation :)

Sayuri entertained us today with irresistible displays of cuteness. We do believe she is aware of how cute she is and that she is getting more attention than other kats :)

What is always a bit hard to watch (and especially hear) is when she falls over and hits her chin with an audible "whack" on the stone pavement that runs around the border of the enclosure.

This doesn't seem to bother her much and she always gets up again but it sounds really horrible. Poor little Sayuri :) - all in all she is doing very well. We've heard that she isn't quite keeping up when it comes to devouring her mouse, but she doesn't seem to be lagging behind in growth anymore. Often you will see her eating here and there all throughout the day when the other kats seem to be "fed up" so maybe she is compensating this way.

She is also totally crazy for dandelion. She will even jump up into the air to get it...

And finally, here's Flat-Ears getting a nap. Every now and then one of the youngsters would come up and climb over him or otherwise get on his nerves but he didn't care very much...