With permission from the Mundenhof staff we brought some meerkat treats (mealworms, and locusts) and one other meerkat friend brought worms from her compost and crickets. She put those into empty toilet rolls filled up with hay and had the kats pull out all the food.
The kats were very happy and had a great birthday party! Of course the adults got some treats, too.
Today we visited again to feed the leftover mealworms.
Those I watched with a mixture of fascination and disgust. On Monday night, when we returned home, they were completely inert. But as soon as I put some muesli into their box, it was FEEDING FRENZY all over with the worms writhing and crawling. On the next morning they also had grown...
For those of you shivering with disgust, mealworms are completely dry, they don`t smell but they will crawl in your hand.
As the enclosure is very overgrown at the moment, we hid the mealworms in the less conspicuous corners and had the kats search for them. It did not always work, as they soon realized that there were many more worms to come and watched each of our steps closely.
The youngsters had a very funny hipslamming and pressing competition for some worms hidden behind wood bark. This will usually end with either the kats getting bored, falling asleep or another kat walking up and eating the treats.
It was very funny to watch the interaction going on with everybody sitting or being sat on by everybody. Sayuri in particular will make the same loud and snarling noises with a little piggy squeak in the end as her mother Möfzi does, when very excited.
And we could not resist to touch their backs, as they were so engrossed in their competition and would notice nothing around them. Their fur is very soft ;-)
I would not recommend trying this with a meerkat of your choice, even though it is hard to resist, as they wil usually either bite you or run away.
Exactly one year ago, on July 15th, we sighted one of the pups for the first time.
Here you will find the first video taken of the pup(s) and also some pictures taken during the first weeks.
Möfzi dragged them around a lot during the first weeks, as it was her first litter to survive and she did not know exactly what to do with those little squeakers.
Here are some picture of the youngsters taken on Monday and one picture of their parents Möfzi and Jolly Roger (R. I. P.) taken last summer, video will follow soon.
Left: Snoutie,
Right: Little Lady Short Tail Sayuri
Left: Caruso
Right: The Proud Parents Möfzi (front) and Jolly Roger (back)
1 comment:
Happy Birthday and many Happy returns of the day to the three of them. I love the numbers! Haha. And I also can't read those numbers without hearing the tunes in my head. :)
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