Mundenhof Mob Manor

No news is good news

2012-01-16T16:46:00.001+01:00

A belated happy new year to you meerkat fans out there.

I am really sorry for not being able to post regularly, but my current life leaves very little space for this blog.

All of you will certainly be pleased to read that our dear, ancient Möfzi is still alive!

Me and a friend visited a couple of days ago and I also paid some visits during the last year. There is not much going on in the mob, still no new couple and I guess, nothing along that line is likely to happen unless new meerkats are introduced into the group.

Möfzi is now toothless. She is suffering from an ekzema on her back, which is treated with vitamin shots and she also receives additional vitamins with her daily food.

Möfzi with 13+ years

If it was not for her broken front paw, she would still be able to walk normally. Now she is rather pushing herself along and stopping every couple of steps, but she still manages to get into and out of the inside enclosure. Her mice will be cut for her, or she gets cat food instead.

Möfzi taking a peek outside

When we arrived, she was inside the heated outdoor den looking out. She reminds me of those German housewives spending their days at the window sill, ellbows on a cushion, looking at the world. Minus pin curlers and apron dress ;-)

Despite all those physical troubles, she looks pretty much content and is unmolested by any other members of the group.

We talked to her keeper, who said that she should get monument, when she dies.
It is apparent that he loves this old, though lady, too.
Who would have thought that she makes another winter?

A new springtime

2011-04-10T21:59:00.022+02:00

Dear meerkat-fans out there, I am sorry for not posting here for such a long time, but these last two years found me very busy...

Maybe I should give you a short update on the things that happened since the last post in September 2010.

The mob is still without a dominant couple but Möfzi, former DF is still alive, even though you would not say "kicking". Today one of the keepers told some people that she is 13 years now, which makes her a real meerkat Methuselah.

Möfzi went through a couple of crises these last months, the meanest thing was a huge abscess on her right hind leg which left her limping badly. The abscess was opened and cleaned and she was kept in a separate enclosure inside, but with sniffing contact to the other group members.

A friend and I were let into this enclosure by one of the keepers, and we had the chance to see her being fed and taken care of. We could see that the keeper was very touched by how tough and strong this old female still is. He told us that she was on the brink of death for about two days, struggling with the huge wound. On day three though, she got up and started eating again.

She is very weak, which is particularly due to not being able to chew properly. Once in a while they will keep her separate and feed her some additional stuff, she will also receive vitamin shots etc. As you will see in the pictures I´ll post further down, she looks shrunken.

Her right front paw, which was broken in winter 09 is giving her trouble, too. It is bent and looked slightly swollen. Möfzi is very slow now, but she will not miss any occasion snatching additional treats.

Unfortunately I did not bring egg or sth. just some dandelion, which is currently in full bloom and the which the kats really love.

One of the highlights I witnessed in the last months was the kats being given a whole dead rabbit to eat and play with. Unfortunately I did not bring my camera on this day. At first I wondered, why all the kats had so much blood on them, but looking into the inside enclosure I saw them going at the rabbit. On such occasions you can see that they are really mean predators, they love the blood and gore!

A lot has changed for the kats since their exhibt was started in 2000.

These last weeks the enclosure had a total makeover, with all the lookout hills being re-modelled, and two dead trees being put into the enclosure for the kats to climb onto. One of the real highlights though is that one of these newly made hills features a heated den! The kats will love this on windy and cold days!

In the beginning, in 2000 their enclosure was rather bleak and got bleaker within the next years, with the kats digging through every inch of ground, no new stuff being put into the enclosure etc. From 2000 until 2007/08 nothing much was done to brighten their lives.

With meerkats being very curious animals which get bored easily, this was a dreary situation. And of course they did not want to breed under these conditions. Möfzi had a couple of pregnancies which sadly resulted in misscarriages. One successful birth must have been around summer 2004, but the pups were attacked by the mob or she might even have killed them herself.

2004 was a bad year anyway, Stubby Tail had an abscess which was in need of treatment. He could not eat properly for several weeks, losing weight. It took ages until he was treated correctly. Since then he has been suffering from swellings on the right side of his nose, which will never go away completely. Today he had a swelling oozing pus from his right eye.

These nasal swellings can be found in most members of the group, the keepers think that they results from clogged sinuses and are not sure what the cause might be.

Today found all members well and relaxed even though there had been an event in the afternoon with thousands of people visiting in this fine and warm spring weather.

I will post a couple of pictures I made today.

The three youngsters Caruso, Sayuri and Snoutie.

Left: Orlok and Möfzi taking a nap
Middle: Snoutie and Möfzi
Right: Snoutie, Möfzi and Orlok

Close-ups of Möfzi, now aged 13.
In the right pic you can see her twisted right front paw.
You will also notice the long claws, as she will no longer use this paw for digging.

Left: Orlok sitting on one of the dead trees in the enclosure.
Middle: Snoutie on the newly made lookout featuring a heated den.
Right: Re-modelled hills, the large one on the right features the heated den.

Good bad news - Möfzi is still alive :-)

2010-09-21T22:47:00.002+02:00

I just received an email from a meerkat friend of ours.

She wrote that Möfzi is still alive, but had to be separated from the group. Currently she is in the inside enclosure and has to be fed separately, as the other members of the mob will snatch her food away.

Our friend contacted one of the keepers and asked, if it is possible to visit her. I hope I can provide more news shortly.

R.I.P. Möfzi

2010-09-20T20:11:00.010+02:00

This is another sad day for the mob.

Yesterday I visited the kats and did not see Möfzi. On my last visit a couple of weeks ago, she was still alive, but very weak. Möfzi could only take some steps at a time and had to sit down or rather crouch on the ground.

Christian visited the kats about 2 weeks ago, she was still alive then, but also very weak. He reported that she used her nose for pushing herself over the logs and stones. Her offspring groomed her a lot and made those squeaky "I-love-you"-sounds.

I had also noticed during my last visits that her offspring spent more time around her and she looked very well groomed. Getting up on her hind legs often proved too much, though and I also had the impression that she had difficulties chewing her food. She had not lost her appetite or interest in her surroundings, though.

With Möfzi gone it looks like the two females, Sayuri and Caruso are fighting for dominance again. I noticed some aggressive behaviour going on between these two and Sayuri has another huge bite wound on her lower right jaw, just like last summer.

As none of the males is interested, there is no new dominant couple. In the wild this situation would surely have attracted the odd roving male, but in captivity it would make sense to introduce another male to the group.

As some of you may be aware, introducing another animal into an existing meerkat mob is very difficult, sometimes even impossible. Meerkats are very territorial and very social animals.

A stranger to the group will often be mobed, bitten and sometimes even killed. In capitivity limited escape is an added difficulty, as the "stranger" has no means of escaping vicious attacks like he could in the wild.

This is one of the last pictures take from Möfzi by Christian on August, 21st.
R.I.P. Möfzi, we will miss you dearly!

left: Snoutie, right: Möfzi

Summertime and the livin' is easy

2010-06-05T23:17:00.010+02:00

Today I spent some hours watching the kats.

There is nothing really new to report, no new dominant couple yet and I am afraid that there will be none, as long as no new adult male or males will be introduced.

What becomes clear is that Sayuri is more a loner than Snoutie and Caruso, who can often be seen playing together or grooming each other. Sayuri is often with Möfzi or on her own. And she likes doing her own things in her own way.

All three of them did not grow as tall and huge as Möfzi in her better days, but remain more on the small side like their dad, Jolly Roger who was a small an rather delicate meerkat. But speaking of weight, I bet that Sayuri is the heaviest kat of the three.

As it was veery hot today I was wearing open shoes. Snoutie was obviously very attracted to my toes and scratching and pawing at them constantly as soon as my feet came into reach. Meerkat claws are not sharp like cat claws, but being pawed and clawed by a meerkat is not that nice either. In particular if the clawing is insistant ;-)

When I arrived, Möfzi was already napping in the sun. She is getting really old and stiff now and I also think that she goes hungry a lot of the time, as she has difficulties chewing stuff. I brought some cut up tomatoes and made sure that she received most of them.

The youngsters were playing a lot, chasing each other or hipslamming and pressing against each other. I captured some particularly nice scenes between Sayuri and Snoutie, but unfortunately the glass pane was very dirty.

One particularly funny scene remains uncaptured, though. During this interaction Snouties nose was pressed up against pane and with his mouth half open he looked simply ridiculous.

Currently I am really considering to buy a video cam, as some of the interaction is much more fun to watch on a video than on a pic.

Here comes the press gang, left Snoutie, right Sayuri.

Dandelion Season is back

2010-04-28T10:49:00.020+02:00

Yesterday in the late afternoon I visited the kats. There was not much going on, though. After a long and sunny day the kats were rather idle, mostly sunning themselves or sleeping.

Sayuri and Flat Ears enjoying a warm spring day.

The question of who will become the next dominant couple is still unanswered. Neither Sayuri nor Caruso seem to excite any interest in the males.

We discussed this and came to the conclusion that it would need a new male in the group.
Christian`s opinion is that the incest repression (I`m not sure about this expression...) is not genetical, but rather social. This meaning that the males are not interested in the females, because of their close social bonds, taking care of them as pups and guarding them while they were growing up etc.

Some dead logs and cut-off boughs were added to the enclosure, as long as it is still bleak from winter. The dead logs and roots are favourites with the kats, they like scratching and examining the bark, playing with and sitting on the logs.

Everybody looked healthy so far.
Möfzi is a bit stiff, but she will defend her food and even tried to jump for the dandelion, whereas the former champions Orlok and Flat Ears did not bother to jump. Flat Ears seemed rather shy, but these last months we have not been visiting as regularly as we used to.

But Sayuri did jump! She landed on her back with an audible "THUMP" and gave me the evil eye ;-)

Stubby Tail looked rather unkempt in his winter fur. It looked like the strange relationship between him and Orlok has been discontinued.

Yesterday evening lacked a bit of the mob feeling, with everybody doing things on their own.

Lateron Möfzi lay down for a nap and after some time first Caruso and then Snoutie came to her. Snoutie made loud squeaky-calls and strated grooming Möfzi, who remaind impassive. After some time he started gnawing her tail tip, like he used to do as a pup. But even this did not result in any reaction. After some time he lost interest and went away, with Möfzi dozing happily on her own.

Flat Ears also went to sleep by himself on one of the big stones, which must have been warm from the sun. He was asleep most of the time during my visit. At first I did not see him, but then I discovered him on the far side of the lookout hills, stretched out flat like some meerkat rug.

With the fine weather continuing during the week, I will hopefully find time for another visit soon.

Here come some pics I took yesterday.

Food´s not, what it used to be... Waiter! I would like to file a complaint!
Left to right: Flat Ears, Möfzi and Sayuri, Sayuri

And here is the latest video posted by Christian on youtube, as I cannot embed this video for whatever reasons, I will just post the link.

Snow Kats

2010-01-10T18:51:00.009+01:00

After a long break the mob is back again ;-)

These last days brought tons of snow, even down here in the city. This is a rare event, as winters in Freiburg are mostly mild with lots of rain and the odd snowflake.

We walked out to visit the kats, as the minor roads are full of snow and ice and it is not nice to bike.

When we arrived at the enclosure, it was late afternoon and the kats were napping or rolling under the big heat lamp. Caruso was on the big lookout hill doing guard duty. As there were only few visitors and it was comparatively quiet, you could hear the distinct squeaky sounds she made.

The three youngsters have grown, but they are still smaller than the adult kats. All three have developed the distinct "ridge" on their heads, lacking in pups or subadults.

We wonder, if they will stay on the small side, as their father, Jolly Roger, was a rather small and delicate kat. Maybe they will still grow a little bit.

All kats looked healthy so far. Möfzi is still alive and her general condition is much better than in August. Her fur looked good, she lost the unkempt patches and she is no longer skinny. Her movements are a bit stiff, but Möfzi is really old now, at least 10 years.

As the snow inside the enclosure had not been removed, there were only some small paths the kats had trodden out in the snow. Most of the enclosure is covered in about 15 cm of powdery snow untouched by any paws.

Möfzi and Sayuri however were undeterred by this and came up to gather their treats. There were some extremely cute moments with Sayuri falling over and rolling in the snow. She looks so funny in her winter fur with her flat, stubby tail sticking out.

Möfzi stayed feeding on the egg treat until she was shivering with cold. This is the moment, you would like to pick her up and stuff her into your jacket ;-)

Here are two particularly cute pics of Sayuri, the little snow princess.

Hey, did YOU throw that stuff on me???

And here is a video taken today by Christian:

The Mob is settling down again

2009-09-19T20:54:00.008+02:00

Today`s weather was pretty mixed, high humidity and smaller tunderstorms in the mountains.
When the sun came through in the early evening I took me and my bike outside.

When I arrived, Stubby Tail was on guard duty on the bigger lookout hill and Sayuri and Snoutie were competing for invisible mice on the former lookout hill, which is sort of molten down to a small heap.

Flat Ears was napping in the sun in the usual meerkat-style furball position, which means with his head between his legs. Would be very uncomfortable for a human, unless you`re a Yogi.

I had brought some extra small cherry tomatoes for which the meerkats are really crazy.

I threw one tomato in the general direction of Flat Ear, but he did not notice and slept on.
The second tomato caught Flat Ears on the back and he woke up to explore this interruption.
He wolfed down his tomato in two bites ;-)

Möfzi discovered the first tomato, which had roled into a crevice in the ground. She had not started on the tomato yet, when Snoutie joined her, trying to snatch it away.

Today I realized that the youngsters will sometimes still make begging calls, or if frustrated they will start barking. The begging calls will *sometimes* still work with Möfzi, but not today.

The turmoil starting in the crevice attracted Caruso first and then Sayuri also joined in. Everybody was pressing against everybody, with Möfzi on the bottom and the youngsters in a furry pile on top, kicking, chattering and trying to pry themselves between Möfzi and the tomato. I think Möfzi won.

This behaviour is what we call "Stopfbällchen" in German, actually I can`t think of a good translation for this word, maybe Christian will come up with something?

I was really angry that I forgot to bring my camera!

Everybody looks healthy so far.

Möfzi's fur is better, the unkempt patches are gone and she has gained weight. Her legs are pretty stiff, but she can still defend her food and will do a hipslam, if necessary.

The girls look OK, but I saw some new tooth marks above Caruso`s right eye, which had already healed, but with the fur not re-grown yet.

Sayuri looks pretty wild, the fur on the right side of her lower jaw and her neck is still short and must have been shorn off completely for medical treatment now showing the grey skin beneath.

In comparision to her siblings, she looks smaller.

The last thing that will distinguish an adult meerkat from a juvenile is usually the size of the kat's head.

A juvenile's head is smaller and the groove in the middle is less visible.

Caruso's and Snoutie's heads already look more like those of the adult kats, whereas Sayuri's is still smaller. But as we know from the past, she will catch up.
Maybe with all this fighting going on in the group, she spent too much energy for growth.

She has found a good way standing and looking up at the same time now.

As shown in previous posts, she will stand up "sailorfashion", legs wide apart.
In the meantime she can do this while looking up and will hold this position for a couple of seconds, until she will loose her balance and sometimes still whack her chin on the pavement.

Tonight she was a bit unsteady, which is often after a long day and sometimes also when she is growing.

Until now no new dominant couple has emerged, I think we will have to wait until next spring, before this matter will be setteled.

Meerkats in Love???

2009-08-27T13:06:00.006+02:00

Things seem to have settled down a little bit in the mob.

The youngsters are mainly together with Orlok and Stubby Tail, while Flat Ears will mostly sit apart from the group performing guard duty.

Möfzi looked better, even though she still has this patch of matted fur sticking out from her side. She is not as skinny as at the beginning of August and is still able to move pretty fast, if she needs to.

What I watched yesterday was that Sayuri is no longer sidling up to Orlok, but will be apart doing her own things.

I watched a short but tender grooming session between Caruso and Orlok!
There was a lot of squeaking going on between the two of them, but I do not know, if both were squeaking, or only one of them.

Some moments later Stubby Tail interrupted the session with a display of jealousy!
He acted in a very aggressive way towards Orlok with chattering and chin-rubbing. He also attacked some of the plants, biting into them and shaking them...

So whatever the relationship between Orlok and Stubby Tail may be, now it looks like Orlok has found a new object of desire...

It is still too early to tell and I only had this short impression, but I will certainly be on the lookout for any further signs of "Meekat Love" going on in the mob.

JAWS!! featuring Sayuri

Things can only get better...

2009-08-12T21:28:00.018+02:00

Today in the early evening I briefly visited the kats.

Things have improved regarding the bite wounds and swellings. Caruso`s eyes are almost back to normal, her left eye still looks a bit sore, her right eye is OK. The fur on her head is still a little patchy in some places, but it will re-grow.

Sayuri`s jaw looks better, the swelling has receded, but the right side of her face looks still a bit mangy.

Möfzi is weak, but she looked better with her fur groomed and it looked like she had put on a little weight.

With none of the males being interested in Sayuri yet, the question of the future dominant couple is still open.

Shortly before I left I watched a cute playfight between Sayuri and Snoutie with lots of little squeaky "I-love-you"-sounds being passed between them.

Here are some quick shots I took with my own new camera (yeah!).

Left to right: Mr-Well-Groomed Snoutie, little ruffian Sayuri, sweet Caruso.

Here is a sequence of pics from the playfight between Sayuri and Snoutie. Looks like a lot of fun ;-)

The End of Innocence

2009-08-09T13:18:00.049+02:00

As the two young females Caruso and Sayuri reached puberty, they started competing for dominance.

Or rather, Sayuri started competing for dominance!

We had alway suspected that she had it in her to take over the position of the future dominant female of the group.

Sayuri has a very headstrong and tenacious personality most certainly resulting from her difficult start into life.

Everything that came easy to her siblings, meant a tough fight for her: being nursed by Möfzi above ground meant that she often had to fight for hours on end to get out of the burrow, while her siblings could simply walk out.

We often watched her struggling to get out of the burrow and nearly making it to the top only to roll back down after another uncoordinated motion. After some rest she would try again and fail and try again and again and again... until she was either picked up by one of the adults or actually made it outside.

The first 3-4 weeks of her life probably set the path to forming her character.

When she was about 4-5 weeks old and the pups were starting to eat solid food, she received additional treatment by the Mundenhof crew.

This became a turning point in her life, as she became more independent from her mother`s milk and could eat on her own getting stronger and better coordinated by the day.
During feeding time she was often first and last on the tray set out for the kats, eating anything she could get, growing and getting stronger.

At about 6-7 months old she had almost grown as tall as her siblings.

We watched her climbing the lookout hills, the small hill first, then the big hill.

She managed to sit up without falling over.

She learned a way to stand up in a peculiar way with her legs wide apart enabling her to make use of her little stub tail. This makes her look like a sailor on deck of a ship in a storm ;-)

Once she is determined to do something which comes to her mind, she is like a bulldozer set on track, going strong, no matter what comes in her way.

About two months ago I watched one of the males (I don`t remember correctly if it was Orlok or Flat Ears) sniffing her.

Playfights between Sayuri and Caruso often ended with Caruso trotting off, even though she could have taken advantage, as Sayuri certainly has a weaker position due to her motion-coordination problems.

Their difference in character becomes obvious though.

Caruso - even though she is in a better physical condition - is lacking the will to fight or to take over a dominant position.

She will often take solace with her brother Snoutie, who also took care of her severe bite wounds probably inflicted by Sayuri.

One of the keepers reported that Sayuri will hog the food bowl and snarl at Caruso. They have to make sure that Caruso will get enough food.

Another sad thing is that Möfzi is obviously on her last legs.
She has become very skinny and is always hungry. Christian took some pictures of her in the late afternoon light, where she looks really touched by the hand of death.

The last time I visited some days ago, she looked better, there are ups and downs, but the path is clearly set towards her end. We both suspect that she might have cancer.

She is still interested in everything going on around her, but she will not engage in any fights or competitions for food as she is lacking the strength to do so.

We will often see her sitting by herself or resting in the sun. Sometimes her children will come to groom her or sit with her, but the other members of the group are acting mostly indifferent towards her.

Last time I visited, she gave me a playfull nip into my finger, as she had already done on several occasions before. She will still sit up, but standing up will often be to difficult for her and send her tottering. Sometimes her bad leg will slip under her, but her eyes are still full of life.

This is probably her last summer, but at least she had the opportunity of successfully raising a litter once in her life.

We will miss you, Möfzi!

Brace yourself for some really shocking pictures taken on August, 01 and August, 06.

Carusos eyes had both been infected and were suppurating, Sayuri had a swelling on her lower jaw. All wounds have been treated and both kats are on antibiotics.

Sayuri with swelling on lower right jaw, pics taken by Christian on August, 01.

Caruso with both eyes infected due to bite wounds, pics taken by Christian on August, 01.

Left: Snoutie licking Caruso`s eyes
Right: Snoutie and Caruso grooming

Left: Sayuri terrorizing Caruso
Right: Sayuri watching interaction between Caruso and Snoutie

Möfzi on a bad day, pics taken by Christian on August, 01.

Sayuri with swelling on lower jaws, pics taken by Doro on August, 06.

Left: Caruso, left eye is still infected, right eye is better, pics taken by Doro on August, 06.
Right: Möfzi (top) and Sayuri (bottom) grooming. How tall Sayuri has become!

Mundenhof kats at Smithsonians "Surprising Science"

2009-07-20T15:04:00.002+02:00

An article on the Smithsonian magazine website features the "Air Raid" video.
This has been around since February but Doro just discovered it.
They wrongly attribute the kats to Hannover instead of Freiburg though.

http://blogs.smithsonianmag.com/science/2009/02/23/meerkats-and-ground-squirrels-live-together-respond-to-threat-differently/

For those who haven't heard of "Smithsonian": Smithsonian magazine is a monthly magazine created for modern, well-rounded individuals with diverse interests. It chronicles the arts, history, sciences and popular culture of the times. Each subscription includes a complimentary membership to the Smithsonian Institution. The printed version has a circulation of ca. 2 million (too bad that isn't where the kats are :)

The institution itself is "an establishment for the increase and diffusion of knowledge among men" founded from the will of British scientist James Smithson in 1846 (it is however a US foundation. It seems Smithson was fed up with British society of his time). In practice the institution runs several museums (including many very well known ones in Washington DC) and funds research. Establishment from the funds of Smithson was carried out by Congress and so it is associated with the US federal government.
Probably one of the best known museums run by the institution is the National Air & Space Museum, which has pretty much everything that has ever flown (or attempted to). That is also one I have personally visited.

Meerkat Birthday Video

2009-07-16T09:11:00.001+02:00

Here comes the promised video taken yesterday.

Happy 1st Birthday!

2009-07-15T23:28:00.016+02:00

On Monday we celebrated the 1st birthday of Sayuri, Snoutie and Caruso.

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)

Meerkat Short Tail Competition

2009-07-07T23:29:00.001+02:00

Even Sayuri`s tail is longer... We often wonder why there are so many short-tailed meerkats in captivity and you never see them in the wild.

Soooo cute!

2009-06-20T00:25:00.000+02:00

Who wouldn`t want this, too...

Summer for the mob

2009-06-19T10:48:00.026+02:00

Two days ago I visited the kats in the early evening of a hot day.

At first only Möfzi, Flat Ears and the youngsters came, but after some time Orlok and Stubby Tail popped out of the inside enclosure and came running.

At the moment the enclosure is really great, lots of plants and even some small trees have sprung up and the kats have many opportunities for playing hide and seek or digging up interesting things. I hope they will not clear this away too soon, as they usually do.

Last year, when the babies emerged, they left the enclosure almost untouched for the whole summer, but in the years before they uprooted all the plants as soon as the enclosure started to look a little unkempt.

The plants also provide some more privacy for the kats, which I think is very important for the group.

Later in the evening the whole group suddenly barked and shrieked with alarm. At first I could not see, what had caused this as the sun was very low and they were looking right into the sun.

But then I saw a paraglider landing close by behind one of the major buldings. They hate all kinds of silent gliders, in particular those resembling the shape of a bird of prey. They also detest hot air ballons, their looming silent presence in the sky is too much.

Intersting enough the bark/shriek they made was completely different from that they make when they see for example the black-and-white cat from next door (which they hate) or they discover a bird of prey or something else further off.

Meerkat sounds are studied by Professor Marta Manser from Zurich University. 34 different sounds are known in meerkats.

Those of you watching meerkats regularly will be familiar with some of the sounds like the clucking watchman`s song or the purring sound they constantly make which is a kind of positioning call.

They also have a special grooming sound which is a kind of high-pitched squeek, this can often be heard when one of the youngsters is grooming Möfzi.

The sounds they make for different kinds of threats (aerial, from the ground, closer by, further off etc.) differ from group to group, so each meerkat group has its own dialect which is passed on within the group.

Actually I really wonder why so many people (including zoo staff) claim that the meerkats whistle when alarmed. No, they don`t! It`s marmots that whistle, but not meerkats.

Here come some pictures I made during my visit.

Left: Snoutie and Sayuri on Guard Duty
Right: Sayuri standing up with her legs wide apart so that her tail will touch the floor.

Left: Close up of Caruso - doesn´t she look like Swingkat?
Right: Caruso "I want a.... SHRUBBERY!"

Left: Orlok (back) Snoutie (front)
Right: Snoutie "I want ANOTHER shrubbery!"

Left: Close ups of Möfzi
Right: Caruso and Möfzi - Möfzi is blinking, you can see the nictating membranes coming down

Left: Orlok
Right: Sayuri terrorizing Flat Ears

Current state of the mob

2009-06-08T23:31:00.005+02:00

During our last visits the kats were pretty relaxed.

Since Jolly Roger died and Swingkat disappeared, the mob is no longer a real group, though.

Möfzi is mostly with her children or on her own. But different from the time shortly after their release in early April, she is stronger and interested in everything around her. She is as loud as ever before and will hipslam and growl, just like in the old times.

Some weeks ago she got an injection into her bad leg and this seems to have worked very well. I presume that she received either some anti-inflammatory treatment or some kind of painkiller, maybe both.

She is running again, even though she will prefer some sort of fast trot, which looks pretty cute. She looks like an old lady trying to catch the bus, but running is simply bad style!

Orlok and Stubby Tail still look like some sort of gay couple.
They will sit together most of the time, getting on each other`s nerves.
Stubby Tail`s teeth are in very bad condition, they canines in the lower jaw are molten to little stubs. We hope that he will not be the next in line with a history of infections and operations.

Flat Ears is by himself most of the time, often seen on guard duty and not interested in Möfzi at all. During our last visit we saw him and Orlok sitting together, grooming each other. This has become a very rare sight since Jolly Roger died and Stubby Tail and Orlok are together as some sort of parody of a dominant couple.

The three youngsters are in very good condition.
They are not fully grown yet, but you can see their bodies losing the juvenile features.

Caruso and Snoutie both like to bite. Caruso will take any occasion whereas Snoutie needs some more provocation ;-)

Snoutie is doing a lot of guard duty and he will often hang out with the guys. Stubby Tail and Orlok are not the best role models, though.

Sayuri is a little darling and has become very wild. She will try anything, even if it hurts her.

Last time she hit her chin several times in a row on the edge of the enclosure, while she was trying to stand up and lost her balance.

Once it must have hurt really bad, because she shook her head, trying to get rid of the pain. It really gives us the creeps, when she hits the edge with an audible and loud WHACK.

During our last visit we decided to change to the opposite side of the enclosure, as there is more soft sand close to the edge.

The kats had been digging there and the youngsters were digging and playing.

One of them would start digging and the next one would try to squeeze into the hole, only to return again after some seconds. This popping in and out of the hole lasted for some time, until it ended in play.

Sayuri was the last to go to sleep and kept popping in and out of the hole several times. She is so cute, when she looks up over her shoulder instead of sitting up, like the other kats would do. And she looks more and more like a twin to Möfzi, minus the tail.

A visit to Basel Zoo

2009-06-05T11:45:00.002+02:00

On Monday we visited Basel Zoo to see the 6 adorable meerkat pups, which are now 2 months old.

It is a really big mob with about 10 adult, 3 juveniles and the 6 pups. They share their enclosure with 3 huge porcupines, but the alliance is an uneasy one. The procupines avoid larger meerkat groups and the meerkats will snarl at the procupines, whenever they come close.

The enclosure is rather spacious, too and they have many high lookout places, rotting logs to explore etc.

After some time we realized that one of the pups was injured and limping on three legs. We tried to contact the zoo and after some attempts someone answered the phone. They told us that they had already noticed the injured pup and it was taken care of. We hope that it will be well soon and thrive like his siblings.

From the visit we brought you these 3 videos, where you can watch the large group at play and one of the pups cuddling with his mother close up.

R. I. P. Swingkat

2009-05-16T21:15:00.003+02:00

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!

2009-05-09T17:07:00.005+02:00

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...

2009-05-04T00:12:00.001+02:00

... having a meerkat as pet!

Anniversary meerbag and current goings on at the mob

2009-05-02T00:11:00.011+02:00

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...

Meerkat Mischief in the sun

2009-04-11T11:45:00.003+02:00

Yesterday we visited the kats in the late afternoon and stayed until they went below ground.
The dandelions are in full bloom and it was the first time, the youngsters saw these flowers.

All of the adults are very keen on getting and eating the dandelion blossoms and the first fresh leaves. Later in the year when the dandelion is getting more bitter, they don`t like them any more.

Some of them - Orlok in particular - make some very daring and high jumps to get at the flowers. The youngsters were quick in imitating the adults´behaviour and to our surprise Sayuri is jumping, too and she managed landing quite well.

A couple of days ago we also had a dandelion salad ;-)

Freedom!!

2009-03-31T19:52:00.004+02:00

After almost 4 weeks in the interior enclosure the kats are out and about again!

The best news for today is that Swingkat has obviously made it! Apart from a shaved patch close to his right front leg, he looks completely the same as ever before.

I was so happy, when he was the first to greet me from behind the hedge with his characteristic grunting noises. He came up happily to get his treats while dangling from my hand.

Möfzi looked a bit depressed, but her mood brightened up in the course of time and after she received some small treats, too. She has lost the ultimate tip of her tail and her walk has become slightly strange due to her bent front paw.

The youngsters were having a great time, digging and playing and they have grown!

So this is the news for today in short version.
Here comes the latest video featuring Swingkat!

Swingkat is not well at all!

2009-03-18T13:48:00.003+01:00

Unfortunately Swingkat is not well at all.

The kats have spent more than two weeks in their inside enclosure.
After last week's examination Swingkat stopped eating properly and looks very groggy and apathetic.

Yesterday I talked briefly with one of the keepers and she told me that the antibiotic did not work out, and his heart is very enlarged.

She was on the way to pick him up from the clinic. They had his lung checked endoscopically, but she did not have any results yet.

Later today I will visit the kats and hopefully they will be outside now. The weather is so fine and warm and Swingkat needs fresh air more than anything else.

Light a candle for our little beloved Swingkat!

Swingkat has made it, kats will probably be out again tomorrow

2009-03-08T20:07:00.002+01:00

We paid a brief visit to the kats yesterday.

They are still inside, but Swingkat is almost OK again.
He will have to see the vet tomorrow for a final examination.
They had also taken a feces sample, but the result is not in yet.

The kats were very frantic yesterday, as the sun came out and they could not get outside. They were running around, scratching and sniffing every crevice.

Sayuri in particular was very mad, she ran in circles on the stone under the heat lamp and bumped into the window several times.

I hope they will be let out tomorrow, they have been inside for nearly one week now. There was also some aggression between Orlok and Möfzi who backed down.

She looked a bit thin to me and is holding her injured paw at a strange angle. But she made eye-contact with us yesterday and you could see that she would have loved to come outside and see, if we brought a little something for her.

The weather forecast for the next days is not very favourable, so I guess it will be some days before I can visit again.

Sick bay report: Swingkat has pneumonia

2009-03-04T23:07:00.004+01:00

As today was another mild day, I decided to visit the kats.

When I arrived, the lamps outside were off and no kats to be seen. As one of the keepers was around on the other side of the enlcosure, where you can also look into their house, I changed to the other side.

The kats had just been fed, but they were inside. The keeper then told me that Swingkat was very ill.

They found him on Monday lying around apathically, breathing heavily. He was taken to the vet at once and diagnosed with pneumonia.

He is on antibiotics and has to be inside to keep warm. I only had some brief glimpses of Swingkat, when he came to the front of the inside enclosure. He does not look bad, but you can see his laboured breathing.

The mob was in a turmoil with everybody running around and back and forth. The kats HATE being inside, but at the moment there is no other possibilty.

Removing Swingkat from the group would mean that he may not be re-integrated and would have to spend a miserable, lonely life or be given away to another zoo or park, as the Mundenhof does not have the facilities for "surplus" animals.

So this means having to spent the next days indoors. I hope the situation will not lead to new trobule with the general situation being so well again these last weeks.

Weather and time permitting, I will visit the mext days and keep you updated.

Spring has sprung and Sayuri takes a fall

2009-03-01T21:09:00.003+01:00

Yesterday we had a very warm and sunny day with around 20 ° C. We walked out to visit the kats.

With such wonderfully warm weather the animal park was packed with visitors and the kats received some treats from visitors of the enclosure.

I am very worried about the youngsters' dental health. They like sweets and all kinds of junk food being thrown inside, just as they learned from the adults.

The problem are not so much children, but rather adults throwing in all kinds of stuff and they are supposed to know better.

Some of them would not feed junk to their pets at home, but they give it to the kats. Shortly before feeding time the kats will beg insistently, if there is someone eating close to their enclosure.

So, this is the downside of those longer and warmer days, particularly on weekends.

But despite this illicit feeding and begging, the kats were pretty much happy yesterday.

We are not sure yet, but Flat-Ears is showing SOME interest in Möfzi. She is quite well, but has lost some weight. Her tail is still bald on the upside, but the bald patches are receding somewhat. I wonder what will happen to her tailtip, as the bone (I guess it`s the bone) is still sticking out.

There is no more mobbing, hissing and biting, Möfzi looked a little bit more groomed than at the last visits. She even had a short grooming session with Flat-Ears, which soon enough ended with Flat-Ears rubbing his chin on Möfzi which she didn`t like and told him by chattering at him loudly.

The youngsters were very alert as there is a population of storks nearby, which will often circle above the enclosure in spring.

Caruso and Sayuri had a very close look at one of the storks flying over.

Sayuri was swaying and staggering a lot yesterday, probably due to lack of exercise in the last months. She and Caurso were sitting on a tree trunk looking up with Sayuri losing balance and toppling over twice.

Lateron though Sayuri was on sentry duty on the big lookout hill sitting up porperly and looking around.

Heat pad kat

2009-02-18T22:11:00.008+01:00

After several windy, rainy and snowy days I was outside today to visit the kats and to take new pics of some bags in my shop and some new bags, too.

The wind was rather nasty, but in sheltered places the sun was really warm. But anyway I was dressed well enough to go on a polar expedition and I could hardly move.

The kats were sitting under their heat lamp, or sleeping or trying to beg treats from the occasional visitor.

Later in the afternoon, when the sun was shining on the new heat pad, Sayuri sat there, scratching it frantically. She obviously liked the heat on her bottom, as she also tried to dig next to the pad, without getting up.

Lateron the youngsters engaged into playing on the pad and some of the adults joined in, too.

Orlok spent some time terrorizing everyone in turn by rubbing his head onto them. When everybody made it clear that they did not like his affectionate behaviour, he stood up to have a look at whom he might have omitted.

With the sun shining for longer hours now, the more playful mood is back into the group. Möfzi is still looking rather unkempt and she answers almost every attempt at coming close by any of the males, except for Swingkat or Snoutie with loud chattering and snarling.

I made some pcitures of the playful youngsters, this time the pictures did come out rather well. So enjoy the not-so-little kats.

Left: Baby Godzilla Lesson One: How to stand up properly
Right: Baby Godzilla Lesson Two: How to cast an impressive shadow!

Baby Godzilla Lesson Three: Proudly present Snoutzilla, Möfra and Carusolon!

Left: Hey, she`s got a SHORT tail, teeheehee!
Right: Who said SHORT TAIL??

Meerkat argument clinic: He said SHORT tail! No, she did! Didn`t! DID!

Hm, it IS a SHORT tail... well, sort of...

Snowkats in February

2009-02-16T20:24:00.003+01:00

The latest video from yesterday, featuring our kats in the snow.

They do not seem to mind the snow, as long as it is not too wet. With yesterday`s temperatures below zero, the snow was powdery and Möfzi did not mind even to sit down in it at least for a short time.

Her constant brrpbrrping at the beginning of the video means that she is hungry and waiting for food.

As you will see, the kats are very keen on their food and follow their keeper on his heels.

Invisible meerkats

2009-02-13T20:08:00.003+01:00

Today I visited our mob to have a look at how things are going with Möfzi and the upheaval in the mob.

When I left home, I packed my bag with a hardboiled egg for Möfzi, a new bag to be photographed, the camera and camera lenses. The weather was so fine today, I would have made a great day for pictures.

When I was almost there, I realized that I had left the memory card inside the card reader. So no pics today ;-)

Things have calmed down a little in the mob. Möfzis paw is on the mend, but her tail still looks like the moths had their share of its fur.

When I arrived, most of the kats were sunning themselves in front of the steel door to their inside enclosure. Möfzi and some of the others were inside.

After some time I managed to lure Möfzi with her boiled egg treat. She came outside and was her real self again!

When Stubby Tail tried to get something, she snarled and lunged at him and he backed down.
Stubby Tail is back to his old self, making his churring rrrtrrrt sounds and no longer aggressive.

Still there is nobody who has an active interest in taking the dominant position together with Möfzi. We will have to wait until spring, I guess.

I watched some really sweet grooming between Möfzi and Sayuri in the inside enclosure. Sayuri is still a little smaller than her littermates, but she looks more and more like a small version of her mother. And she can sit up very well now, but standing up is still a too difficult challenge for her.

Caruso and Snoutie were very curious today and I managed to touch Caruso`s head without being bitten, while she was sunning herself and oblivious of what was going on behind her back. Her fur is very soft!

Some time ago the kats got a heat pad (which is actually for piglets), which they have not been too keen on using.

Today, after the heat lamps were switched off in the outside enclosure (they have a timer which is set to about 4.30 p. m.) though, Flat Ears sat down on the pad for a while.

I think the reason, why they don`t use it is that it was installed in a place where they usually never sit. A spot on the far side of the big lookout hill might have been a wiser decision.

All the kats were very noisy today and you could hear them pretty clearly while they were rolling around under the big heat lamp.

Möfzi is no longer chased away and she will not leave, as soon as some of the other kats turn up. So this seems to be setteled now, but sadly with the loss of Jolly Roger.
We miss you, guy!

Groundhog Day - my-meerkat`s birthday!

2009-02-03T16:53:00.007+01:00

Yesterday was my birthday and I received many many very sweet gifts. It is my first birthday where I got presents and congrats from people I do not know in person, only through the internet. So far I`ve talked to three of them on the phone.

Well, and none of this would have happened without the sweet kats!

One of the presents I received from Lil_E (you crazy little kat ;-) is so sweet, I would like to share it with you. She had this made from this artist on Dawanda.

It`s a meer-scape which can be lit from the back!

Playtime!!

2009-01-29T23:00:00.001+01:00

Here comes the latest video featuring the three youngsters at play.

Sayuri in particular is a really wild and fearless little kat ;-)

Mob Watch

2009-01-24T23:36:00.007+01:00

We visited today and last week on Saturday, I paid an additional visit on Thursday.

The mob is still without a dominant couple with Stubby Tail still showing his dominance display and Orlok following him around.

On Thursday I watched Möfzi sitting by herself under the big heat lamp for most of the time.

She looked very sad and depressed. On the video I made, we detected that there is something wrong with her right front paw. She will hold it in a strange manner and it looks somehow bent in the wrong direction. When she sits, she will sometimes "fold" her paw in a curious way.

I informed the keepers by email, as it was not obvious if this was a fresh wound or an older injury. Today they informed me that they caught Möfzi and had a look at her paw.

It looks like the paw was broken above the joint, but it must have happened some time ago. There is not much they can do, and as long as it is not getting worse, she will not see the vet. She does not really limp, and she also has some strength left in this paw.

No one knows, how this happened, but it adds to the all the emotional and physical stress she has had in these last two months.

She will also most likely lose the tip of her tail. Her tail has lost all of its fur on the last third and the last vertebra is already protruding. The skin of rest of her tail still appears intact, so hopefully she will only lose the tip.

Shortly before we left today, Snoutie came up to groom her and she also reciprocated. Sayuri can also be seen snuggling up to Möfzi.

After about 30 seconds of grooming, they were interrupted by Stubby Tail who pounced on Möfzi.

He will often attack her and bite into her neck, or stand in front of her with his mouth open, ready to pounce. She will then retreat into a little crevice under the big lookout hill waiting for Stubby Tail to retreat.

The rest of the mob is mostly indifferent, with Swingkat and Flat Ears showing occasional interest in sitting next to her.

Sometimes, when the youngsters engage into play and some ot the adults will follow, the playful mood will change into a fight with aggression towards Möfzi. Mostly she will also growl and snarl, but she does not defend herself as a dominant should.

On Thursday she would crawl away, as soon as more than 2 other kats came close, even if it were only the youngsters.

Today she looked a little better and was also seen lying under the big lamp together with the mob. She is never seen right in the middle, though, but alway close to the edge and apart from the youngsters, no other kat came up to cuddle her.

One really sweet scene was Snoutie sitting in front of Möfzi and turning his head to press his little nose against hers. He also leaned on her while sitting up. Snoutie can be seen sitting close to her very often, doing guard duty.

The three youngsters are well and thriving, little Sayuri looks like a minature version of Möfzi. Caruso is looking more and more like Swingkat, only her fur has a lighter shade.

Here are some pictures taken on our visit last week, with the kats sitting and playing in the food bowl.

Excuse me, is this the meerkat jacuzzi??

Waiter!! Hello?! Waiter!??

Möfzi and Snoutie

Healthy Swingkat & Sayuri; current state of the mob

2009-01-05T00:43:00.006+01:00

Today we visited again and enjoyed seeing the mob have a rather messy meal.

Swingkat is fully recovered and missing half of his teeth in his lower jaw does not seem to cause him too much disadvantage. He had a close call with an infected tooth, when the infection spread to the jawbone.

Sayuri continues to do nicely, today it was quite cold and she has a bit trouble coordinating her movements when she is also shivering at the same time but she still got everywhere she wanted to go.

We are now also occasionally seeing Caruso and Sayuri doing guard duty - sitting on the highest hill and singing the "watchman's song", a typical series of peeping sounds.

The grooming state of the mob members was better today, until after the feeding frenzy when everyone looked quite disorderly.

We saw several interactions where Möfzi did not back down from Stubbytail, however another frequent visitor of the meerkat enclosure informed us that there was again a mobbing today.

But during the time we were there, things seemed a little more peaceful.

Swingkat sticks out his tongue at us after a messy meal.

Left: Sayuri snuggles up to Swingkat.
Right: Stubbytail seeing off an unidentified threat, probably a dog on the other side of the enclosure.

Looking back at the Meerkat year 2008

2009-01-02T00:40:00.006+01:00

There were many events for our meerkats this year.

2008 ended sadly with the death of former dominant male Jolly Roger shortly before Christmas.

Autopsy result Today we visited the kats again and talked with one of the keepers. The results of the clinical investigation had just returned. They pointed out that Jolly Roger had a clostridial infection, possibly as the direct cause of death. However this was on top of, and possibly resulting from, a generally weakened state due to poor nutrition and hydration. i.e. his immune system was too weak to defend against something that might otherwise have been kept under control by the natural defenses of the body. Jolly Roger had been seen to eat well when he had a chance to, and of course was also observed by the keepers. but it was difficult to keep track of his health because he had become so intimidated that he ran away from absolutely anything. It probably boils down to this: his system was not able to keep up with the stress and he was using too much energy as he was always running and out in the cold.

Birth The great joyful event of this year was of course the birth of the three young kats in mid-July. These carry on the legacy of their father Jolly Roger. It was the first time for us to see meerkat babies, and we felt privileged to witness what we saw. We had last visited on July 12, when Möfzi was still pregnant, but it was obvious that she would give birth in the near future. On July 15 we returned again, and at first we saw only a few of the adult kats, but there were some other visitors pointing at something, and suddenly I heard the little high chirping sound of a baby meerkat - and there was Möfzi, carrying around a tiny baby.

In the first few days, the kats, especially Möfzi, seemed a bit confused and the babies were constantly brought out of the burrow and sometimes handled a bit roughly but they seem to be quite tough. We saw Möfzi carrying a baby again on July 16 and 19, at this time we did not know how many babies there were and couldn't tell whether she was always bringing out the same baby or different ones each time - we never saw more than one baby outside simultaneously.

Sayuri On July 19 we first noticed that "the baby" had a stubby tail, which had not been the case before - at that time we couldn't know whether it had somehow lost a part of its tail or there were several babies, some with long and short tails.

Today of course we know this was our first glimpse of little Sayuri, who had a very hard start in life due to her motion coordination problems.

A happy and healthy Sayuri relaxes under the heat lamp.
January 1, 2009.

It was on July 26 that we first saw all three babies outside and could confirm that one of them had an abnormally short tail.

As the next months showed Sayuri overcame her difficulties, and while there are some things she wil never be able to do quite like the other kats, she has developed into a strong and confident young meerkat girl. In the last weeks she has also mostly closed the gap in size with the other youngsters, and the juveniles are at first glance not so much smaller than Swingkat, the smallest of the adults.

The other kids, Snoutie and Caruso, never caused any concern for their health as they were always strong from the beginning on but of course we don't love them any less, we just always kept an eye out especially for little Sayuri.

Interestingly Sayuri is the one who has developed the most recognizable and assertive personality so far.

Snoutie (foreground) and Flat-Ears on the highest guard-post in the enclosure. December 26, 2008

Snoutie With Snoutie we could recognize a very early interest in guard duty and since about four months of age he has been regularly standing guard, initially together with his father, but today it already seems that he is accepted as a proper guard. But we haven't been able to pin down as much in terms of characteristic behaviour for these two. They haven't had to face great difficulties in life as early and as much as Sayuri did.

Anarchy Right now the state of the mob is a little more quiet, Stubbytail isn't acting quite as terroristic anymore, but a true, constructive leadership has not yet emerged. Möfzi is only very slowly becoming more assertive.

Last time we visited, the grooming state of most kats was not very good.

This was especially conspicuous with Stubbytail, who despite his show of dominance does not seem to profit from it (normally, getting groomed by everybody is one of the main rewards of a dominant status).

Möfzi also did not look well combed. Only the youngsters and Swingkat looked properly taken care of.

It was obvious that the youngsters don't quite understand what is going on, as when Stubbytail initiated a vicious attack on Möfzi, they took this as opportunity to start some enthusiastic harmless playfighting with each other - not recognizing it as a very serious incident. We informed the keeper team of our observation of this attack, and they took care of Möfzi and put some disinfectant on her neck where she had been attacked.

The examination had however shown that she was mostly dishevelled and had only suffered a small superficial wound, however the effect of the attack on her was a clear shock.

Today this situation had improved, Möfzi looked reasonably groomed. Stubbytail is still looking somewhat unkempt and we haven't really witnessed any grooming going on for him.

Pictures Top and bottom row: January 1, 2009; middle row: December 26, 2008

Left: Some kat's tails are longer than others. Snoutie and Sayuri. Three months ago it was already a great achievement for Sayuri to be able to sit up at all. Today she can sit up as long as she wants to and climb up to the highest points of the enclosure. In the beginning one had to be afraid that she might never be able to properly walk. Her successful development has been a true joy.
Right: Little Sayuri trying to look innocent.

Left: Stubbytail "Tyrant without a cause" is not looking well-groomed at all. However over the recent weeks he has gained in body mass and his head is looking more massive.

Right: Snoutie and Caruso on the "hot stone".

Möfzi and Sayuri on the "hot stone"

the last photos of Jolly RogerAnarchy rules the mob

2008-12-24T22:03:00.006+01:00

In these photos from November 29 Jolly Roger is still a healthy and satisfied meerkat.

about one week later the "palace revolution", the cause of which is still unknown and will probably remain so, took place, and two weeks later Jolly Roger was dead.

He was still healthy on the morning of the day when he was later found dead according to the keeper who later found him. In our opinion it would be too much of a coincidence to assume that his death had any other cause than one that is related with the breakdown of the social order in the group. He had been constantly harrassed and driven away for two weeks.

Stubbytail, who used to be a rather passive personality, has established himself as a "Tyrant without a cause", who is showing all signs of extreme dominance but doesn't seem to understand the purpose of being the dominant male (gaining access to the dominant female, and there is no other option for that than Möfzi).

Possibly these problems go back to the fact that the males introduced to the group in Autumn 2002, of which Stubbytail is one, were not properly socialized as pups, being kept apart too long from the company of adult meerkats.

Flat Ears, who was one of only two males who showed clear interest in mating with Möfzi (the other was Jolly Roger) had suffered from Jolly Rogers dominance for years, but until now is showing no clear interest in taking his place. He is not openly aggressive towards Möfzi but does not show any signs of trying to take Jolly Roger's place as breeding partner.

Jolly Roger was not quite six and a half years old at the time of his death. His birth must have been around August 2002. His period as dominant male lasted from summer 2004 until early December 2008. He leaves behind his three children with Möfzi: Sayuri, Snoutie and Caruso.

The current state of the mob is one of anarchy. Yesterday we witnessed a vicious attack by Stubbytail on Möfzi. However during feeding, Möfzi still manages to show her dominance, displacing all competition for access to the best treats. But she doesn't seem to be willing to fight back against the attacks.

In loving memory of Jolly Roger

2008-12-23T23:54:00.008+01:00

R. I. P. Jolly Roger, King of Hearts

2008-12-20T18:08:00.006+01:00

I have very bad news for you. The kats' keeper informed us that Jolly Roger died a couple of days ago. They have an autopsy performed on him, as they do not know what caused his death.

In the morning he was still alive and well and had also been fed and seen eating, but in the afternoon he was found dead in the enclosure.

About two weeks ago I wrote about the trouble at our "Royal Court" with Jolly Roger and Möfzi being chased away by Stubby Tail and Orlok.

As I had tons of work these last two weeks with everybody doing their Christimas shopping @ my-meerkat and thus no time to visit, I do not know, what had happened in the meantime.

But throughout the week I had a very bad feeling that something might have happened and I spent a lot of time thinking about the kats.

Möfzi still looks pretty disturbed and depressed, and she also has some minor health issue, her tail has some bald patches which have lost their skin, but she is treated currently.

Stubby Tail in particular is still chasing her from time to time, but during the second feeding turn, Möfzi sat right in the middle of the feeding bowl and growling at everybody who tried to snatch food away from her.

It does not look like Stubby Tail is interested in Möfzi, though, but he shows all kinds of dominance display without any real plan behind it. I guess, it won`t be long, until she is back in charge. Flat Ears might turn out to be her next partner, but who knows.

R. I. P. sweet little King, you will always have a place in our hearts!

left: Jolly Roger, right: Möfzi, Summer 2007

left back: Swingkat, right front: Jolly Roger, March 2006

My-meerkat goes America!and:My-meerkat goes Kalahari!

2008-12-16T00:42:00.003+01:00

Thanks to Nevine & Robin for introducing the Mundenhof Kats to the new world!

At "Friends of the Kalahari Meerkat Project" aka FKMP (the Mecca of Meerkat-Mania) Doro's products are now officially featured!

http://friends.kalahari-meerkats.com/index.php?id=gokuki_shop

Queen and King in trouble...

2008-12-08T21:12:00.003+01:00

Today I visited the kats after taking pictures of two new bags.

The weather had been very nasty throughout last week, storm, rain, cold...

I watched the kats for a rather short time, as it was already starting to get cold and damp again. They were under the big heat lamp outside having their dinner. I realized that Möfzi and Jolly Roger were missing and saw one lonely kat running around in the distance.

After some time I saw that Möfzi was mobbed by Stubby Tail and Orlok. At first I thought it was play behaviour, as the three juveniles were playing happily. But then I saw Möfzi retreat under one of the lookout hills looking tired and very unsettled. She did not come when I called her.

I crossed to the opposite side of the enclosure to have a look inside, but there was no one around. Möfzi suddenly appeared again and I called her. After some hesitation she came up to me, rubbing her nose against my hand. Then she retreated into the inside enclosure alone and unhappy. When Stubby Tail and Orlok came inside, she jumped up and ran outside, with both of them chasing her.

Later on I saw her under the big heat lamp again sitting together with Swingkat. After some squabbling he suddenly hugged her and groomed her. But as soon as she got down from the stone, Stubby Tail would chase her again below ground. I could hear him making spit calls.

Jolly Roger was a very sorry sight today. He looked even shrunk. He ran around the utmost parts of the enclosure, avoiding the big lamp and stone. As soon as Stubby Tail and Orlok would see him, he was chased away. He even ran from little Snoutie and Swingkat.

I had to leave then as it was getting dark, damp and cold and I did not bring my bicycle lamps. I wonder what happened?

As I will be on the Mundenhof Christmas Market this weekend, I will take the chance to visit the kats before the sales will start.

Poor little Möfzi and even poorer Jolly Roger, I hope that they will sleep together at least.

World`s first Meerkat Advent Wreath

2008-11-30T16:01:00.004+01:00

Today is the first Advent Sunday. I will explain this for those of you unfamiliar with some of our European traditions.

The 4 Sundays before Christmas - which is on the evening of December 24th in Germany "Heilig Abend" - we usually have an Advent Wreath (Adventskranz) with four candles. Each Sunday an additional candle will be lit.

Normally we don`t have any Christmas decoration at home, as we are both not very fond of Christmas. But this year I got this wreath as a present from a colleague (Elfenzaubereien) on Dawanda.

She sells felted products, but she also does floristics. She came up with the idea of making a Meerkat wreath, so I provided the brown felt meerkat-pups which she used for the wreath.

The crocheted meerkat on the picture is also from someone (womajaka) on Dawanda. She is a crochet expert and I asked her to have this meerkat made for us after the pattern by Roman Sock.

It is still unnamed, but you can see that it`s already found a friend in our mob.

Busy weeks...

2008-11-25T00:15:00.004+01:00

These weeks are extremely busy for both of us...

I am preparing my first Christmas-Market which will be on December 13th and 14th. I am sewing up a storm...

There must be more meerkats in our home currently than at the Kalahari Meerkat Project ;-) and the dust bunnies are crawling all over the place!
Before I started sewing full-time, I never realized that it is such a dusty business.

The weather has turned as well. It`s winter now and yesterday we had our first snow for this season, but it`s already gone again today. Only the mountains are still covered in white. This is quite exceptional, as the last two winters were very mild and we had only very few snow, even in the mountains.

We visited the kats on Sunday and this time we walked out instead of taking the bikes. I prefer walking in the cold, because I get very cold cycling longer distances.

And with watching the kats for a long time in the cold wind, it is much less confortable to cycle with hands and feet gone numb with cold than to walk and get your blood circulation going in no time.

The three juveniles were snuggled together midway on the big lookout hill under the big heat lamp. We watched Sayuri sit up for a looooong time whithout falling over! She is starting to look more and more like Möfzi, except that she will certainly not grow as tall.

The adults are all very well fed at the moment, Swingkat has recovered, too. A couple of weeks ago it looked like he had lost weight, but now he looks almost the same as before his operation.

The kats have a cat scrátching post in their inside enclosure and it features a hammock. This hammock is slightly damaged due to overuse by the adults, but Sayuri and Caruso enjoyed playing tag and bouncing around and in and out of the hammock.

I am thinking about getting one of these for the kats for christmas, but I am still waiting for a positive answer from the kats` keeper.

We watched Sayuri and Caruso playing indoors for quite a while. Sayuri is getting better at the wrestling matches, too. She will not fall down at once, but can muster the strength to fight back.

Soon now she will also succeed in jumping onto the ledge leading to the heat lamp in the inside enlcosure.

It is already getting more and more difficult to tell Caruso and Swingkat apart from far away. Caruso will soon be as big as he is.

And the difference in length between Snoutie and Jolly Roger is also getting smaller.

Jolly Roger and Fat-Ears are still continuing their feud: if Flat-Ears is inside under the heat lamp, Jolly Roger will chase him out and if he is outside under the big heat lamp, he will chase him away, too.

So Flat-Ears has to sit under the small lamp by himself feeling sorry...

Due to the good and rich food in the last months, Möfzi has gained a lot of weight.
Her fur size is certainly rather double XL than L/XL at the moment... but it`s OK, they need the extra weight in winter, as they sleep outside and stay outside most of the day.

Playtime in November

2008-11-11T22:59:00.004+01:00

Yesterday I visited the kats in fine and warm weather. I came right for feeding time, everybody got one big mouse.

The pups will be 4 moths now in a couple of days.

I was a bit concerned about Swingkat, as he still looks skinny with his hip bones still protruding. H

e ran away with his mouse and at first I didn`t see him eating, but later I watched him eat his whole mouse unmolested from anybody.

Some time later he had snatched another piece from someone else and Snoutie came up to him making enthusiastic begging calls. As Swingkat did not respond and hipslammed him, Snoutie bit into the other side of the mouse and both had a real tug of war, with Swingkat winning.

Both Caruso and Snoutie devoured their mice making enthusiastic moop-moop-moop-sounds, in particular Caruso was very loud. I wonder wether she will still be that chatty as an adult.

The adults no longer respond to the begging calls, but the pups still try to snatch a treat from the adults.

Sayuri is more quiet and she still fiddles about with her mouse for a long time. It looks like she is rather sucking it than biting into it ;-) She is a sweet little ball of fur and still smaller than the other two pups.

I talked to their keeper about Swingkat`s condition and he also remarked that Swingkat is eating well, but is still a bit skinny. He said that he is torn between what to do for Swingkat as he is still thin and the others, who are very well fed... Möfzi and Orlok in particular are getting middle age spread.

Stubby Tail`s treatment was successful, his sinus trouble is better, but it`s not gone completely yet.

After feeding time the pups came over to play and dig in the rustling leaves that had gathered in some places of the enclosure. They also had some little play-wrestling matches.

I was slightly concerned, when a large hornet tumbled into the enclosure and Snoutie started inspecting it and later biting into it. But he did it very well and ate it without being stung.

When the 5 adult males were about 8-9 months old, Flat-Ears caught a bee, but did not bite into it correctly.

The bee was still buzzing inside his mouth and he got a nasty sting. Flat-Ears collapsed within seconds, the other kats came running to check on him. Christian jumped into the enclosure to check on Flat-Ears, as no keeper was around and Flat-Ears lay completely still, but then he ran to fetch the keepers.

Flat-Ears was collected by one of the keepers and we thought that he was dead.

About 30 minutes later, he was transported back inside a cage and alive and kicking! They had put a frozen mouse onto his throat and within minutes he was back.

That`s why I was really concerned, when I watched Snoutie exploring this hornet... but he managed better than Flat-Ears.

Meerkat camera contest

2008-11-09T21:34:00.002+01:00

We visited the kats on Friday in the late afternoon. This time we lowered the camera into the enclosure and were met with enthusiastic actors ;-)

Sayuri was the first to have a close look. As you will realize, she still isn`t too steady when standing up and looking up at the same time. She will only stand up, if it can`t be avoided, but her curiosity will often take the upper hand and she will come close and explore. I already had her attention with a cherry-shaped red keyring pendant for which she also stood up to explore.

As you will also realize, she still has trouble walking backwards and will often do some strange and funny summersaults.

She likes walnuts very much and will play endlessly with the shells defending them furiously from everybody.

At 2:48 in the video, it looks, like somebody is licking the lens ;-)

The kats were very interested in the dangling lens cover and would bite into it and pull at it relentlessly. Caruso in particular is very intent on biting and pulling, she will also go for your fingers, whereas Sayuri will mostly sniff at them and take a gentle nip. Snoutie is also very likely to bite. All of them are so very curious and none is shy.

When the 5 adult males were about the same age, they would never come as close, they were very shy. When they were older, I was bitten more than once until they had found out how to nip at my fingers without hurting me. And I am sure that Orlok always did it on purpose...

Once, when I was wearing a hooded sweater which features some tiny "horns" and I pulled up the hood, as it was windy, Orlok jumped right back and growled at me.

Stubby Tail would stand up and eye me curiously, taken some steps back and forth, never taking his eyes off the hood. You could see how he was trying to understand, what was going on. I wonder, if they remember the incident as "The Day of the Big Black Animal"...

So here comes the latest video of the three youngsters, they will be 4 months old in a couple of days.

Möfzi and Sayuri try a new look and an old feud will never end

2008-11-03T18:34:00.018+01:00

After Möfzi already tried to wear a fashionable sawdust attachment on her face, Sayuri tried a slightly belated Halloween-Gothic make-up today.

After the fog had cleared in the late morning, we had a mild day with glorious sunshine and there is still lots of bright foliage left on the trees. As the weather was so fine, I decided to visit the kats today. On Saturday during my last visit, it was rather nasty and cold outside.

The kats spend a lot of time under the heatlamps, but they are outdoors most of the time. They will only move indoors about an hour before sunset to spend some time under the heatlamps.

But they sleep outside in their burrow, I watched them retreat for the night when the sun was almost down.

There seem to be some hot issues between Flat-Ears and Jolly Roger, though. Jolly Roger chased him out of the inside enclosure, even though Flat-Ears was sitting there all by himself. Jolly Roger also asserted dominace by lunging at him and chasing him off for no evident reason.

We`ve had this behaviour a couple of times before and sometimes it`s really Flat-Ear`s fault, as he sometime simply does not know how to "behave" towards his superior.

Some years ago we watched Flat-Ears being chased and mobbed by everyone, including Orlok, who would normally defend him against Jolly Roger. But not this time.

After some time we found out, what the problem was, though. As Flat-Ears is not allowed to mate with Möfzi, he tried his luck with poor Stubby Tail, who is also a male.

At that time Möfzi must have been in oestrus, so Jolly Roger might have been confused "What, another girl...? And this lout is stealing her away..."
He would try mating with Möfzi - who turned him down, by simply sitting it out - but then the activities behind his back would distract him and he would lunge at Flat-Ears.

I am not sure what caused the dominance assertion today, either Möfzi is in oestrus, or Flat-Ears is trying his luck with Stubby Tail again, or it`s just a matter of principle. Who knows.

Back to Sayuri and the other two pups! It will not take very long until they will have outgrown Swingkat. Snoutie (Rüsselchen) is already almost as tall as him, but he was always the biggest of the three pups.

When I arrived some moron had obviously thrown in a whole piece of some salty pastry ("Laugenstange" in German, it`s quite yummy, but not for kats!) and Sayuri was first in carrying the largest piece - which was about half the size of her body - around and defending it furiously.

The was a wild chase with everybody trying to get their share, except for Stubby Tail who spent the time on the big lookout hill doing sentry duty.

The problem with this kind of pastries is that they tend to stick in the kat`s mouths and they often have a hard time, getting those pieces unstuck. They sometime sneeze and nearly vomit (and sometimes they really vomit, too!).

Hard bread is not that problematic, as they simply chew and bite of small pieces. But this stuff is rather soft and they tend to rip out large chunks.
Poor Swingkat also had a large share and had a hard time getting the stuff unstuck.

I really hate those people!! I mean there are HUGE SIGNS printed on orange paper asking people NOT to feed the kats.

Why don`t they go and feed the ducks, for god`s sake!!

Apart from this, the pups have already learned to beg for treats from visitors and this kind of stuff is certainly no good food for them! I am afraid that they might already have tried ice-cream and other junk thrown in by irresponsible visitors.

As many of the kats have dental problems, I am afraid that the pups will already grow up with bad teeth and some of the adults will also encounter massive problems in the next years.

So this is the downside of such an open animal park, where you can come an go as you like.

But anyway everybody looked healthy and happy enough today. The treatment for Stubby Tail`s and Flat-Ear`s sinus problems seems to help, the bumps on their noses are nearly gone. It also looks, as if they had been opened and cleaned.

Möfzi is very very round at the moment, I am not so sure, if she is just getting fat, or she might be pregnant again. Wait and see!

So here come some pictures I took this afternoon, they are not too good, as I am no expert with this high-tech camera-thingy, but I managed to get a very cute shot of Sayuri with black make-up. She had been digging inside a root stub from a discarded potted plant and the black earth got stuck in in her face.

The video of Möfzi was taken some weeks ago.

Left: Sayuri with new make-up and right Snoutie (Rüsselchen) relaxing under the heat lamps

Swingkat under the heat lamp. On the right picture he is still trying to get rid of the pastry stuck in his mouth.

Inside under the heat lamp with uncles Stubby Tail (back) and Orlok (front), the pups are Sayuri and Snoutie

... cuteness knows no bounds...

2008-11-03T01:30:00.003+01:00

No, today no entry about our mob, I just stumbled upon this super-sweet video of five little cuties:

Time flies like an arrow, fruit flies like a banana... and meerkats like a banana, too

2008-10-24T19:35:00.013+02:00

I returned from the meerkats about an hour ago.

Swingkat is much better and returning to his old self. I talked to his keeper and he told me that Swingkat gained 200 gr. weight in these last 10 days since his treatment started.

The wounds have healed and he is adapting to his new condition with less teeth.

About half an hour after I came, the kats got one big tray of fresh cheese mixed with bananas and they were literally wollowing in their food ;-)

They all had dirty paws and some hade cheese in their fur and on their noses. I made some pics of the kats wolfing down and of some really dirty faces.

I also took many pictures of Sayuri sitting up. She can do it now for almost any length of time without swaying or falling down.

When I came, I called her name and went to the spot where we would normally stand, when we vist the kats. And - it certainly was mere chance - she came running, her little stub tail raised in the air.

I`m trying to teach her to respond to her name. With Möfzi it will sometimes work. When you call her she`ll come, but sometimes she won`t. It`s like with cats, you call 4500 cats and maybe ONE cat will come... perhaps...

The keeper also told me that all of the adults suffer from sinus problems, and all of them on the right side of their noses. They do not know, where this comes from.

Stubbytail is on antibiotics, as he is affected worst of all. If these will not help, they will have to open the sinus and clean it out. It might also be an abscess.

Flat-Ears and Swingkat are treated as well for this sinus infection. The others are not affected as much.

Swingkat is still fragile, he started shivering, as the sun went down, but did not want to get inside. Only when Möfzi and some of the others retreated, he also went inside.

But the worst is over for him and he`s definitely on the mend.

Sayuri sitting up in the sun and Sayuri looking at the camera. Both pics are not brilliant as I had to fight with the camera ;-)

The kats wolfing down and Swingkat with banana-cheese facial and paw treatment...

Petition gegen die Verpackungsnovelle

2008-10-23T13:38:00.004+02:00

Sorry folks, but this post has to be in German ;-) It is a petition against a German law which will result in an increase of shipping cost for customers and it also means an additional fee to pay for sellers.

As I sell my handmade meerkat products on the German platform Dawanda, some of the sellers decided to make a petition against this law... the rest of this post will be in German.
+++++++++++

Liebe BesucherInnen dieser Webseite,

ab dem 1. Januar 2009 tritt die sogen. Verpackungsnovelle in Kraft. Mit dieser Novelle wird die Verwendung und Entsorgung von Packmaterial im Handel neu geregelt; auf alle Händler kommen durch diese Novelle Mehrkosten in derzeit noch unbekannter Höhe zu.

Für den Kunden oder die Kundin bedeutet dies, dass ab Januar 2009 die Versandkosten steigen werden.

Um Ihnen als KundInnen und uns als HändlerInnen diese Mehrkosten zu ersparen bzw. in erträglichem Rahmen zu halten, haben HändlerInnen der Internetplattform Dawanda hier beschlossen, eine Petition einzureichen.

Als Hauptpetentin möchte ich Sie/Euch bitten, die Petition mitzuzeichen, wir brauchen Ihre/Eure Stimme, damit die Petition gehört wird.

Auf dieser Seite des Deutschen Bundestages kann die Petition "Abfallwirtschaft - Kleine und mittlere Gewerbe nicht benachteiligen" mitgezeichnet werden:
https://epetitionen.bundestag.de/index.php

Ihre/Eure Stimme kann etwas bewegen!

Swingkat reports back to duty. Caruso is a girl

2008-10-21T23:23:00.008+02:00

These photos show Swingkat taking over guard duty again.

He declined any attempts by the young ones to initiate playfighting, obviously he still felt too weak to exert energy on mere play. He would just move away and sun himself in a different spot.

But he did climb up on the highest lookout hill and held guard duty alone or together with Stubbytail (Stummelschwänzchen).

He still tires quickly and will curl up tightly in a ball to conserve warmth and lock out all the noisy and boisterous activity of the juveniles. But he definitely seems well on the road to recovery. We will hope the best for the next weeks; it seems that now the crisis is past, the natural resilience of the meerkat species is revealing itself again.

The playfight pic shows Caruso, Snoutie and Orlok. Orlok loves playing with the young ones. he was always fond of biting into other meerkats, and it was like a gift from the gods for him to suddenly have these new friends who would never tire of playfighting :)

We are almost 100% sure now that Caruso is a girl. Probably we will keep the name however. There are examples of other meerkats who have gender-inverted names :)
The last of the three young ones (who is actually the biggest) is going by the name of Rüsselchen (Snoutie) because he has a bit of a funny nose. This is probably only a temporary "baby name" until we get to know him better :)

All photos were taken on October 19, 2008

Swingkat - good news

2008-10-21T20:55:00.002+02:00

I just received a mail from Swingkat`s keeper.

His condition is improving and he is no longer fed separately from the group and he hates cat food ;-)

Swingkat will still have to learn to cope with his new situation, he can eat his mouse again, even though it takes him some time so that he will have to defend any leftovers from the other, faster kats.

I will try to visit again tomorrow or on Thursday, weather and time permitting. After some gloriously warm and sunny days the weather has changed.

Tonight temperatures are still mild, but we had some torrential rainfall in the afternoon and early evening.

Swingkat's condition has improved; photos - Swingkat, Sayuri and Möfzi.

2008-10-17T20:31:00.007+02:00

Swingkat Doro visited the Mob today and took these photos of Swingkat in his current condition. He's seen better days but it is a definite improvement over last week.
He will still have to learn to adapt to his new condition with less teeth though.

Two pics of Swingkat taken on Oct. 17. Note that his jaw isn't as deformed any more as on Oct. 11 and his general condition although still poor has improved.

Here are some older pics of Swingkat when he was healthy. At left, taking care of a baby on August 2 and at right, standing guard on April 26.

Swingkat has always taken his duties seriously whether as babysitter or sentry.

Sayuri Today again Sayuri could be seen standing up a lot, she is continuously improving. We have also noticed that she has developed a rather "high-legged" gait instead of hovering very close to the ground - in the beginning she was more crawling than anything else. At below left is a photo of the typical situation you would see her in when the pups were very young: While the other pups could already sit up properly, even stand a bit, and walk some range, she was often just lying around with her legs splayed away like a run-over frog.

Initially one could think that she was just generally weak or exhausted, but we soon observed that there was something "actively" wrong with her, i.e. you would see her starting some movement and suddenly flipping right over on her back from some sudden full-body twitch or convulsion. At this time one could see that she was almost unable to move in any certain direction because she would always flip over and couldn't regain her orientation. Her attempts of many hours to get out of the burrow then would result in total exhaustion and she would be lying around like this for hours, just trembling a bit.

The initial appearance when you saw her like this was that she lacked muscle tone or was just generally weakened, but if you observed her for a longer time you could see that there had to be something wrong with the control of her movements, and the exhaustion was probably secondary, it resulted from her endless attempts to get anywhere.

Moving around is difficult enough for a young meerkat pup and her attempts were always confounded by these convulsions that really seemed to strike her like lightning bolts.

In general, after a while one of the adults would carry her around to wherever the other pups were. We also often found that she was very dirty, perhaps because she rolled into some muddy puddle that the other pups were able to avoid. However the adults usually cleaned her up rather quickly.

This was the time when we really didn't know whether she would pull through.

She has progressed enormously from this point, at right you can see her biting into one of her littermates during a playfight. The turnaround was when she was ca. 1 month old.

She has become quite assertive! If she didn't have her handicap, with her indomitable personality she would probably have the quality for taking over one day as DF from Möfzi. But perhaps coping with her handicap is also part of what created that personality.

Left: August 2, Sayuri (the pup at right in the image) and one of the other pups. Note that the other pup, looking to the left, is sitting up properly and Sayuri is just smashed on the ground.
Right: On September 20 Sayuri takes a bite out of one of her siblings :)

Möfzi And here are two more pics of Möfzi, one showing her with mouth wide open (you can see where a canine is missing) in a playfight with Jolly Roger on August 30, and the other showing her seconds before falling asleep, as a tired mother on July 27.

Photos - poor Swingkat and an ever-stronger Sayuri

2008-10-16T23:18:00.010+02:00

Top: Swingkat on Oct. 11 - he's very emaciated, jaw deformed.
Below left: how Swingkat looked on July 27. A happy kat.
Below right: Sayuri on one of the lookout hills.

Swingkat Update - Bad News

2008-10-16T22:19:00.003+02:00

I just received a mail from one of the keepers regarding Swingkat`s health.

Swingkat broke one of his lower right canines and the broken tooth became infected. This infection had spread to his lower right jaw also afflicting the bone.

His teeth on the lower right side had to be removed completely and he is now on antibiotics which will last for ten days. The vet will see him again next week.

He is fed with soft food and after he will be healed (hopefully) he will only be able to cut his mice on the left side of his jaw.

So Swingkat will have to be monitored closely as he will then need a lot of time for eating.

Another thing is that two adults have to be treated as well because of sinus infection. We already noticed that Flat-Ears (Plattohr) and Stubbytail (Stummelschwänzchen) had weeping sores on their noses but did not connect this with sinus infection.

Please keep your fingers crossed that Swingkat will soon be able to eat and be his old self again! He is such a sweet little darling and my favourite kat.

I`m really devastated right now and can only write this post with the help of a glass of strong red wine to keep me from weeping.

Under these circumstances I will absolutely visit again tomorrow, rain or shine.

Swingkat Update

2008-10-12T21:29:00.002+02:00

I visited this afternoon and talked to one of the keepers.

He told me that Swingkat was fed seperately from the rest of the mob and got cat food and a big mouse.

He ate this mouse, but it took him a long time and a lot of effort. The keeper also told me that one could see that something inside his mouth was wrong and that Swingkat will see the vet tomorrow morning.

The whole mob will be taken inside so that Swingkat can be treated.

As he had the opportunity to eat properly today, he was not quite as apathetic and moved around in the enclosure always in search of more food. I could sneek in some additional piece of boiled egg, which he ate greedily.

I touched his chin, a thing he normally would tolerate or ignore completely, but today he moved away quickly from my touch as it was obviously painful for him.

The complete underside of his jaw felt swollen and hot and his fur, which is normally shiny and will only stand up when he is in his winter coat, is all tousled and his sweet little face it a mess.

I hope that the treatment will be sucessful and he will be back to normal again soon.

If time permits, I will pay a short visit tomorrow in the later afternoon and hopefully talk to one of the keepers again.

Something nice and unexpected happend as well today: I touched little Sayuri.

She was on one of the tree trunks close to the fencing of the enclosure and I could not resist to put my hand inside, close to her. She was very interessted and relaxed and came up to my hand, sniffing it and trying to sit up to inspect it more closely.

As she still has trouble sitting up and doing something else simultaneously, it ended with her chin on my hand and then with her rolling down the tree trunk ;-)

To my surprise she had no intention of biting me.

I would not try this with the other two pups, they look so intent on biting into anything they can get...

Sayuri can do it but Swingkat is in trouble...

2008-10-12T00:46:00.004+02:00

Today we visited the Mundenhof mob again. There is good news and bad news.

The good news is about Sayuri. We have been very surprised and delighted about her progress in general. During the time when we were on vacation in August we were very worried that perhaps there would be only two pups when we returned and we also got an email from one of the keepers during that time that did not sound very hopeful. But she has pulled through and developed into a very strong personality full of joy for life.
---
Flashback - to sum up, Sayuri was born with a neural condition that causes problems with coordination of her movements and her sense of balance. We do not know exactly what it is and whether there is a causal relationship with the fact that she has an extremely short tail; a similar combination can show up in dogs (and humans...) in cases of spina bifida. Many of her symptoms fit in with damage of the cerebellum - what is described as 'Cerebellar tremor (also known as "intention tremor")', and Dysmetria / Asynergy. However she does not have any indication of general problems with muscle tone or strength.
---
Today was the first time we saw her jump up onto one of the lookout hills, the smaller but steeper one. We have observed that she finds her own "special solutions" for many challenges.

There are many things that she cannot do just by following the instincts of her body like the other meerkats because her muscles will simply not get the right signals.

For instance, all the other kats will just jump up to the stone beneath the heatlamp in the interior enclosure from some random angle. It is natural for them that they can size up the distance and angle, and their brain will subconsciously send the exact right signals to their muscles to always jump exactly the right way and land perfectly.
This is what does not work with Sayuri. It is not an issue of muscle strength, she is quite strong although a bit smaller than the rest of the kats. If she tries to jump like this, she will usually just land on her back with all legs kicking in a not very dignified pose (can meerkats be embarassed; sometimes I think so!) - Landing in general is something she is not good at.

So the tremendous work that Sayuri does is to find conscious solutions for all these things. She will develop a workaround, memorize it, and use that, until she finds another, better one - or by exercise learns to accomplish it the "proper" way. For instance whe she wants to get up to the stone under the heatlamp, she looks for a certain point on the concrete ledge quite a bit away from the stone, pulls herself up with her front paws up onto the ledge, and then walks over the narrow ledge to the stone. The ledge is about as high as she is when she stretches out fully.

No other meerkat will ever get up on the stone like this - for a "normal" meerkat it is just natural to jump from wherever they stand. but Sayuri has to look at each situation like this and find her own complex trick to get where the other kats are. We have observed quite a few instances of her finding such solutions for different problems in the enclosure. It is very interesting to see how an animal like this copes with such a situation. In fact humans with cerebellar injuries can have similar issues.

One result of this is that many of the little daily things that a meerkat does naturally, are hard work for her. When she gets tired, and she can't concentrate anymore, her movements get very uncoordinated and she becomes quite helpless and miserable to watch. As soon as she's gotten a short nap and can focus again, she performs much better.

We were very disturbed when we watched her once, tottering about like a punch-drunk boxer in the last round, not even able to find a direction to walk in, and thought she had a serious relapse or even some additional brain damage - but then after half an hour of rest she was reborn.

Another thing is that she has a problem multitasking. The other pups have no problem walking forward, and looking up into the air (watching a plane, ec) at the same time. This is very hard for her to do and she will usually stumble, or have to stop in her tracks.

She can run as fast as the others over open ground but she careens about a bit and when she runs along the side of the enclosure, where there is a kind of "fast track" along a wall that leads to the interior part, she will bounce off the wall a bit like a badly driven race car in a video game. But she gets there!

Sayuri was not able to get out of the burrow when she was ca 3-4 weeks old and this was a time when the meerkats still got their nourishment from their mother's milk, but she mostly fed them overground.

So Sayuri was only able to drink at night when the entire family was in the burrow, while the other pups could drink all day. This is probably where she got her developmental lag in terms of size but ever since the pups have started to eat their own solid food she has been closing the gap. Probably she will always remain somewhat smaller though.

She is very intense and serious in her defence of food and often starts spit-calling, growling and lunging at competitors (even the dominant male!) right away, when anyone shows even the slightes interest in her food - or gets close enough she imagines an interest - , probably because this is just "no fun" for her remembering that hunger.

At this point we are sure Sayuri will grow up to be a very special meerkat who will, sometimes in a roundabout way and with some strange tricks, be able to do most of the things all other kats can.

She will never stand as tall and free as the great sentries like Plattohr, and will never wrestle quite as elegantly on two legs as the others, but she has learned to lead a rich and fulfilled life despite her handicap and is full of energy.

One thing we observed very early on with her is that she NEVER GIVES UP. even when she literally couldn't make it out of the burrow she would try for hours and in the end appeared in some obscure hole at the lowest point of the enclosure, that was totally forgotten. This caused quite some distress with the adults who then rescued her from this desolation.

So that is the good news about Sayuri.

Sadly we have a new problem case and that is Swingkat (Schaukelmännchen), one of five males who joined the group in Autumn of 2002 as very young juveniles.

We noticed that he has a deformed face and lower jaw and that he has lost a horrific amount of weight.

He is very emaciated, his face which was always kind of "childish" looks aged, his bones stick out and he looks almost as if he would break apart in the middle. He was always the smallest of the adults anyway. He also has problems eating; there were some corn (maize) kernels strewn about which are not extremely attractive for meerkats, but Sayuri was able to eat them, and normally a desperately hungry meerkat would go for something like this to fill up, but Swingkat ignored them. We reported the situation to one of the keepers and he came around with some mealworms, that Swingkat devoured ferociously. Swingkat has always been an absolute darling with the pups but in this case, on the brink of starvation, he viciously defended his meal against the pups, which are actually a problem for him in this situation, because they are very agile and will take away most of his meals - because it takes him so long to chew them up and he will always have to drop an item of food and pick it up again and again. We observed this when he was eating a tiny "cherry tomato" which a meerkat will usually crush and gulp, this was quite a a challenge for him.

The best guess right now is an abscess somewhere in the lower right jaw, according to the photos. He will be seeing the vet on Monday. We know how tough meerkats are from Meerkat Manor, were in some episodes you could see quite horribly emaciated meerkats that were still able to forage. However meerkats do not store energy in fat reserves and if they fall ill and can't get enough energy into their body it is a serious problem. A meerkat that can't eat properly will get into serious danger within a few days. We could see how Swingkat instantly developed more energy and was not as listless and immobile after getting his additional treats.

We hope very much that with some supplemental feeding, attention, probably antibiotics and perhaps pulling a rotten tooth our little Swingkat will pull through. A this moment we cannot tell what the cause of his illness is but we are hoping that it is something relatively simple as a tooth abscess, because this fits with the swelling on his jaw and his trouble chewing/biting, and would explain his weight loss as we saw how he lost most of his food to the vigorous pups, and he is unable to eat items like mice in this situation.

Back in 2004 we observed something similar with Stubbytail (Stummelschwänzchen) who also developed an abscess; he would carry away his mouse normally but would be unable to do anything with it, he would fumble about with it with increasing frustration and finally creep away to stay hungry while someone else ate the mouse.

The problem is that from a viewpoint of "getting food" a meerkat at this point seems normal - you have to stay around to make sure that everything is eaten. During the busy schedule that exists at the animal park, it is therefore possible that Swingkat's condition when it initially developed was not obvious to the keepers, because he picked up his mouse normally - and Swingkat anyway is one of the kats who often retreats a bit with his item of food.

What is it with the abscesses, they generally seem relatively common, and this may have something to do with all the trash that is thrown in by undisciplined visitors. We've seen anything from ice cream, french fries, pasta leftovers, cake, salt crackers, baloney to... the devil knows.

Dental health in general is not too good in the group, there are some kats who seem to be remarkably immune but several of the males have strangely rounded teeth that look as if they are molten down, or partially dissolved - as if they were made of ice and mostly thawed away. So the canines which should be quite sharp are like rounded pebbles. Möfzi has some time ago lost one of her lower canines but this could be unrelated to food issues, as she is also the oldest kat in the group and we don't know how exactly how old she is, we have known her for 8 years but she is probably at least 9 - unless she was not a pup when the meerkat display was opened, in which case she might be even older yet.

Ironically the kat which we were originally most worried about in terms of dental health was Plattohr (Flat-Ears) who had some very brown/black teeth from a quite early age, but together with Orlok he has some of the finest meerkat canines left in the group.

We will post a few photos next week and keep everyone informed as to how Swingkat's condition develops.

Of course we love all of the meerkats but Swingkat has always had a special place in our hearts because of his playful antics, his personality which mixes mischieviousness, some shyness but also a lot of brazenness. And he has always just been "the cutest" until the pups emerged :)

Caruso - the "singing" meerkat pup

2008-10-09T00:16:00.005+02:00

A couple of days ago we decided to name another one of the pups.

As this little guy (we still don`t know, if its a male or a female) loves to screech so much and its voice is really squeaky, Christian suggested "Caruso" as an adequate name (see also "noisy meerkat pups") .

And if it`s a girl, we`ll change the name to either Montserrat (Caballé) or Maria Callas ;-)

I visited yesterday in really fine and warm October sun,

As it was around feeding time, the kats were already on the lookout for either "THE CAR" or "THE CART".

As soon as they spy either, they will get very excited, running to the door of their enclosure. If either vehicle doesn`t approach fast enough, they will start running up and down and pawing the glass frantically.

So this day was a GREAT day, as THE CAR AND THE CART arrived both!

The first snack they got were locusts which they had gobbled down within seconds.

I had the chance to talk to one of the keepers and he told me that Sayuri will now get up onto the large hill, too!

She is making great progress, her movements are getting more and more coordinated and when walking or running, she will no longer do this "crouching" close to the ground, but pushing her legs up like the other two pups do.

As their second course they got one big tray full of assorted cut vegetables, fruits and baby mice.

The baby mice were gobbled up within 30 seconds or so with Möfzi defending the last mice for herself.

As the dry vegetation had been removed from the enclosure some weeks ago, the meerkats now got the root balls of some large potted plants to scratch and destroy.

Shortly after feeding time everyone made a cat nap under the heat lamps.

I used the kats`napping time to take some pictures of my new christmas meerkats in the forest nearby.

Usually Christian will take pictures of my products, but this time he was busy and so I tried to do it myself. It was really fun and the forest had an enchanted atmosphere with the rays of the late afternoon sun coming through the foliage (which is still astonishingly green).

After about 1 hour or so I returned to the meerkat enclosure to watch the kats some more. They were quite active and Caruso was squeaking and screeching at the top of his lung very much to the visitors`amusement.

When he walked by and suddenly made a particularly lound and indignant "breeeehhh"-sound some of his "audience" burst into laughter. We`ll be looking forward to the next performance of this little meerkat voice artist ;-)

I hope I`ll soon be able to include some of his performances into the blog.

Getting close and personal Part I I - Jolly Roger, dominant male

2008-09-28T22:09:00.004+02:00

Jolly Roger is a small and very cheeky meerkat.

When Möfzi became "interesting" for the males, he and Plattohr (flat ear) were rivals.

Even though he is smaller than his rival, Jolly Roger would beat him up regularly and chase him away. Plattohr could be seen literally crawling on his belly towards Möfzi, if Jolly Roger looked away. As soon as Jolly Roger realized these advances, he would chase Plattohr away again.

This would sometimes end in bloody wounds and a very badly chewed backside of Plattohr`s neck.

Their feud is carried on until today. Plattohr was also chased away, when the pups were still very small and underground most of the time.

Jolly Roger is a tough guy, but he is also very sweet and gentle with Möfzi, grooming her cheeks and playing with her.

This is Jolly Roger:

- he is now 6 years old
- he is small
- he has light grey fur
- a long, straight tail
- he can jump very high and will make running jumps
- is voice is rather deep, he will make a very demanding "brrp" sound, if something is of interest (see video)
- he loves Möfzi, but like all no longer newly-weds, they will fight over minor issues and chase each other away ;-)

He is the one trying to get my bracelet in the beginning of this video, the other kat is "stubby tail" (Stummelschwänzchen his most distinctive feature is the missing black tip of his tail ):

Meerkat pups discover an interesting toy

2008-09-28T21:50:00.003+02:00

Yesterday our pups discovered an interesting "something", which had dropped from the skies ;-)

Little Sayuri is turning into a cheeky little meer-person. We visited around feeding time and the meerkats got a big tray full of fruit.

Sayuri was first and last on the tray. She defended "her tray" against everyone, even the adults. Since the pups are eating solid food only, she has grown, even though she is still smaller than her littermates.

Before we went home, I slipped a bright orange velcro-tape under the glass panel. The pups loved it! They tried to catch it and ran after it. When I held it above their heads, they bit into it, too. They are much less shy than the adult males at the same age.

Some days ago I watched the two larger pups bouncing on their hindlegs like little kangaroos. They had abviously forgotten that they are supposed to be meerkats! All this playfighting and wrestling is so much fun to watch.

Here are the proud parents and one of their pups (left: Dad Jolly Roger, right: Mom Möfzi)

.. summer`s over...

2008-09-21T00:21:00.013+02:00

Today was a very bright and sunny day with lots of sun and mild temperatures in the afternoon.

We visited the 'kats shortly after they had been fed and the pups were still eating or dragging remains of their chickens around.

The adults still present them food, even though you can clearly see their mixed emotions.

"Oh, there`s a pup. I`ll bring it this lovely piece of fruit... hm, on second thoughts, I would rather eat this myself... NO, IT IS A PUP, I MUST NOT EAT ITS FOOD... hm, but this piece of fruit looks so delicious..."

It is really funny to watch an adult crane his or her neck watching the pup eat, coming closer to the pup (which will defend its food) and then keeping distance, trying to look indifferent.

Little Sayuri is making progress, too.
She is sitting and standing up more and more often and today we watched her even stand up on her hind legs and try to look up, like the others do. She managed to keep her balance for a split second, falling back onto her front legs.

She will no longer fall on her back, though, if she sits or stands up.
If she only had a longer tail, things might be a lot easier for her. As it is, her tail is not long enough to touch the ground, when she stands up...even Uncle Stubbytail has got a much longer tail! It is only about one third of the "normal" tail length.

The other two pups are in very good condition, too and all three of them have grown.
They are now about 9 weeks old and slowly turning into juveniles.

Möfzi weaned them about one week ago and they now eat solid food only.

These two pictures show Sayuri biting into one of her littermates and Sayuri at play with her little brother or sister (we still can`t distinguish the two other pups).

Oops, she did it again... and again... and again

2008-09-09T21:50:00.002+02:00

Today we watched little Sayuri sit up successfully for the first time!

The first time was about 2 seconds, but later in the early evening she sat up and kept her balance for about 10 seconds! After this, she put down her front paws and walked away, as if nothing spectacular had happend.

We also saw her wrestle with one of her littermates, a thing she was not able to do a couple of days ago.

And we made first contact with her too today. She is still easily scared by movement or sounds, and will jump or run away, but our fingers were interesting enough to explore.

W played with her littermates putting our fingers under the glass panels of the enclosure and moving them from side to side or pulling them away and putting them back in in a different place. The pups were really excited and literaly jumped at our fingers.

And they are so incredibly noisy! Their "breehbreehbrrpbrrp"-sounds often get very loud as soon as an adult comes close.

Christian suggested that the adults feed the babies, because the noise of the pups' begging calls makes their ears ring and they want it to stop. Sounds like a reasonable suggestion ;-)

Here is a video of the noisy little kats, make sure your loudspeakers are switched on!

Getting close and personal Part I - Möfzi, dominant female

2008-09-08T00:47:00.008+02:00

It`s time to introduce the mob! Until now we still do not know the "real" names of our kats, but I hope we will be able to give them in the future.

The names used on this blog are our nicknames for the individual meerkats and are based on their characters and/or individual features.

"Möfzi" is really un-translateable, as it is not a real German word, but a descriptive word we made up meaning roughly that she is larger, heavier or "möfziger" than the others ;-)

So this is Möfzi:

Möfzi is the oldest kat in the enclosure and somewhere between 8 and 9 years old
Möfzi is the only female of the mob (not yet counting the babies)
Möfzi is rather tall, her fur is light grey and she has a slightly bent tail
Möfzi can rarely be heard making those little "brrpbrrp"-sounds, but her voice is very loud when she is making the chattering noises you hear, when meerkats either want to be left alone or do not want to engage into something for example play etc.
Möfzi is very greedy and as a dominant she will guard her food closely hipslamming other meerkats, snarling and lunging at them
you can sometimes pet her, when she`s in the right mood and she trusts you
Möfzi has lost one of her lower canines, but she is still very able to eat all kinds of food
Möfzi is proud mother of three

Here are some pictures of Möfzi (still with all lower canines):

Here are some videos featuring Möfzi on youtube. The first video shows Möfzi and the small, subordinate male Swingkat ("Schaukelmännchen"). He is one of her favourite "playthings" and he is also the small, dark meerkat on the picture above.

This video shows Möfzi devouring a cherry and playing with the stone.

And in this video I get very close and personal with Möfzi ;-) No, it did not hurt!

... I forgot...

2008-09-04T11:37:00.002+02:00

... we adopted the mob! Since yesterday we are "adoptive parents" of our mob.

The adoption fee for the mob is 100 € /year. This additional money is used for the animal park, which is financed in part through public funds and donations, as admission to the park is free.

Baby Meerkat Attack!

2008-09-04T11:18:00.004+02:00

Two days ago on a day with fine weather I visited the meerkats at their feeding time. They got cat food, which the babies can chew easily. The males sniffed it, and I saw their noses wrinkle at this "insult" ;-)

But the babies tucked in heartily and in particular baby Sayuri!

I see more and more similarities between her and Uncle Stubby Tail. Her fur will almost certainly turn out as fluffy as his and her character...

On the day I visited, some people brought their dogs near the enclosure. 2.5 little tails were raised, backs arched and one of the babies even started some war dancing, kicking up dust with its front legs.

If you have never seen meerkats war dancing, it looks like this:
tails erect, backs arched, the kats will jump up and down and sometimes kick up some dust. It looks very funny, but it is meant as a serious threat.

After some time, only Sayuri and one of her littermates were still arching their backs and raising their tails. And guess, what? She made spit calls at the dog! Just like Uncle, when he was small, he used to be the first in line to growl at dogs of any size. I wonder, what`s next.

She is still trying to stand up on her hind legs, but still not very sucessfully.

For those of you who have not yet read up on the previous posts: Sayuri suffers from a neurological problem, she has trouble with her balance and is likely to stumble, as she also sometimes has trouble coordinating her hindlegs. But she`s a happy kat anyway and making the most of her abilities.

You can have some short glimpses of her at the beginning and end of this video:

Happy meerkats

2008-09-01T13:40:00.003+02:00

As the weather was very fine and hot these last two days the 'kats were in an excellent mood.

At the moment their schedule features an extended afternoon katnap in the later afternoon. As soon as it got a little cooler the babies started to play.

We were very happy to see an extended play session between Sayuri and one of her littermates. She got really wild, jumping on him/her and there was a lot of jumping, lunging, biting and running. I found it remarkable that she took the initiative!

At the beginning of last week she would mostly remain passive, if one of her littermates jumped onto her or tried to engage her into play. She is trying to stand up more often, but still not very succesfully.

Yesterday one of the keepers asked our opinion on her, as his impression was not quite as favourable regarding her development. She is still smaller than her littermates (and I think she will always be) and as they grow rapidly the distance is becoming more and more obvious. He told us that they will soon discontinue her extra-treament as catching her twice daily might have a negative influence on her position within the group.

I personally think that she is developing well and her activity is prove of a rather Ok condition.

It is very sweet to watch her mother supervise the play, when all three pups are playing together. It looks like "Hey, don`t you two play too wildly! Take care of your sister!"

Another new thing this weekend was our first contact with two of the babies!

As the babies are exploring almost all of the enclosure, they will come quite close now. The enclosure is fenced off with glass panels and below these panels there is a small space for the kats to reach through.

When we put our fingers through the space, the adults will usually come in hope of food and this time the babies came too and started scratching at our fingers!

The underside of their little paws is soooo soft!

After some time of futile grabbing and scratching, one of the pups starting nipping our fingers... as this did not yield any food, the nipping became more insistent! And those little teeth are already quite sharp ;-)

Fear the bite of the baby meerkat!

2008-08-30T00:35:00.003+02:00

The babies at almost 7 weeks old love chewing tails! The first meerkat that gets chewed on is their mother, the second little Swingkat (a subordinate male), the super nanny.

This is an older video, the babies at about 3 weeks old. How fast they grow!! You see them with their uncles Orlok and Stubby Tail.

Meerkat Family Bliss

2008-08-29T12:57:00.002+02:00

... watch our family huddle and cuddle ;-)

Playtime with Uncle!!!

2008-08-26T22:00:00.001+02:00

The babies are now about 6 weeks old and exploring the enclosure on their own or under the surveillance of the group.

The two healthy pups often engage in all kinds of boisterous play, jumping, wrestling, bitting...

Their little sister will often play by herself, but sometimes she is also included in all kinds of play.

The babies enjoy biting into ALL body parts of the adults... and they still have to learn that not each and every pink nipple will give milk, which is particularly painful for the males ;-)

The little handicaped meerkat (I named her Sayuri - little lily - after the book "Memoires of a Geisha") is making progress, too. Yesterday she tried to stand up on her hind legs and fell over almost instantly, but she tried!

Most of the time I watched her, she was either digging furiously or eating. It looks like she enjoys doing things on her own. When she was digging, one of her littermates jumped onto her, trying to engage her into play, but she simply kept on digging.

Here she was given her vitamin-shot, she looks, like she didn`t enjoy it too much, though.

I think she might develop a similar character like her stub-tailed Uncle Stummelschwänzchen - stubby tail. He also likes to be on his own, to sit by himself etc.

He can often be seen outside, when everybody else is already inside under the heat lamps, or he is inside, alone under the heat lamps, while everybody else is outside...

Who also loves to play with the babies are their Uncles Orlok and Plattohr (flat ear). Usually these two could be seen to engage in all kinds of wrestling matches etc. Now with the babies, both can be seen to play with them. The babies enjoy lunging at them or biting into their tails or legs.

Sometimes one of the parents will overlook these plays. If things are geting too rough, they will intervene.

Meerkat Mom Möfzi

2008-08-25T15:06:00.001+02:00

At the beginning of June we thought that Möfzi, the dominant female of the group, might be pregnant. As we are regular visitors (usually once a week) we soon realized that she really was pregnant...

Clear signs of pregnancy in meerkats are usually visible after approx. 1 month, the duration of pregnancy is around 70 days, so we expected the babies to be born in Mid-July.

When we visited on July 12, she was really well-rounded, so we decided to visit again in the next days. On our visit on July 15 Möfzi had disappeared...

We spent some time circling the enclosure, when suddenly we heard baby noises from one of the burrow entrances.: Möfzi was carrying one of her tiny pups from one side of the burrow to the next. She was very nervous and the rest of the group was on edge and barked at the smallest things which they would usually ignore, like planes flying over the enclosure etc.

Baby meerkats are born blind, naked and with ears and eyes closed. They usually spend the first 3-4 weeks underground. Their ears and eyes open approx. 10-14 days after birth.

At this time it was not clear, whether there was only one pup, or several pups being carried around by their mother. Here is the first video we made of Möfzi's babies:

It was not clear, whether there was only one pup, or several pups, as they were too tiny to distinguish. We were quite concerned about the pups, as they are usually kept below ground for the first weeks.

Several days later, we discovered this:

Three baby meerkats! What a wonderful surprise!

Their eyes had just opened and their fur was still very sparse. Even though it was still too early for the pups to be above ground, they seemed fit and healthy enough.

Their mother was still very nervous and dragged the pups around a lot, unfortunately she did not always carry them in the best way (by the scruff of their neck), but sometimes by one of their tiny legs or even the tail, OUCH!!

We also discovered that one of the pups is missing part of its tail... There is also an adult male with the tip of his tail missing, so now he`s got company.

The males care very much for the pups. When they were brought above ground, they would huddle the babies or take them onto their lap. One of the males "Schaukelmännchen" ("Swingkat") turned out to be an excellent nanny.

After 2,5 weeks the pups very already trying to make their first steps, always under the surveillance of the group.

This was when we discovered that the pup with the missing tail tip might have a handicap. The mother ofter carried her (it`s a girl) around by her tiny leg and she was often covered in dirt. She appeared weaker and did not cry as loud as the other pups.

When the pups emerged by themselves at around 3 weeks this handicap became apparent. She was not able to climb out of the burrow and had difficulties finding her way, as she would often lose her direction falling over etc.

This is a picture of her at about 3 weeks old.

When we took our holiday at the beginning of August, we were afraid that she might not survive...

... so it was a wonderful surprise to come back after two weeks and see her having made rapid progress!

She is still prone to stagger or fall, but manages to climb out of ANY hole and over ANY obstacle by herself. She still cannot stand on her hindlegs, like her littermates, but she is trying!

She is taken special care of by the Mundenhof keepers and get twice daily Vitamin-B-shots, for which she has to be caught... but she likes to hide ;-)

Mundenhof Mob, a short introduction

2008-08-25T14:40:00.000+02:00

The meerkat enclosure at the Mundenhof was opened in 1999.

The group as we know it and present it here, has been around since 2002, when 5 baby males were introduced. Before this the group consisted of 4 animals, of which only the dominant female of the current group is present still.

We have been regular visitors for over 6 years now and know each of the kats, their habits, their characters and preferrences.

Each of the meerkats has distinctive marks by which it can be distinguished from the other members, for example tail length, size, colour of fur etc.

The group has recently expanded to 9 members, as three baby-meerkats were born in mid-July.

The Mundenhof group consists of 6 adults (5 males, one female) and their babies.

The dominant female is about 8-9 years old, the males were born in 2002.

Mundenhof animal park is located in Freiburg, close to the Black forest and to the borders of France and Switzerland. Admission is free, there is only a parking fee.