A new springtime

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.

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

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