Zimbabwe Seven

Category: Serval | Date: Jun 11 2008 | By: zimbabwe7

Dear Readers,

It is a month since Arwen gave birth to Evenstar and Quickbeam. In a country where chaos reigns it is amazing to see this precious gift to the world in the form of two perfect little furry bundles. It never ceases to amaze me just how much there is to learn, each animal who enters my world has so much to teach me. Evenstar and Quickbeam are no different. Incidentally, these two new additions to our family are named after Tolkien characters from the Lord of the Rings trilogy – as is their mother. Evenstar was named first (the first to appear!) and then Quickbeam.

For a first time mother, Arwen has been brilliant. She is very relaxed showing no signs of aggression toward me when approaching her kittens. This is unusual, as normally with the serval, if the mother decides to raise her babies on her own she becomes very protective over her kittens and does not allow their human caretaker anywhere close to the kittens. She has cleaned and fed her kittens diligently since their birth. The first litter is always a difficult litter for both the human caretakers as well as the natural mother. Many first time litters are abandoned or do not survive due to the mothers inexperience. Even though Arwen is only two years old, which is still young for a serval, she has been an incredible mum. Because of this I have left the kittens with her in the hope that together the three of us can adjust to a different way of raising the kittens. The natural mother is always the best option, as there is no substitute for mother’s milk. However being in captivity it is also important that we as the caretakers can manage the animals so as to monitor things such as parasite control, de worming and weighing. If the kittens grow up not being happy in our company it makes life in captivity both difficult for us as well as them. Our aim here at the Trust is to always minimalize all forms of stress. We do not believe that ‘knocking down’ an animal every time you have to treat him or her is very good for the animal. So we aim for each animal to be content in this environment, to alleviate any stress. Even when an animal has been hand raised, there normally comes a time when this animals natural instincts kick in and they want to be returned to the wild. In my experience the average time when an animal develops this natural urge is shortly after mating – this is even more apparent with the males. Each night when it comes time to feed Arwen, we move her into a neighbouring enclosure, ( our enclosures are interlinked in such a way that we can rotate the animals with ease) she then starts to eat her daily dinner whilst I go into her enclosure to be with the kittens. I spend a minimum of 20 minutes with the kittens where I talk to them and start to introduce myself to them so that they are not scared of me and will adjusted to being handled and interacted with. The feeling is quite remarkable, when sitting in amongst the foliage with these two furry bundles and they wobble unsteadily up to me, unafraid and typically cat-curious! It has been phenomenal how accepting Arwen is of the whole situation. Whilst eating her evening meal she is relaxed and her youth betrays her in playful exploration of the new smells and the odd floating rubber duck in the pond. This is all a totally new concept to me as under normal circumstances the mother serval would not be so trusting. When she is re-united with her babies, Arwen spends a lot of time smelling my smell near them, and they then get a thorough bathing! I hope that we can continue on this vein and that Evenstar and Quickbeam will come to see me as the second mother, or at the very least a devoted member of the family.

The Tikki Hywood Trust would like to thank all our Blog readers, as well as Wildlife Direct, who have been so understanding and supportive of our current situation here in Zimbabwe. Each day brings with it a new, and interesting challenges. When the economic climate faces total decline, you realise just how cheap life becomes. The carnage continues in both the human and wildlife world here in Zimbabwe. The strength of the Zimbabwe person has been amazing.

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