Grossness 101

I’ve noticed at CCF that nothing really goes as scheduled. On Friday, I was scheduled to clean the center pens, then help out Casey, and finish up with the Field Count as the highlight of my day. Yeah, that plan went to shit about half an hour in. Basically, I was finishing up Chewbakaa’s old pen when one of the CCF staff members walked up to the pen and told us all that they were going to need us to work over the male cheetah that they had brought in the night before. However, this time I wasn’t as eager to help simply because the cheetah had pooped all over its cage and all over itself during the night it was waiting in the box…

Yeah, that’s the reason it’s a bad idea to capture and cage a cheetah right after it’s gorged itself on Hartebeast. It was… disgusting. And let me tell you, cheetah poop smells rank! We got him out of the box and onto a tarp and tried to wash him off, but his temperature started dropping dramatically, so we had to take him inside and work on him WHILE he was covered in poop. The smell was almost overwhelming, but we had gloves on and I was on breathing duty again, so it was okay. Well, until his temp dropped severely and we had to cover him in blankets, hot water bottles, wrap up his feet, try to dry him off a bit, etc. I had to put my hand right on his poop covered chest.

I was grossed out until he stopped breathing. And didn’t start again. This time freaked me out even more than the last because he didn’t start breathing again for the entire check-up and Anna, the vet, had to keep breathing for him with something that looked like a BVM and a tube. When we got him back in the box, he STILL wasn’t breathing and his oxygen levels were dropping, so Anna kept having to breath for him. It was like a huge weight off my chest when I saw his chest finally rise; though it took him hours to rouse from the sedative.

It was really a shame that he was so dirty. According to all the cheetah experts here, he is a prime male. He’s big, his sperm is really active, he’s not underfed or dehydrated, they kept going on and on about it.  They really hope he mates to pass on his good genes.

After that bit of excitement, I HAD to go shower. I wasn’t physically very dirty, but the smell was just clinging to me. Thankfully we had power in the room once more and I was able to shower in hot water. (The power went out mysteriously during the night and didn’t come back on at 6am like usual…When the power goes out, so does the hot water).

The game drive in the afternoon was very exciting once more. I was on center field like last time. This time we got a whole page of recorded sightings, INCLUDING two aardwolves and what we think was an aardvark. According to Rachel, aardvark sightings are VERY rare! She was super excited and even though we didn’t get a picture, we are convinced we saw one.

The burgers in the evening were grilled by Juan and they were delicious!