Seventh Day Volunteering

Today has been amazing, the best day so far! This morning Chelsea introduced Tang, another volunteer to the giraffes and Lung Noi, the giraffe keeper. Lung Noi gets nicer every day as the more he sees Chelsea the more jobs she gets to do. He bosses her around the Zebra and giraffe enclosures showing her what to do. He was really smiley this morning and its lovely to have a quiet morning at the giraffes every day. Liam helped clean out the monkey cages and then we went to breakfast.

Wednesday is enrichment day for us and the monkeys. Everyone has to come up with an idea of what to make for a monkey and we submit them over breakfast. We then do a secret vote and the one with the most votes gets made. There were some great ideas but Chelsea’s idea won and Liam’s came second. Chelsea’s idea was a nesting area for the macaque called Trousers to use. We have a forked tree for the enclosure and her idea was to make a criss-cross hammock for in between and put substrate leaves inside for him to forage in. He has been in his cage for 10 years plus and there is nothing for him to play with or climb up so he should love the trees and hammock when they go in. Liam’s idea is a feeder that spins on a rope so the monkeys have to think more when they get fed.

Liam went off after breakfast with some other volunteers to make the ideas, the nest was made and it has turned out really well. Tat (the person who started the volunteer programme) told Chelsea during breakfast that she had a surprise for her. We drove down to the tiger cub enclosure and in the cage were two brand new baby leopards called mocha and latte. They are the cutest thing we have ever seen.

Chelsea spent the whole day with the leopards and Liam joined her after lunch for the afternoon. They are amazing, we sat with them and they just love attention, we bottle fed them but they get so excited for the milk they bite through the bottle and the milk goes everywhere. Then the leopards would not leave us alone because we smelled like milk and they were climbing all over us. The best part though is when they fall asleep on you due to you stroking them, they purr like kittens and cuddle into your crossed legs. It was great for us to spend the whole afternoon together playing with the leopard cubs and they are literally the most beautiful things we have ever seen, little balls of fluff with big blue eyes.

The cubs get taken away at 4.30 so we went back to help with the usual Monkey evening feed. We had the afternoon off from English (we teach Monday, Tuesday, Thursday, Friday and Sunday)

We have been told that there is a chance that we will be in charge of the cubs. Liam the tigers and Chelsea the leopards, this means Chelsea’s whole day will be feed the giraffes then play with tiny leopard cubs all day. Liam does not think she will ever want to leave as she is already calling them her beautiful babies…….