Where in the World is Meredith?

Friday 6/30/27 Today we did sutures and diagnostics in the morning. We learned about different blood tests, practiced making blood smears, stained slides, looked at blood smears and fecal samples under the microscope, learned hand ties, did drug calculations, and learned a bunch of different suture patterns. It was a ton of fun and it helped reinforce some things I learned in school this year and also taught me some new things! After lunch we had a lecture on breeding and reproduction, we learned about the cheetah breeding program here, and learned about leopards. Afterward, we did physical exams on horses and dogs. After we were all done a few of us walked the dogs back to the house which was a fun little stroll.

Thursday 6/29/17 Today we fed the cheetahs again! It was pretty much the same as the other day so I won't go into all the details. After lunch, we had a lecture about anesthesia and analgesics and then we got to make our own blow darts and use them to pop balloons attached to cardboard animals! It was so much fun (even if my aim wasn't any good) and turns out, making a blow dart isn't too hard if you have the right tools! We didn't do what would have been the hardest part (altering the needle on the end so that the drugs stay inside the dart until it enters the animal) because we didn't have any liquid in our darts since we were just popping balloons but they did tell us how we would do that.

Yesterday we fed the cheetahs! It was so much fun. First, we had to add in their supplements and some kibble to the meat to make sure they get a balanced diet. Then we each got turns doing the three different kinds of feedings they do depending on the cheetah. Some cheetahs get their piece of meat tossed over the fence, some get it put through a special door in their enclosure and others sit for their food and you put the bowl down in front of them. One of the cheetahs got hit in the face with his breakfast when he was trying to catch it (he isn't totally used to getting his food thrown to him yet) and when one of the girls in my group was tossing some meat over a fence it got stuck on the top and when they tried to get it down it fell on her head (which was really funny), luckily she was wearing a hat. That afternoon after a lecture about genetics and a vet talk some of us tried acupuncture which was really cool. For dinner, we all went over to one of the volunteer houses and made

Today we started on our enrichment projects, I was making a ramp and platform for the Jackals! I think I may have some pictures, but I believe someone else took them so I will have to get a hold of them. In the afternoon we had a lecture and then we applied topical flea & tick preventative and shoo fly spray to the cheetahs! It was so cool and I had a lot of fun. After dinner, we had a movie night and watched Contagion which I'm sure was picked to proceed our lecture tomorrow on genetics and disease outbreaks. I have a bunch of pictures but they are currently not wanting to upload so I will post them once my camera behaves.

Sorry that I haven't posted in a few days but I was in Kruger National Park and there is no wifi there. I had the best time and took so many pictures! We saw rhinos, giraffes, elephants, zebras, warthogs, wildebeest, water buffalo, hippos, crocodiles, impala, kudu, tons of birds, and plenty of other animals as well. I am currently in the process of editing my pictures and will add many to this post once I have them edited, I just wanted to post something!

Photo of Bliss interacting with an enrichment item courtesy of Dr. Ruth.