Food Prep Day

On my first real day of work my group was assigned to food prep. There are 6 groups (of volunteers) and everyday we do something different (on a 6 day rota). This means that you don't do the same thing every day, which is quite nice!

So, food prep. This is one of the most important jobs in the sanctuary as, well, all the animals need food! Starting right after our meeting we got started, cutting fruit, chopping up meet, digging up mealworms, you name it! At the sanctuary there are over 30 different enclosures that need to be fed...in the morning and afternoon. So that's a lot of fooood!! There is a menu for all the different animals, you then collect everything you need for them, and create their food bucket. The details are fine, fruit is can either be chopped large, medium, small, fine, chicken can be diced, striped, wings, legs, meat can be with bone or without, so its essential to get things right! When you prep the food for an animal you prepare both its morning and afternoon food, which is then stored in the fridge. Once, everything is done, we go and feed all the animals (who see this as the highlight of their day!).

After the lunch break we continue with the food prep and feed all the animals again. For the young ones in the sanctuary we also prepare milk bottles. The baby baboons get their milk bottles 3 times a day, the goats (who were rejected by their mothers) 4 times, and the baby oryx also 4 times. The baboons get verrryy clingy to their bottles, which often creates quite the scene when you try to get it back!.

I did get a bit of shock today though... as I was trying to find raw chickens for the meerkats, the head caretaker told me to check the freezer. And without any hesitation, I open the freezer to find.... A FULL HORSE....Frozen but with fur and all. It felt pretty wierd, but was told that in Namibia horse and donkey meat is a lot cheaper than beef, so as a result the lions, cheetahs, and other meat eaters get fed horse meat.

Although food prep is the only activity that you do all day long, it's a good laugh especially with the team you work with