14 AUGUST 2010:
SALT LICK AND MINERAL BLOCKS:
SATURDAY:
Today we put out salt licks and mineral blocks. The reason why we do this is, because its winter and these blocks have a lot of minerals inside them that the animals need to stay healthy. The mineral blocks get placed in dipping barrels. The dipping barrels work like this, you place the block inside and when the animal comes to eat, he scratches himself on the pole. This releases the dip while they scratch on the pole. The dip goes onto their skin, this helps get rid of the ticks and possible they might have.
We have a lot of game on Sondela, so the dip applicators help us to control the ticks and flees. We can unfortunately not dip the game. It would take really long i we had tried, the animals would stress out and we will not be able to catch each and every animal. The cattle also gets send into the bush, this also helps to get rid of the ticks. The ticks will climb onto the cattle, we will then dip the cattle. The are use to it and it is much easier.
Another reason for putting out the lick and mineral blocks are to attract the animals to specific areas. This makes them easier to spot while on game drives and it also brings them closer to the chalets. The people love it when the animals are so close to where they stay. It is a big attraction, the most common animals that are found near the chalets are the nyala's. hey are very tame animals and you can feed them with your hand.
When we put out the mineral blocks, we always take amipor with us. Amipor is the liquid that goes into the applicators, the ones that helps get rid of the ticks. So it is safe to say that it is a pesticide. We have to refill the applicators with more amipor if needed. The 2nd Years also have to Calculate the amount that was used each time we had to refill the applicators. The 2nd years had to draw up a budget that is why they needed these figures.
and that is that for the day....
Wednesday, August 18, 2010
FIRE REHEARSALS ON WORKING WEEKEND:
15 AUGUST 2010
SUNDAY:
PRACTICE FIRE ALERTS:
Well here we go, I find this story a bit funny...
So it's the normal routine, welcoming on Friday, walking the horses and donkeys on Saturday morning. It's like a typical weekend. So it carries on like usual, we went to do fence checks after the horses and the donkeys.
Things that we look for when we do fence checks. Most people think we do this just to get away from the noise at the farmyard but it's not like that. We do fence check to close up to many warthog highways in one fence, a warthog highway is all the holes that goes trough from your farm to another. We check if all the wires are still in place (nothing has snapped), We check that the droppers and y-standards are still straight.
When we do fence checks we always have to carry the correct supplies:
As we all know, Sunday is when all the people go back home, so their is nothing to do...... So our managers think it is very funny to pull pranks on us...
Everybody was relaxing, seeing that it is lunch off course. Everybody tired of the long weekend. And there it goes!!!! whooooweeee whoooweeee (this being the fire alarm), evrybody get the biggest fright of their lives not knowing what to do.. This was a real panic attack for everybody. Evcerybody freaks out, after about 2minutes all of us starts running to the "Pakstoor" as we were told, when we did our Training.
We had to pack everything that was needed out as quick as possible, get dressed, get your necessary equipment and get on the vehicles. How fun was that... The adrenalin was pumping through everybody's veins. We were racing to our destination, worry in everybody's eyes. How is this going to end, what will go wrong...
Is everybody in place???
GOOD. Ready , GO!!!
And there our unplanned fir rehearsal started...
SUNDAY:
PRACTICE FIRE ALERTS:
Well here we go, I find this story a bit funny...
So it's the normal routine, welcoming on Friday, walking the horses and donkeys on Saturday morning. It's like a typical weekend. So it carries on like usual, we went to do fence checks after the horses and the donkeys.
Things that we look for when we do fence checks. Most people think we do this just to get away from the noise at the farmyard but it's not like that. We do fence check to close up to many warthog highways in one fence, a warthog highway is all the holes that goes trough from your farm to another. We check if all the wires are still in place (nothing has snapped), We check that the droppers and y-standards are still straight.
When we do fence checks we always have to carry the correct supplies:
- Binding wire
- Normal wire
- 2 Tongs and a
- Wire Puller
As we all know, Sunday is when all the people go back home, so their is nothing to do...... So our managers think it is very funny to pull pranks on us...
Everybody was relaxing, seeing that it is lunch off course. Everybody tired of the long weekend. And there it goes!!!! whooooweeee whoooweeee (this being the fire alarm), evrybody get the biggest fright of their lives not knowing what to do.. This was a real panic attack for everybody. Evcerybody freaks out, after about 2minutes all of us starts running to the "Pakstoor" as we were told, when we did our Training.
We had to pack everything that was needed out as quick as possible, get dressed, get your necessary equipment and get on the vehicles. How fun was that... The adrenalin was pumping through everybody's veins. We were racing to our destination, worry in everybody's eyes. How is this going to end, what will go wrong...
Is everybody in place???
GOOD. Ready , GO!!!
And there our unplanned fir rehearsal started...
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