Cub duty Am.
That's what it said on the roster.
Four New Zealand girls all fostered for the same thing. This duty involved feeding and entertaining the 2 hyena Cubs and Aslan the lion cub. We decided to split in half and have 2 hours with each.
Myself and Courtney managed to have the hyena Cubs first round. Not such a good idea. These two are hypo first thing in the morning.
They were fed chicken cut in small pieces. Only catch was that you had to make sure they are out of their own bowl. What a mission this was. The dominant hyena gulfed down her food and tried to eat her sisters also.
Now hyenas when in the wild fight to the death. This meant that when we saw the two biting each other they needed to be separated. This was hard work as they didn't wanna let go. Somehow I managed to come out of the two hours with only minor scratches.
The two hours consisted of running around chasing they hyenas, pulling them along with a blanket and trying to keep them occupied. I needed a nap after this, it was chaos.
We swapped and went to amuse Aslan. The two we swapped with explained that they had been having cuddles for 2 hours due to Aslan sleeping. Aslan was now wide awake and wanted to explore. He did not want selfies at all.
When feeding the lion cub you first have to stimulate him to go for a bowel motion. Luckily one of the people that worked at Ukutula were able to demonstrate this for us. Once he had done his business we had to wash him, he wasn't too fussed on the water but we got there.
Now came the cute part. Aslan has 2 250ml bottles of milk for lunch. Soo cute. He suckled on the bottle and would come up for air and a burp. He managed to finish these and then went into a milk coma and had a good nap. Cub duty over.
I think cub duty is different depending on how many Cubs you have to mind. Other volunteers also have to look after the cub by themselves so this may be a tad crazy not having human contact and watch a lion cub sleep for 4 hours. Guess we will have to see what happens next cub duty.