Day 3: Bloody Mess

Hello all. After sleeping through the entire night last night (yes!!!), I woke up to go see a cheetah run at 7. The cheetah run space is about 100 meters long, and allows the cheetah to get up to at least 80 km/hr. That is, if the cheetah has any interest in chasing the feathery fuzzy lure that is pulled along. I was warned beforehand that sometimes cheetahs will be lazy and run about halfway and then lay down, or that they will simply jog the run instead of actually run it. This morning, we ran Nala. She did very well, running for all three runs. She didn't run full speed for any of them, but if the lure didn't malfunction halfway through the 2nd run the others thought she may have reached full speed. I had my camera with me, like always, and took a few nice photos and a lot of blurry ones.
I was dreading this morning's work task, which was labeled as "slaughter" on the work chart. The cheetahs here eat horse and donkey meat, because it is high in protein and low in cholesterol. I wasn't dreading it because I think it is wrong to use horse and donkey meat for the cheetahs - after all, the cheetahs are carnivores and have to eat something meaty. I was more worried about being able to deal with the smell and and look of the slaughterhouse. We didn't have to see the animal butchered or skinned, but we did have to take the meat off the bones and cut it into suitable chunks for the cheetahs. While I couldn't say the work was enjoyable, I did find that it was doable. It is one of those things where you just tuck into the work and get it done. You may not like it, but you can deal with it. It is all for the good of the cheetahs. And if you are cringing about the fact that they are horses and donkeys being eaten, I can try to console you with the fact that they live very happy lives out in the pasture before they become dinner, and are treated very humanely. But I think this will be the worst task I will have to do while here, and so now I feel up to anything.
After that lovely morning, we had lunch. You'd think you wouldn't be hungry after dealing with that much carnage in the morning, but we were. Following lunch, we had to separate the meat into a week's worth of feeding bags. Most of the cheetahs get around 2 kg of meat a day. Some of the larger ones get up to 2.5 kg, while some of the smaller cubs get about 1.4 kg a day. That is quite a good amount of meat to go through in a week. Some days the cheetahs get bones instead of meat, but that wasn't today. After prepping the meat, we had cheetah time again. I spent time with Jemimah, who was very content to sit and be adored. Typical cat.
Then we fed the cheetahs and came back here. My team is making some vegetarian chili tonight for dinner, and after that I don't know what we'll do. But I want to go back out into the sun now, so bye!
Over and out,
Taylor