On the farm we have three beautiful and precious servals. Their enclosure is where myself and the volunteers live and volunteers are free to go in there with no project leaders to just chill and hang out with. They are incredibly friendly but if they are in a bad mood you’re definitely going to know about it. I have fallen in love with these cats and out of the twenty four cats (big or small) that we have living on the farm. I love them all, but there is something special about these beautiful creatures. I think it’s the ears, I love ears on animals, its my favourite feature.

A couple of facts about these Servals, they meow

I love having conversations with them, we have a good ol’ gossip.

They also jump really high. They are known to hunt little birds and rodents in the wild.

This is one of the reason why we feed them chicken necks, to keep as close to their natural feeding as possible

They have sharp teeth and claws but are generally gentle.

Generally yes.. however I have had a few pretty decent scratches from when they think you have food.. nothing to cry over though.

The three at the farm love interacting with volunteers and I spent a lot of time in their enclosures. They have an interesting, choreographed dance ritual during feeding and anyone lucky enough to watch it will be left laughing.

Michael Jackson Thiller is the one! They really do the dance!

The phrase “cool cats” is the best way to describe their day. They roam about, jump up onto props in the enclosure, laze around and are the stars in every volunteer’s photo set.

Mulan, Tarzan and Krugar came to the farm over a year ago and have a little different rescue story from other animals on the farm. They were born and on a reserve down the road from the farm, as volunteers get to go on excursions they saw them on one of their trips and were incredibly disappointed by the size of their enclosure, it was equivalent to a human living in a prison cell for life having done nothing wrong. The volunteers at the time raised enough money to buy them from the reserve and also built them a fantastic spacious enclosure over here at the Wildlife Reserve.

Personally, I love the welcomes I get when I’ve entered their enclosure. Tarzan’s hisses, Mulan and Krugar coming up to me and rubbing against my legs as I try to shut the gates are things I wont be able to forget. Their enclosure is known to be a peaceful spot, I’ve seen a lot of volunteers just sitting around and admiring these babies.

Tarzan is like the Grumpy Grandad who will go off mumbling (hissing) over some politics, Mulan is like that a model, loves to do as she pleases and loves you to watch her walk. Krugar, he has a special place in my heart, and has his own gentle character, but that characters of his brother and sister do rub off on him occasionally.

One of my favourite things to do is to take these beautiful little critters on walks, as they only know the confines of their enclosure they are a little apprehensive, sometimes it can take a very long time to get them out, but this early on its about patience and perseverance, it took an hour and ten minutes on Christmas Day. When we do get them out they really get into the swing of things, they are crazy – dashing everywhere and jumping. For the time being they are on leads so you are running round the place with them (which is a great work out) or standing in the beautiful sun whilst they suss the place out.

I was lucky enough to have been adopted by Mulan as her walker. She started out a bit shy and then warmed up to the walk routine. She was patient and did a few laps around the enclosure. Apart from running away from her arch nemesis, a giant tennis ball, she interacted with our group of volunteers. Krugar on the other hand, was fascinated by the tennis ball and wanted to play. We tried to lure him out of his little den, but he got hold of the ball. The ball and the play lasted all about 10 seconds before getting punctured by his sharp teeth. We’d worked hard to capture this entire episode on a bunch of cameras and make a video, the servals had another plan altogether, but this was a huge step in getting them used to this and getting them to work out.

Today, we took them to the training camp for them to have some exercise and for them to be able to venture somewhere new. The training camp is a large volunteer built space in which there is jumping blocks, tubes and other exciting contraptions for all the cats to be able to exercise within. All the wranglers and project leaders use meat on the end of the stick in order to encourage the animals to walk and jump. The servals went there only for the second time and were sensing all the new smells from the environment. Still a little apprehensive however they seemed to be very interested in what was around. We will continue to do this so they can have exercise and fun on the farm away from their enclosure.

For a second time, I was lucky to be Mulan’s walker at the training camp. She needed little or no encouragement to get started and started roaming about. She inspected the place thoroughly before settling down for walks against one side of the training camp. She was calm and took to the walks quickly. Krugar, on the other hand, was a little apprehensive and needed a little more encouragement. Once he got out, he ran to a comfortable corner spot and hung out there. He was up for his meat treats from time to time and trained well.

After the servals had enough, Vicky the head wrangler on the farm suggested to build within one of the empty enclosures near the training camp as a private training camp for the servals as well as somewhere different for the servals to have fun away from their enclosure. Therefore in the afternoon the volunteers and project leaders cleaned out the enclosure, sprayed it with anti-tic and flea prevention and will begin to build climbing frames and interesting things for them to keep active. Building will begin next week.

Hopefully the more confident these beautiful creatures get from being out of their enclosure and the more trust and a relationship we build with these little critters, the less need for the lead.

As of lunch time, they are quietly holed up in their respective spots relaxing and stealing the hearts of volunteers who walk by.

They had me at meow.

Jay and the Servals.

A Volunteer at the Wildlife Sanctuary for 2 Weeks from Bangalore, India.

Much Love Bex and the Servals.

xo