so i took this pic yesterday to show what Liefie looks like with 4 day's to go.

Got to the meerkats this morning, not suspecting a thing.

1. It is 72 day's since the last baby's were born.

2. Meerkats have a 75 day gestation period.

3. the Meerkats always have baby's at the main burrows.

4. Last night they slept at secondary burrows.

So this morning when only the male meerkats  came out, and instead of sitting in the morning sun

they started cleaning burrows  i knew something was up and then when everyone leave to forrage and

Liefie was not out yet I was certain.

 So now i wonder what effect 3 days premature would have on the baby's.

In 5 years of research i have never had baby's  born under 75 day's.

So only time will tell.

Pregnancy is progressing fine, 10 days to go.

summer is with us. Had a couple of nice hot days.

Uno alias snakeman

On 11 August Liefie the dominant female had babys.

On the 15th Uno a 18 month old male was on baby sitting duty when a cobra entered the burrows where the babys slept and started eating the baby's. Uno who him self were the only survivor of a snake attack as a baby, gallantly went down into the burrows to defend his mothers baby's and almost payed with his life when he got bitten in the bum by the cobra. He is currently recovering and after 4days of staying at the burrows he joined the rest of the family today to forage.

Meerkat truck, meerkat approved.

My truck has been checked and inspected by the local MTF (meerkat traffic police ) and apart from a complaint about to much dirt on it, has past the inspection.

God gave me the best office.

Sanparks camera crue filming a kiddies program

Meerkats have teeth

Promise of rain

Was a very cold and cloudy morning, but turned into a beautiful photo opportunity.

Just some pictures

Long time no see

I am very sorry for neglecting my blog over the last two months.
I really don't like computer work and always look for any excuse not to do mine, so when my wife suggested a bit of renovation work in the house i grabbed it.
Well about a week after the baby's were born on the 16th of January a family of yellow tailed mongoose moved into one of the secondary burrows in the southern part of the territory. And one afternoon when i got to the burrows i could not see any sign of the babysitter and after a while two yellow tailed mongoos came running out or the burrows and vanished into the shrubs.
The next morning the meerkats moved to another burrow, witch means all the baby,s were dead.
Normaly january would be the last baby,s for the season but it looks like Liefie is pregnant again.
All five of the November baby's are still alive, so there is still 14 members to the family.

End of season

Well it is the end of the festive season, almost the end of tourist season and the end of breeding season for meerkats. You know it is the end of the festive season when shops put up Easter adverts. The end of holiday when there are no more caravans traveling north towards Johannesburg  and the end of breeding season when Liefie the dominant female had her last batch of baby's.
She had the baby's on 16 January.   
The whole family is doing well. All five November baby's are doing well.

The photo was taken the 15th of Jan and she had the baby's on the 16th

Embarrassing

The middle of December season, 12 people booked. 31 December.

I went to the meerkats the previous day to see where they would sleep. I do that every day so as not to embarrass myself.
Now on this specific day i could not find the meerkats, it was a very miserable windy day and a couple of goshawks were having a fears territorial battle over the north western territory.
This made me think that the meerkats were nervous and has thus gone underground for protection, as i could not find them at any of the burrows in the territory.
So using my tracking skills i found some fresh footprints at one of the northern burrows and decided to take a chance and do the tour. I also took my son JD with the next morning as backup to patrol the other burrows. But no meerkats. Had to send my guests home without seeing one meerkat.
When i got back that afternoon all the meerkats were there waiting for me. I did promise them each a radio collar.
The rest of the family is doing fine. Liefie is growing very big and would ave her baby's around the 17th of Jan.