A Game Farm in Africa

There is a special joy that comes with living on a game farm. Not a commercial game farm, but our home where my parents and I share the property with a variety of wildlife, all of them with their own individual natures who provide a lot of amusement and sometimes exasperation. It has taken years to build up the game population from when we arrived here and had problems with poachers and masses of snares. The property is now securely game fenced and protected from these threats.

We have resident wildebeest, zebra, impala, nyala, kudu, duiker as well as a hand reared gemsbok who still gets a bottle of water fed to her daily (at 2 years old) so that we can administer medicine if we need to. Gemsbok are not indigenous to this area and are susceptible to tick born diseases. Throw in a host of guinea fowl, peacocks, ostriches and monkeys all moving around freely and you get a lot of activity.

We have had to fence off our living areas to keep the bigger wildlife away from our offices, sheds and home. Our home area holds 3 beautiful boerbulls who play their part in sleeping with any abandoned babies and becoming a friend, such as the hand reared gemsbok. Of course at 2 years old and with horns a metre long, the gemsbok is now banned from the yard area although she has access into the area behind the pool house through a gap in the fence where she is fed game pellets every day. Wild animals being opportunistic when it comes to food, the zebra and ostriches also know about the gap in the fence and quite happily enter to eat the green grass and try to steal the game pellets.

The guinea fowl and peacocks tend to hang around the home or office areas because they know where the mealies are kept which supplements their feeding. This of course leads to some stands offs, the major ones being between the peacocks and ostriches with babies in the office/safe area. Seeing a peacock trying to scare off an ostrich (about 20 times bigger) from a pile of mealies is a revelation in itself. The only problem with ostriches and their babies wondering around the safe area is they are curious and like to be around activity. That includes the workshop where a female ostrich was watching my father work on a tractor and promptly swalled a tool that was lying on the floor next to him. Needless to say my father was not impressed and no one volunteered to follow the ostrich around and wait for the tool to emerge naturally! I caught her the other day trying to remove the office key from the door. Luckily I got to it before she could swallow it.

Of course, peacock males think they own the entire area, and when "Gemmie", our gemsbok manages to get into the office area, warfare breaks out. The peacock actually flies at Gemmie, lands on her back and digs her claws in. Gemmie responds by trying to gaff the peacock with her deadly horns. Peace is only restored when Gemmie is led back out onto the "wilderness" part of the farm. The other amusing thing about a peacock male is that he has the cutest, fluffiest "butt". While he is posturing and posing with his magnificent fan spread wide open, he exposes his rear which has the softest, finest, fluffiest feathers I have ever seen. And yes, I have felt them (-: While displaying himself, its easy enough to creep up on him from behind and stroke those feathers. Of course, his dignity is mightily injured once he realises you sneaked up on him, and dared touch his "butt".

Our chief male ostrich is a huge deterrent to trespassers and poachers. He is aggressive, territorial and has been known to terrorise all and sundry, including myself. One fine day while out walking I heard a thump, thump, thump coming from behind me, looked over my shoulder to see the male ostrich running up towards me, tail up and wings out, the classic fighting pose. Needless to say, getting kicked by an ostrich with a major claw that can open you up was not in my plans for the day. Two options when faced by an ostrich, either lie face down so that he cannot kick (but he can still jump on you) because he can only kick forward, not down, or run like hell for a tree or thick low lying bush. Oh yes, or grab his neck and push it down near his knees because then he also cant kick (however that works better when he is standing still and you approach from the side or behind). Better be sure you can make it before running because an ostrich can kick forward in full flight. Luckily I had some low lying thorn trees close by and dived into them for cover. A long half hour later, "Blackie" was still patrolling around the bush trying to get to me. Eventually he lost interest and wondered off, but I left my hiding place too soon and he came running back. Repeat process, and wait till he wonders off! I then managed to creep stealithy from thorn thicket to thicket until I made it back to the farm house. So much for a leisurely walk to enjoy the beauty of the bush!

Unfortunately, sometimes we have problems with jackal or caracal hunting the smaller game, and we recently lost 2 peacock juveniles. This is all part of the natural cycle and we choose to "live and let live" on our little slice of paradise.

The zebra here have bred successfully and we have watched "Zebbie", our first baby playfully running around and kicking her heels high up in the air, nipping her mother and staying clear of the herd stallion. The Zebra have garnered a reputation as being absolute gluttons, as when any game licks are put down for the animals to "lick", they can found chewing chunks off the game lick until its finished. Oh, and zebra absolutely hate dogs! They will in fact aggressively move forward and intimidate the boerbulls even when there is a fence between them.

The wildebeest have finally settled down after being relocated here about a year ago, and feel quite secure now they have realised there are no major predators like lion on the property. Whereas in the past when any of us ventured near, they would take off with that bouncing gallop motion that is unique to them but now are quite relaxed in their haven where they are not bothered by man or wild predators. Of course, their offspring are vunerable when they are small to jackal and lynx.

Spring in once again in the air, the peach trees are flowering and once the rains come, the property will again turn green.

Ciao
Marcelle