You start the morning mucking out the corals, feeding, watering & grooming the horses. Just about all the horses have a story, just like all the other animals on the farm.
Most if not all of the horses come in on the meat wagon, decisions have to be made as to which horses can be saved & which have sadly just gone too far & the kindest thing to do is to euthanise. One horse has come in recently, so skinny & clearly having been beaten, is pretty nervous, but she is being given a chance, Cappuccino came in with an abscess on one eye, the eye has been removed, the skin has grown over the empty socket & he is now going out on game drives daily, if you see him from the side of the missing eye, he looks like he could be in a Tim Burton movie, there is one young horse whom Emily the horse co-ordinator has especially fallen in love with, she has to be held in a tiny pen because although she is only about 12 ~ 13 hands, she is so crazy & de-humanised she is clearing 5 ~ 6ft fences ~ they ALL have stories.
Most of the horses are let out to graze the desert at night, I left Emily some vet powder to deal with the small wounds they often pick up.
Lunch was flatbread filled with beef & cheese, then at 12.45 we had a briefing on fighting bush fires. Last year there was terrible bush fires within 2 days of each other on the adjoining farm, N/a’an ku se of course helped, the fire came right up to the road which separated the two farms, had it gotten on to N/a’an ku se land it would have been devastating, it was getting so close, the animals were being prepared for evacuation !!
After lunch we saddled up & set out on a game count, apart from guinea fowl & an antelope carcus we saw no game. Splodge, my horse decided to half climb, half jump through a dry river bed, VERY bumpy & my camera fell off the saddle, Olivia also lost her water bottle, Emily kindly picked them up, her horse unkindly decided to wander off with out her lol
We got back to the farm, fed the horses & topped up the water.
Diner was mince pie with a kind of omelette topping, the mince was nice ~ the topping not so much, it was served with rice with raisins in.
Bumped in Corne who was with a new girl, who had a bad tummy, I gave her some Imodium & re-hydration tablets
The Wildlife Volunteer 