Nora continued to take her nasty tasting tablets till the end of the course, provided she felt she was stealing them. Her hand is now much improved and needs no further treatment. Shivanee has now rejoined her troop, with no re occurrence of her stomach problems.
The baby Langurs have had some ups and downs, with Phooka catching a cold, which left him unwell for a day or two. During this time he found it hard to cope with Puck jumping all over him and gave him a couple of not so gentle bites. Luckily Puck seemed to catch on and was more careful to check on Phooka’s mood, before trying to play. The cold passed quite quickly, he was put on a course of garlic tablets to help. Both are well again now, and Puck doesn’t seem to have caught the germs luckily. Being hand reared they are both going to be more susceptible to infections, which they can catch from humans as well as other monkeys.
Both babies go out in the garden for walks now, Phooka on a long lead for safety. They are not very brave as yet and still cling to me most of the time, and even if they do explore, a strange cat, or large bird is enough to bring them running back. In the wild they would hardly leave their mothers at this age, so this behaviour is natural.
What gave us more of a surprise the other day was the behaviour of “Mowgli” our young rescued mongoose that has also been bottle reared. He also gets walks in the gardens and surrounds to get him used to the area, in the hope he will learn to find wild foods, insects and small mammals etc. On a recent walk, he suddenly panicked completely, running back to Angela, Johns P.A, who was walking him and trying to hide in her hair. She was completely baffled until she saw what he had spotted, a snake in a nearby bush! We had been concerned that when released Mowgli would perhaps try to eat “Persil” the latest kitten we have taken in, but it seems he will content himself with just the small insects he is willing to catch, for some time yet.
