Janine, thank you for sharing your adventure with us. What a rewarding experience this had to be for you.

Thanks for your report Janine, looks like you had an interesting week at Sanwild !

Hi Christie it is a milk forumla product forumlated for herbivores called Denkovite.
If I remember correctly he was around 3months old when the injury happend at Madikwe he is now around 7 months old.

Janine it sounds like you had a very interesting and exciting week at Sanwild.  It had to be so fun feeding the baby rhino.  I'll bet it was mind boggling everything that they talked to you about. Thank you for sharing your visit.

Janine, Fascinating! I'm certain it wasn't easy, but what worthwhile effort ever is? I believe you have helped more than you know.

Thanks Janine!

I have been looking forward to your report. Good for you girl, you are making a difference and I hope you do continue on with more courses.

What were you feeding to the baby rhino? How old is he? You look so tiny next to him. I only fed a baby lamb with a bottle and she almost swallowed the whole thing so I can't imagine what it feels like to feed a baby rhino!

Sorry I forgot that they post last first so please read the second one first enjoy

There are also two young kudu one of which could not even stand when he got there and is standing now still very skittish, and the silly thing swallowed the teat from the milk bottle on our last day but I believe he is doing fine.

The larger one was the one who could not walk and swallowed the teat

There is a red hartebeest who had a broken leg which is now mended but unfortunately he did not do to well on the release as he was not able to mix with the other hartebeest, which was sad.

Zack the lost red hartebeest

There are many success stories which makes this a successful rehab centre, visit the Sanwild web site to read about them.
There are many animals on the large piece of land they have, that have been injured, and have been rehabilitated and released to live their life out in a natural habitat and in peace, unfortunately the drought is starting to take its toll and while we were there a warthog and an impala died from the drought. The Kudu you can see are losing condition fast, they have started to supplement feed the animals but the bags of game pellets 25kg per bag are R150 per bag and they use on average 8-9 bags a day so they are heavily reliant on donations to be able to supplement feed till the rains come, as they are purely a charity organisation.

The actual course was fantastic Karen Trendler is an authority in the field and her vast knowledge is fantastic, We covered many aspects of rehabilitation from hand rearing all the way to release, and a fairly extensive section on emergency first aid and feeding, to name just a few. I was very happy that I had taken the time and money to do this course and am seriously considering sighing up for the advanced courses, maybe some where along the line I too can try to make a difference to a injured, or abandoned animal.


Teaching us how to rotate a twisted owl wing on an owl that unfortunately did not make it

Teching us to tube a bird on a hadeda that did not make it

It was a tiring week in that we had a lot of work to cover but most satisfying.

My Wildlife Emergency first aid and rehabilitation course

Well we arrived at Sanwild on Sunday, unpacked quickly and went straight off to the rehab centre to meet some of the inhabitants.

There was the cutest rhino baby who has a bush pig as his buddy, this little rhino the hyena bit his tail off when he was really small. He was nursed and stabilised by Karen Trendler and brought to Sanwild to recover.

me feeding the poor tailess rhino

This is his little buddy the bushpig

There are some baby genets that had to be hand reared but are now ready for release as soon as the first rains come.

There is a Serval which was injured and is now well recovered and will also soon be released.
A barn owl that some children decided because they did not see the mom to remove him so he was accidentally orphaned he is coming along nicely.
There is a bushy tailed mongoose who is so cute nicknamed Frankie he is also ready for release.
Many other creatures that have been maimed or injured or abandoned, burnt in fires etc that Wildcare have been and still are nursing back to health. Any way we got to help feed the animals which was wonderful.

While we were there a baby Nyala ran into the fence and injured his lower jaw quite badly we were privileged to watch the vet repair the lip and the next day the young guy was eating happily it was wonderful to see the stitches will probably come out this week, they could not use dissolving ones which are preferable when dealing with wild life, as the wound was in a sensitive place and the dissolving ones may not have held as well.

poor little pumkin getting his lip sewed back on

that is him the next day eating