Week 221 (16 - 22 November 2007)

Cathay finally enters the indoor cages

It was a quiet week for TigerWoods and Madonna. They were fed two wildebeest carcasses without the legs, so they spent most of their time eating and sleeping.

While everybody was waiting eagerly for Cathay to give birth, she made her some progress as well. Every evening, 4 kg of cut pieces of meat were put in the indoor cages for her. Initially she seemed quite cautious. She would only enter the indoor cages at midnight, and would only pick up one piece of meat at a time. Then she would quickly carry it to the outdoor cage and eat it there. Finally she accumulated enough courage on Sunday and went into the furthest indoor cage and finished all the meat.

She still seemed to prefer the outdoor cages. She spent a lot of time pacing there, and called quite a lot. It also seemed that she missed TigerWoods and Madonna quite badly. Even when it was hot in the afternoon she seldom entered the indoor cages to look for the shade, however she would rather climb into the water trough which is in the outdoor cage. On Wednesday it rained hard from afternoon till midnight. But she just spent some time in the indoor cages in the afternoon, and spent most of the night outside in the rain. Although she had scent marked in the indoor cages, maybe it was just a feeding area to her but not a good shelter. When she slept, she preferred to sleep near the sliding gate of the outdoor cage, from where she could see in all directions.

327 was the happiest tiger among all of them. Now he could spent all the nights in the cages in the breeding centre. Besides his normal feeding routine, every night after Cathay’s meat was cut off, he would get the leg bone to nibble on. When he was in the quarantine camp during the day, he paid no attention to TigerWoods and Madonna at all. Sometime Cathay chuffed at him during the night but he ignored her rudely as well.