THE STORY OF WELCOMING TWO UNEXPECTED BABY DASSIES

Saturday afternoon, as I was in the Lapa, I heard Nikita our (Rottweiler) dog crying in fear, I immediately thought she got bitten by a snake. I ran and found Nikita’s tail between the legs and head down. As I was searching for the snake, I heard one of our dassies grunting in the smoking area. I went to have a look but Nikita stayed far away. As I looked under the sofa I found our dassie “Little Boy” with babies running around. Little Boy gave birth. The after-birth things were still there and I could see that Little Boy is indeed a “Little Girl”.

Genital organs of dassies are internal like elephants, so we never know who is who. It’s clear that Little Boy attacked Nikita to protect her babies. The mother let me immediately give my welcoming kiss to the babies and I took them to her safe camp where she is now happily looking after her family.

This is Little Boy’s first litter and she didn’t really know what to do with them. The babies were starving so I helped and gave them a little bit of food (The one dassies usually like) after that they started breastfeeding immediately. Little Boy is now breastfeeding them and this is an extraordinary success.

We are still waiting for Càline (The other dassie) to give birth as we always thought She was a girl. She is big but who knows? Maybe she is just a fat male Dassie.