Loading the buffalo from Bucklands.

This morning was the coldest day we have experienced in the Eastern Cape and I was up at 5 30!! We drove this morning to go fetch the buffalo (heifer and her 1 month old calf) it was freezing!! When we arrived it was a whole 0 degrees centigrade or for my foreign readers it was 32 degrees Fahrenheit.

On arrival we were greeted by a small family of Rhino, a bull, cow and their calf, it was sunrise and my camera was not on the right setting but here are the photos...

Upon arrival I was so glad to see I was not the only one wearing shorts after being told it is not wise. Moving off to the bomas where Hopewell’s buffalo and calf were, there was a lot of commotion as two other bidders had bought some buffalo and were also loading.

It starts where the vet darts all the buffalo in the boma and then he had four small teams of students who each had to look after a buffalo and monitor it while it was down, checking temperature, heart rate and breathing. Once that is done it is the fact of moving the buffalo into the truck and as you will see this is not light work!! The buffalo is moved by using a steel stretcher and on that is a tough material stretcher. The reason for this is so that the metal stretcher will close the gap from the ramp to the truck and then slide the material into the truck with the animal on it; this took about 10 or so men to carry it.

Hopewell’s buffalo were a bit difficult as they had to dart the mother then take the calf out and put it into the truck first which was not easy to catch the little girl!! As our buffalo had given birth a month prior she was rather on the large side and she was carried with great difficulty with almost two teams of men carrying taking turns.

Once in the truck the vet closes it and sent to Hopewell, arriving here was a safe trip for all and the releasing process was quick and simple which was great. The mother and calf ran off into the bushes and found the male and female which were offloaded on Friday!!

sorry that they are so blurry!! need and uto focus lense!!