Cheetah Care

Samira's Skin Infection

At the end of August, volunteers and staff noticed that our lovely Samira had some bad swelling on the left side of her face and neck which was growing each day and not only that, but she was starting to loose her fur in the same area. Given Samira's old age we were extremely worried and brought her in for a closer examination immediately. 






On inspection, we could see that the swelling was in fact an abcess, which we were able to drain on site. However, as Chiquita and Samira were hand-raised together on a poor diet of mielepap and dog pellets, we wondered whether Samira was also suffering from tooth problems which had perhaps become infected. We decided we didn't want to take any risks and sent her into Windhoek Animal Hospital for x-rays. 




We had to wait patiently for a whole week before Samira's x-rays came back to tell us that it was in fact an infection underneath the skin, that was causing her so much distress. Fortunately this could be medicated easily - she received a long lasting injection of antibiotics from the vet and following that we gave her tablet antibiotics on a daily basis for 1 week. 

Since then her condition has improved greatly and she is slowly growing back her fur. We're so relieved to have our happy, healthy Samira back on track!  










Aiko's Poorly Foot

One day Johannes noticed that Aiko's paw had a piece of loose skin underneath which was bleeding, so we brought him into our veterinary clinic for examination. 

A few days earlier he'd been out for a walk and whilst in his transit cage, Johannes spotted him pawing at the metal bars and so we suspect he cut himself then. At the clinic Rudie anaesthetised Aiko and once we had a closer look, we were able to see that it was in fact a deep cut on his toe pad. Rudie disinfected the wound and applied some stitches to close up the flap of loose skin.


We hoped that Aiko would make a full recovery after that, however a few days later he was still limping and bleeding again - the stitching had come undone. At this stage we decided to build a temporary enclosure within his camp with Aisha and Kiki where he could receive “cage rest” with no thorns, bushes or uneven ground to cause further damage to the foot.


After a few week's rest, we brought Aiko in again for another check up. We were lucky to be joined by two professional vets - Dr Ulf from Windhoek and Dr Wolf from Germany, who sedated Aiko and carried out the examination.

They discovered the the skin had regrown far too thickly which would cause Aiko pain to put weight on. They decided to cut away the surplus skin and stitch the pad together again. Aiko's foot was then bandaged up and he was moved back into his small enclosure.

That was a few weeks ago and now Aiko's foot is healing very well - we have removed the bandage and he is putting weight on it, which is a great sign that he's on the road to recovery.