Delicious food cocktail
Temperature - Day (maximum):
approx. 30 degrees
Anna Plains Station – 01.05.2001
We check on our camels again early in the morning. John, who soon seems like an angel to us, has allowed us to use the old hay and horse feed, which is stored in abundance in the barn next to the paddock. Our animals are happy about the power food. They are in dire need of it, because although they have been able to graze and eat in the bush for over three months, they are not particularly well nourished. Luke told us that although the grass looks lush due to all the rain, it doesn’t have enough nutritional value. Our boys’ humps are very small and have not built up any fat reserves. Her coat doesn’t look particularly good either. There are open spots everywhere where they have scratched the hair off their bodies. Apparently they were plagued by flies and insects. The bridges of their noses are partially totally hairless.
John’s offer solves another big problem, because how are we supposed to train with the animals when they are out in the big pasture eating? The fact that we are allowed to feed them the necessary power food here in the enclosures means that we can concentrate fully on the training work. Our boys will be full and happy and the best thing is that we don’t have to separate them from each other. When we work with Jasper and Edgar, the others are allowed to stay nearby or in the same fence. So you won’t feel alone and abandoned.
Behind the barn are large, round bales of grass growing on the vast expanses of Anna Plains. The hay is so tightly compressed that I have to work hard to pluck it out of the huge roll of grass for our boys. It’s not particularly nutritious either, but it’s certainly better than nothing. We throw it to our boys, but to our disappointment they don’t want to eat it. “I’ll mix it with the concentrated feed,” I say, pleased with my idea. This method actually works. The camels make a mad dash for the apparently delicious horse feed. As the tasty little cubes automatically mix with the grass, our boys are forced to eat them in order to get to the tasty morsels. Later, I find about 15 bales of pressed, high-quality hay among the dry meadow hay. It is moldy on the bottom side, but when I scrape off this rotten layer with a spade, it is a wonderful morsel. I take half a bale of this delicacy and mix it in with the meadow hay. Our animals’ eyes almost bulge out of their sockets with pleasure, because they have never had such a delicious cocktail of food from us. Tanja and I sit happily on the high fence again and watch our children enjoying their feeding frenzy. “If they enjoy this twice a day, I’m sure they’ll be fat and round by the time we leave,” I say, satisfied with my concoction.
In the afternoon, Tanja starts to get to grips with the responsible work of food logistics. She has to enter the food we bring from Perth neatly into a list so that she knows what we have available to eat in the morning, at lunchtime and in the evening. For 8 months, 560 kilograms of food are packed in waterproof Ortlieb bags. To keep the weight of the individual sacks within limits, she will distribute everything over 15 sacks over the next few days, one of which will guarantee our survival for two weeks. It’s not only a miserable slog that will probably take 10 days, but also a task that demands the utmost concentration. For example, Tanja has to think about how much sugar we consume in 8 months. It must never be too little, but not too much either. We have to load everything that is too much every day and the animals have to carry it. It’s not just about sugar, but also flour, rice, pasta, muesli, spices, dog food, medicine for humans and animals, hygiene products such as toilet paper and much more. I am glad that she has taken on this task, because I personally can’t stand writing lists on my own. Tanja is much better at this kind of work than I am, so I take the opportunity to remove the annoying algae growth from the two completely dirty water troughs in the paddock. Apparently no one has done this for years, because I only have a chance against the encrusted dirt with a steel brush.
