I love it when people say to me, “Oh, that’’s SO cool!  I”d love to have tigers!” My usual comment is, “Well, that’’s great!  I”ll tell ya what.  Come on out to my place and work for a week, and then let me know, here’’s my card.” Usually I never hear from them again.  Phew!

It’’s a sunless day on the plains, it looks like it should snow any minute now, but it won”t, it’’s Oklahoma.  Cold?  You betchya, damp and penetrating, it took 10 minutes running my hands under lukewarm water to get the sting of frostbite out.  Frozen air, frozen water, frozen food, frozen ME!

The water drill in the winter is very different than in the summer.

As I bundled up to head out, I desparately hoped there wouldn”t be any need for immediate repairs out there.  There weren”t.

The tigers have 3 ways of getting a drink.  They have their pits in their play area that are full of water, they have their six foot cattle troughs in their pens, and they have troughs that have been dug into the cement part of the pens too.

In the summer, if there isn”t much rain, I”ll put some water in the pits, they love playing in the mud and the mud keeps off the flies.  I keep their cattle troughs filled along with the troughs in the cement.

In the winter, I fill their tanks with about two inches of water, enough for them to get a good drink of fresh water through most of the night.  Ater a couple of months of accumulating ice, there are giant chunks of ice in their troughs, and each tiger has a different reaction to them.

As I was filling Izzy’’s tank, she merely glanced in, saw what I was doing and walked away.  She can be playful still, but she’’s pretty adult nowadays. She’’s also in heat, so she’’s only got one thing on her mind.  Shasta, still a cub, started spinning the ice block and would sit back, batting and watching the block spin in the tank.  Max came up and took a good drink, making sure to stay away from the hose.  Nobody wanted to get wet today, except our family fool, Shasta.

Shasta, that little cub I got last year, is huuuuuge now.  She’’s already bigger than Izzy, and her paws are almost as big as Max’s.  I know, pictures!  I”ll get em, I promise!

In the winter I feed them more too, it builds a layer of protective fat and it keeps them busy.

It’’s so cold today, that by the time I left the compound, the water that sprayed onto the concrete had frozen solid (about 10 minutes).  I can only be grateful that it wasn”t freezing rain while I was out there!

So, ya still wanna get a tiger???  LMAO

Until next time,

Tiger