Mongoose Mayhem!

While I was baby-sitting in Paarl, Rob had a visitor! Look carefully at the corner of the gate.....

The grey mongoose peering in!

This little chap (Galerella Pulverulenta) is often in the garden but he has never come into the house before......as far as we know. Rob was in the office one afternoon when he heard one of the cats making the howling noise that precedes a fight! As we do have a few (!) ferals still around, he went to see what the fuss was about and saw this mongoose peering in through the security gate. It left when it saw Rob (I am not sure who got the biggest surprise) and then came back a while later. This time it came right into the house and ended up in the spare room, under the bed! Rob heard a very loud 'clicking' sound from the irate mongoose and found Alfie with his nose under the bed and a cat or two all puffed up and looking highly umbridged!

Eventually it left and the cats deflated their fur and Alfie withdrew his nose!


The Small Grey Mongoose or Cape Gray Mongoose as it is now officially known is one of two species that we see regularly here in and around the village. (You may have been clever enough to see that the spelling of 'grey' is different in the official name, I wondered if it was a spelling error or if the whole thing was Americanised on purpose!) Sadly, although many are killed on the roads as they dash across, they can live to a ripe old age of nine.

Their diet is mainly small rodents but they are having a hard time of it at the moment as there are none around thanks to the drought. (And probably a cat or ten!) Mongooses (mongeese??) also eat insects and will steal chicken eggs and the odd young chicken if they can find one. Friends of ours across the field from us have an extended mongoose family that visit them regularly for food. One or more will arrive in the afternoon and basically hang about on the veranda or venture into the house until someone comes out with their treat of chicken necks and dog food!

Dilly and friend!

I know that they enjoy cat food as before our first feral cats (Daffy and Dilly) finally decided to come in from the cold, I fed them outside. Every day a mongoose would come to the bench where Dilly lay, have a good look round and then happily eat the leftover food.

They will kill and eat venomous snakes and scorpions. I was under the impression that they were immune from snake venom, but apparently the same amount of venom that would kill a cat, will also kill a mongoose. Maybe just as well that they don't know that..........

Any spare snakes, rats, scorpions..........

Holes in the ground that have been abandoned by whoever dug them, are their preferred homes as they are not good diggers themselves! They also live in rock piles and in dense vegetation. We often watch them playing in the piles of rock on one of the empty stands nearby, but sadly the stand has been sold and once the ground is cleared and the rocks are moved, the little mongoose family will be homeless. The owner has promised to try to move the rocks in one go and place them in the green belt, so maybe all is not lost.

We have a lovely pile of rocks in our garden, they are welcome to live with us.

We have scorpions, an odd snake or two, mice (sometimes) and plenty of cat food.

Maybe I should make a 'Rocks for Rent' sign!