October 29
We are back to weighing the boys since they are now old enough to go on the big tiger scale. We have one small room inside that contains the platform for the scale and the display that shows their weight is mounted outside of it. The platform that the tigers stand on is almost as big as the room itself, so when we weigh the big cats they pretty much go in the room, get on the scale, and get weighed.
With Marah, Jalan, and Besar, nothing is that straightforward. Even though we try and separate them and weigh them one at a time, we always end up with all three in the weight cage at once. It then becomes a matter of the arithmetic. And patience. The cubs are so excited about being in this strange place that has the scent of so many different cats that they don't even notice the keepers trying to get them on or off the scale. Sooner or later, you get one cub on the scale alone and get his weight, and then you can subtract that from the weight of him on the scale with one brother and so on. On October 1, they weighed in at: Marah—46 pounds; Jalan—56 pounds; and Besar—54 pounds. That's quite a bit more than the two pounds (approximately) that they weighed on May 2, when they were born!
We have not seen any interest in swimming on the part of the cubs yet, but they still enjoy the water. The keepers and volunteers carefully clean and dry the cubs' cages everyday while they are outside. And pretty much every day when the cubs come back inside, the first thing that they do (after eating!) is try and climb into one of the water bowls. These are 10-inch-deep semicircular pans that are bolted to the front of the enclosures (you may be able to see them on the 
cub cam) and contain about 2 1/2 gallons of water. They are NOT big enough to hold a tiger weighing 50 pounds or more. Jalan in particular is convinced that he can do it if he just keeps trying. As you can imagine, we then have half a gallon of water in the bowl and two gallons on the floor. But it's all good—the floor ends up as slippery as a skating rink. For these boys, everything is an opportunity for play!
Visitors at the Zoo and to the cub cam may have noticed that one of the cubs, Marah, has been limping a little bit lately. We waited a week or so to see if it would clear up on its own, since there was no swelling or injury that we could see. Marah continued to limp a little, so he got his first trip to the hospital. He got a shot to make him sleep and then was driven up to the Department of Animal Health, where he was x-rayed, weighed, and microchipped. This microchip is just like the ones you can have put in your dog or cat and is one way to positively identify an animal. Many of the animals here at the Zoo have chips. He then came back to the Great Cats building, where he got a shot to make him wake up, and was then reunited with his mother who was very anxious to see him and not happy with us at all.
The veterinarians didn't see any injury in the x-rays, which means it is probably a sprain or a strain of some kind that should get better on its own. They all agreed that he is very cute while cautioning that this is an observation, not a diagnosis! So Marah and his mother Soyono won't be going outside first thing in the morning with Jalan and Besar but will wait a while and go out at about 10 so that he doesn't aggravate his injury by playing to long or too hard. He thinks he is very special to get this alone time with his mom every day and is maybe just a little bit spoiled. All of the cubs continue to grow and play, and they are coming along with their training quite well too.
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