Otto spends most of the day in his holt and mostly comes out at night. This is when I interact with Him. Regardless of the weather I spend about an hour with him every night. He likes to wrestle and play with almost anything he can find. Plastic bottles seem to be the toy of choice at the moment. Everything is done on Otto terms. He keeps his holt clean and shits and pees outside...house trained or what! He uses the rocky side to the left of the holt for this and uses the grassier right hand side for eating. Small fish like the Pouting are completely eaten whereas the heads and spines of larger fish are left. Otto is not a pet and will not come out for anyone apart from me. I reckon this is a good thing for when he goes back to the wild...reckon I must be his surrogate mum! Like a puppy, he enjoys rolling around and fighting biting my hands....unlike a puppy, there is no way he will allow me to pick him up. As I said..everything is on Otto terms. He gets fed regularly on a diet of fish with the occasional tin of cat or dog food. I reckon he consumes 2lb of fish per day and is growing very fast indeed. He seems to be showing a great interest in water at the moment, so over the next week I will be setting up a large swimming area for him...more on that later. Tried him with a crab last week but he didn't seem to know what to do with it. Will try again this week.
The idea is to eventually let him out to investigate the nearby bay and the burn that leads to the Mill lochs. Hopefully he will by this time trust me enough to accompany him on his foraging expeditions. Because he is so young, it is imperative that he returns to the Holt. Young Otters stay with their mothers for well over a year before becoming independent.
Will write some more soon.
Cheers for now.
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