A beautiful little animal that is rarely mentioned due to its highly elusive nature. Very little is known about these delicate little creatures and sightings of Suni are even rarer than that of Leopard.

Much of their agility is down to their nimble legs and dainty feet - legs thinner than a finger and a footprint that fits within the fingertip of an 8 year old

We do have Suni on the property, we get the occasional night time glimpse as we walk to the lappa, but on the whole we leave them to their own devices, aware that we are lucky to have them and not wanting to cause them any undue stress.

So imagine our shock when within yards of us in full sunlight a Suni wanders past munching on the plants.  We didn’t notice anything seriously wrong with it then, it was browsing and just looked like a little bit of a fussy eater. There were a couple of faltering steps, but it never fell, and then it found a shady spot under a tree and laid down – which we presumed was just going to have a quick nap.

Whilst filming the Suni, concern set in – something was not quite right.

So we did what anyone would do, we attempted to catch it so we could get it medical treatment.

Catching it was merely a situation of walking over to it and picking it up. Now we knew something was wrong. Suni are very quick, agile creatures, always alert and ready to run – and yet this one seemed unaware of us approaching. Not a good sign.

It put up a little bit of a fight which was a good sign, and then it started crying. I say cry because it sounded like that first howl of a newborn baby. A quick check along it’s spine and legs revealed no obvious signs of damage, and yet his head was falling to the left (the same side he had been toppling on to).

We could see he was in a bad way, and there were so many ticks around his eyes, ears and mouth that even his ticks had ticks – which may sound like an exaggeration, and I wish it was.

After phoning our friendly neighbourhood vet, it was recommended that we dab frontline (for rabbits) on the ticks and give him some rehydration fluids to counteract the tick damage. He seemed to perk up a bit and willing took more fluids.

He was calm, so we tried to ease his discomfort a little bit by helping him off with some ticks

But now time for him to regain some strength and sleep.

Sweet dreams little guy, see you in the morning

We will keep you posted on his progress.