Let’s jump straight in with my blog this week about who is who in our Ringtail Lemur walkthrough. A lot of people ask about how we tell our ringtail lemurs apart. Well for the keepers that work with them on a daily basis, this is very easy. However, for those of you that don’t know,…
Whilst everyone was experiencing the start of the heatwave here in Kent this summer, I was travelling to the Orkney Islands in Scotland. When you look through my photos in this blog, you’ll notice that I was in full waterproofs and down jacket. It pretty much just rained and blew a hooley the whole time…
1st October is National Hair Day so, with this on the horizon and to celebrate I thought I would base my blog on some of the uses animals have for theirs (or rather their fur). Camouflage The most obvious reason for an animal’s fur is camouflage. This is extremely important for predators as they need…
We have been very busy training new behaviours including crate training with many species recently and I wanted to update you on what the animals have been learning. Macaws So, I’ve been making friends with the macaws and teaching them to follow the target. They’ve picked it up nicely and allowed me to move onto…
If you remember from a previous blog of mine that majority of the primate keepers’ least favourite job is cleaning the Mandrills. Since then, we have a new keeper, Holly, who has fallen hard for the cuteness of the mandrill troop. So, she has asked me to write a blog about them and here we…
Our meerkat mob recently went from 6 to 10. Last year we welcomed 3 pups into the group however this year we went one better with 4 being born. The group includes Ken (Alpha male), Kiara (Alpha female), Pinkie, Axe, Bo, Koshka and then the 4 pups. However, we don’t know the genders at the…
I’ve got another Guess Who for you this week (find my previous Guess Who here). This time all the animals are found here at Wingham to give it a zookeeper week theme. All the answers can be found at the bottom for you. 1:• I come in lots of colours• I love to make a…
This blog is going to focus on training for blood draws. This is being undergone on several species at the park and hopeful many more in the future. Why do we need to take blood? Blood samples can give an insight into the health of the animal. They can be taken from a healthy animal…
This week I’ve found it difficult to decide what to write this blog about. Not because I was stumped on ideas but because I actually had several ideas up my sleeve! However, I think there’s one topic you’d like to be updated on since his arrival at the park. It just means my other topics…
You may be wondering what we feed our leaf eating (browse) animals during our winter months when there are much fewer leaves available for them to eat. Well, the answer is browse silage, but what is it? First there are a few questions to ask, beginning with; What is a browse feeder? Within the animal…
