For my Christmas present my family got me a keeper for the day at Cotswolds wildlife park as I have always wanted to do it there as it always looked interesting. We had to be there for 9am start where we were met by a keeper who explained everything and took me to my first section which was the farm section. In this section I fed the chicks and swept the floor of the barn down before going out to the outside of the farm section where I chucked the dirty substrate over onto the muck heap before going to let two goats out into the field and rake the sheep's enclosure.
This filled up the first half an hour of my experience where we moved on to meet the rhino keeper where I got the opportunity to scratch and stroke the rhinos which we tried to get Monty the big male to come over which he almost did but changed his mind but I was happy as I had little Belle the hand reared young rhino come over for lots of scratches and strokes. This had to be one of my favourite parts of the day as that was one animal I wanted to see after the experience thinking I wouldn't get to see her but she was straight up and over to us when we went to see her and her family.
Once we had given them plenty of cuddles and learnt a lot from the keeper it was time to move on to the morning break but first we met up with the next keeper that I would be with where he explained where the facilities were and offered us drinks which we were ok and then another keeper came in who had brought muffins in for the members off staff but offered me one which how could I turn down so I accepted the muffin and I'm glad I did it was the nicest muffin I've ever had. Once we had finished the break we headed to the penguins as there was a penguin talk on where I was the person who was feeding the penguins while Chris the keeper was doing the talk. The nicest thing of each of the members of staff was that they let mum come in so she could take the photos while I was doing the experiences. the penguins were very gentle and did not peck my legs at all which surprised the keepers.
Once the penguins had enough fish we took the bucket back into the penguin kitchen where Chris kindly gave us a few zoo names in Europe he recommends. He then took us onto the next keeper which was the lemurs. This is where I got to feed the lemurs and find out lots about each type of lemur they have at the park which was really interesting.
I then got handed over to the small mammal keeper where we started off with the yellow mongoose where I stood on the outside and scattered mealworms in a small area in their enclosure before headed to the otters where we did the exact same thing by scattering them with some under the rocks and some in the water and grass area to keep them busy and enrich them. We spent a few minutes observing them making sure they are all ok before heading to the prairie dogs to clean and feed their enclosure and also observing to make sure that they are all ok. We then headed to the Meerkats to feed them and to clean them out which was fun to get into and out of the enclosure. The last thing we did before swapping to the next keeper was to hand feed the squirrel monkeys which were very gentle.
The next animal we went to just before lunch was the bats where I hung up food for them onto the hooks that are in the enclosure and then I got to hand feed the smaller bat species by holding bananas and they came and ate off it.
After lunch I got to go to the tapir and the capybara enclosure where I got to hand feed both the tapir and the capybara as well as giving them a stroke. They had all sorts of vegetables and did not take long to finish the whole lot of food.
After the tapirs we headed to meet the next keeper which was in charge of the giraffes and the lions. Once I had met the keeper we headed to get some of the browse that I was going to feed the giraffes. I helped them out by doing some of their training for their new giraffe encounter area which one of the giraffes did very well at. We then headed inside at the bottom level to feed them there so we could see the size of them which they were massive before we headed up to eye level to feed them up there.
He then took us to hand feed their male lion Rana who was very gentle for the food and was a big lion. We fed him in two areas before we headed back to the giraffe house to make some enrichment for the lions in form of a welly boot full of giraffe poo and straw and some spices all mixed together with a small amount of water before we went to chuck it over the fence which I let the keeper do as it is a high fence and then watched them play with it for a couple of minutes.
We then headed to the last swap of the day where I met the reptile keeper where I got to hand feed the giant tortoises as well as stroke them as well as learning a lot about them. We then headed to the reptile house where we went behind scenes where I met a few of the reptiles as well as being able to hold a snake.
We then headed back to the car slowly before heading back home. I would like to say a big thank you to mum and dad for getting this experience for me and a big thank you to all of the keepers who took me around the whole day and made it so special.
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