Update on the animals

We thought it was about time to given you an update on some of the earlier blogs.

The fallow deer had 5 babies which are now growing into healthy youngsters. We named one Mischief as she kept hiding from the keepers every day and it would take forever to find her. She was always in the most awkward of places!

The meerkat have settled in nicely to their new home. As soon as we put them in there they started mating but as of yet we haven’t seen any signs of young. All the keepers are keeping their fingers crossed that we get some babies soon! The meerkat have become a firm favourite with the keepers and the public as they are so entertaining, constantly doing something, even if it is falling asleep while sitting up.

Jemima, the runner duck, is doing well and she is growing lots. It’s now very hard to tell her apart from her parents. The guinea fowl are also sitting on some eggs and at last count it was 25 eggs so we are hoping that some of those will hatch soon.

Burrito and Chimicanga, our capybara babies have grown loads. When they were first born they wouldn’t come anywhere near us but as time went on they started eating things out of our hand, at first it was a green bean as they didn’t have to come too close for that but nowadays its bits of apple and pepper. They also let us scratch them on their head and they seem to enjoy it as they close their eyes and start to fall asleep. Their dad Taco loves nothing more than a good belly rub, he rolls over onto his side so we can give him a scratch so we think that the babies are going to be following in his footsteps.

Sita, the cheetah we had from Paignton Zoo has settled in great. She is such an easy cat to work with and very co operative. She loves to lie right on top of the mound in her enclosure so she can see everything. Although she is very co operative she is one of the fussiest cats we have on the park. Her food has to have no skin, feathers or fur on it and it has to be the freshest of meat otherwise she turns her nose up at it!

We mentioned that our rhea had been sitting on some eggs but unfortunalty due to the bad weather their nests got waterlogged and the rhea stopped sitting. Next year we are hoping for some better weather and then some will hatch.

Keep checking back on the blog as things are constantly being updated at the park and we will do our best to keep you up to date with what’s going on.

A Feathered Father's Day

Here at Dartmoor Zoo we have 9 rhea and recently one of our female's has started laying eggs. The eggs are quite big and weigh around 500-700g each and are a creamy colour with a thick shell.

The reproduction behaviour of these birds are quite strange as the female's lay the eggs and then the male's incubate and look after the chicks once they have hatched.

Our male's have made nests by scraping the ground and lining them with some leaves. Female's can lay up to 60 eggs per year and once they start laying during spring/summer time they often lay an egg every other day.

We are pleased to say that 3 of our male rhea are sitting on eggs at the moment and hopefully in a few weeks time we will have rhea chicks running around the paddock. The male's are been very protective about the eggs and won't even move for food. We have to go up to them (while they are hissing at us) and throw some food by them so they get something to eat.

The eggs take around 35-40 days to hatch so we will let you know if any do!