Feeding experiences in zoos

J

Jurek7

Well-Known Member
15+ year member
I wonder which zoos allow visitors to feed more unusual animals? Besides petting zoos, of course.
 
Jurek7 said:
I wonder which zoos allow visitors to feed more unusual animals? Besides petting zoos, of course.
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What do you consider to be "unusual animals"? You can feed kangaroos, wallabies, and pademelons everywhere in Australia, but would you consider these to be unusual animals in North America or Europe or "everywhere at once"?
 
I don't understand why most hoofstock isn't feedable if Giraffes are? When is the first Okapi/Bongo feeding going to take place? Interaction ie brushing/feeding/walk through enclosures are how you bring hoofstock back in the zoo politics race.
 
You can feed Ostrich at Blank Park Zoo.
 
I have seen people feeding the okapis at the San Diego Zoo. It must be a special tour but I don't know which one.
 
nanoboy said:
What do you consider to be "unusual animals"? You can feed kangaroos, wallabies, and pademelons everywhere in Australia, but would you consider these to be unusual animals in North America or Europe or "everywhere at once"?
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Ha, interesting - I never heard of kangaroo feeding outside Australia - even if there is plenty of red-necked wallabies in Europe!

Please keep posting! I am basically interested which animals can be fed safely, and which zoos copied each others trend.
 
Animals I have fed in zoos (i.e. where you can buy food and then go feed the animals by yourself) include:

-Macropods (many species of kangaroos, wallabies, etc.)
-Common Wombats
-Deer (Red, Fallow)
-Himalayan Tahr
-Barbary Sheep
-Dromedary Camels
-Emu, Ostrich and Cassowary
-Waterfowl (many species - swans, geese, ducks)

As well as all the domestic species - horse, cattle, sheep, goats, alpaca, llama, pig, etc.

I have also fed a number of other species at keeper talks or on zoo tours:
-Galapagos Tortoise
-Giraffe
-River Hippo
-Asian Elephant
 
At St. Augustine Alligator Farm, you can (or at least you could), put a quarter into a gumball machine to get pellets which you feed to the alligators. Small pellets; think dry cat food. It's pretty surreal seeing some good sized alligators looking up at you, ready to catch these pellets when you throw them in.
 
tschandler71 said:
I don't understand why most hoofstock isn't feedable if Giraffes are?
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The drive-through West Midlands Safari Park in the UK is an example of a place that seems to allow/encourage public feeding of Ungulates from cars. I think they sell Pelleted concentrate food for just that purpose. I have seen it firsthand and there are a number of photos on here of antelopes; Eland, Nilgai, Addax etc poking their heads through car windows for food. Actually I think this is dangerous as it is not supervised by animal staff, there could be danger of diseases being passed via animal saliva (e.g in contact with childrens' hands and then to mouth, as washing facilities are impossible to ensure in such a situation) plus the extra danger from horns inadvertantly striking people. In other, better controlled situations I can't see any problems though.
 
In the small zoo Amadeusparken in Norway you can feed all the animals with pellets bought at the entrance, except the reptiles and primates. The animals you can feed are:

-Fallow deer
-Donkeys
-Horses
-Guinefowls
-Pheasants
-Chickens
-Yaks
-Emus
-Black swans
-Ducks
-Geese
-Ostriches
-Zebras
-Camels
-Maras
-Mouflons
-Pot bellied pigs
-Goats
-Llama

And the animals you can not feed are:

-Lar gibbons
-Common marmosets
-Sulawesi crested maqacues
-Alligators in the outside enclosure
-Leopard tortoises
-The snakes and lizards in the reptile house

Personaly though, I am not a big fan of the public being allowed to feed the animals. Because the animals often get very little variation in their diet then. Another problem is when the public feeds the animals that should not be feed. In Amadeusparken I saw a man feeding the sulawesi crested macaques pellets, even though it was banned.

An advantage with animal feedings is that you can get much closer to the animals. This is especialy important to kids, if they feed animals at an early age they maybe get a bigger apprecation of nature, than they would otherwise.
 
I've just been to WMSP, and have been there many times in the past. The packets of food you get say that you can only feed deer and goats, but it seems antelope are included in that.

It is partly supervised, there are always staff in 4x4s and at the gates to make sure traffic keeps moving.

The only issue with feeding seemed to be that the Addex have figured out how to cause a traffic jam to get the most out of the feeding.

None of the animals seemed aggressive to each other or to me, not even the camels who you're warned about. I got a bit of a nip from a eland, but that was because my hand was at a funny angle.
 
At borth you can feed pretty much anything that isn't a carnivore (except degus), not sure how healthy that is. Can't say I didn't enjoy handing grapes to a Patas monkey tho!

They have ring tailed and ruffed lemurs, pygmy and common marmosets, prairie dogs, raccoons, capuchins, patas, spider monkeys, meerkats, and loads of stunning birds, green monkeys, only one that bit me was a turaco, although a couple of monkeys would of if i'd not watched my fingers!!
You can pay extra to feed the leopard or to get into various monkey enclosures.
 
I'm going to Borth on thursday to deliver a couple of new animals for them ;)
 
lamna said:
It is partly supervised, there are always staff in 4x4s and at the gates to make sure traffic keeps moving.

None of the animals seemed aggressive to each other or to me, not even the camels who you're warned about. I got a bit of a nip from a eland, but that was because my hand was at a funny angle.
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Yes, but if someone was injured in a car, they could only drive the animal away afterward. I'm not suggesting any of the ungulates concerned are aggressive, more that their horns could unintentionally strike someone and do harm e.g if an animal got its head stuck etc..Also some antelope species in zoos in the past were found to be infected with a form of BSE/FSE which they had contracted from the pelleted foods they were fed- unless the ones at WMSP have been screened for infections, hence my concern about human contact.
 
I've been to a few zoos in France where you can buy popcorn and feed the animals. Part of me has gleefully and a little guiltily fed the likes of giraffes, hippos, zebras and just about anything else that would stay still for long enough, but part of me can't help thinking that you can't trust the average zoogoer and that it's a very bad idea as far as the animals' welfare goes.
 
I fed a white lioness, a Sumatran tiger, and a pair of cougars at the National Zoo in Canberra,Australia.
 
Maisie said:
I've been to a few zoos in France where you can buy popcorn and feed the animals. Part of me has gleefully and a little guiltily fed the likes of giraffes, hippos, zebras and just about anything else that would stay still for long enough, but part of me can't help thinking that you can't trust the average zoogoer and that it's a very bad idea as far as the animals' welfare goes.
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Unpopped or popped?
 
In different tours and encounters I've been able to feed a few:

Sumatran Tigers
Bengal tigers
Tigons
Cheetah
Bongo
Maned wolves
Dingo (although i get to do that every day)
African elephant
Asian elephant
Meerkats
Wallabies
Roos
Koala
Wombat
Echidna
Bilby
Bandicoot
Possums
Brown bear
Sun bear
Otters
Lemurs
 
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