Auchingarrich Wildlife Park Blog - Latest Updates

Ok! Who swallowed a tennis ball?

Mon, 12 Sep 2022 14:31:55 GMT

Meerkat Blog

Wait … what … you’re telling me that’s not a tennis ball! She’s going to have babies! Oh my! <Emotional moment>

With this exciting news the team at Auchingarrich set about some enclosure renovations

The first job was to dig out the drain. It had become so blocked that it no longer drained water but instead formed a huge puddle. Meerkats are native to South Africa and so the Scottish weather really isn’t to their liking at the best of times.

I was a little concerned that the disruption would be stressful especially to mama meerkat but I couldn’t have been more wrong. They loved all the attention and excitement. Safely penned at one end of the enclosure they watched on with delight.

Once the drain was cleared we added a special drainage fabric and began to cover it with sand. Our friends at Aggregates Direct kindly supplied 4 bulk bags of super soft playpit grade sand for us to top up the enclosure but not before we installed the burrow.

MAKING BURROWS

Meerkats love to burrow and create a series of chambers to sleep and rear their young. The burrows have to have several entrances and exits so they can make a quick escape from predators … not that we have any predators in Auchingarrich Wildlife Park but try as we may, we could not convince the meerkats of this fact!

It transpires that sand burrows are unstable and prone to collapse so we had to be more creative.

Luckily - we knew a man who specialised in making ‘burrows’ underground - albeit of the drainage type.

Andrew Tainsh helped us put together a selection of pipes and drainage inspection chambers to create a ‘fake’ burrow. We had to make sure the pipes all pointed down so as not to catch rain. As a precaution, we placed bricks in the bottom so the base is raised off the ground and then packed it with straw.Meetkats can have between 1-15 pups and have a gestation period of 70 days so we needed to work super fast.

With the nest in place, we buried it under the sand and weighted it down with a tree trunk. Our concern was that the meerkats would just dig up the burrow.

So far so good but please help us by keeping a watchful eye out and if you see any signs of naughty burrowing, please do come and tell one of the animal keepers. We can be easily identified in our green Auchingarrich uniform.

Next week, the finishing touches to our new meerkat enclosure will arrive.

We are so excited and think you will love the mini makeover although if mama does give birth to 15 meerkats we will need a complete new enclosure.

Fund raising begins today!

Escape Drills

Fri, 02 Sep 2022 14:16:03 GMT

Escape Drills

Did you know, a requirement of the zoo licence is to carry out regular ‘escaped animal drills’.

The purpose of the drill is to make sure the team know exactly what to do to ensure the safety of the visitors, the staff and the animals if an escape occurs.

JOHN'S BEST COATIMUNDI IMPRESSION

Obviously, it wouldn’t be right to let a real animal loose, so for our drill we used John in his reindeer suit but was pretending to be a coati (it’s all we had at short notice!).

Initially John hung about the Coatimundi enclosure doing his best coati impression.

As he skulked towards some customers Keeper Denise spotted him! She quickly legged into the hatchery to raise the alert before returning to spot the renegade!

Backup promptly arrived with an assortment of nets, harnesses, bucket of food and a noose! Goodness gracious - that’s my child! I hope they don’t use the noose!

John the coati was having non of it! He legged it to the duck enclosure and hopped over one fence and climbed another.

‘Stand back - escaped animal on the loose’ called Denise as our customers looked on in puzzled amusement.

John the coati sat on top of the fence not wishing to be caught and returned to the enclosure. As the keepers slowly circled towards him he leapt of the fence and dashed towards the top end of the park.

Nicole was at the ready with a large net and in one swift swoop she brought it down over his head! Woohoo! A successful capture!

Admittedly, it wasn’t a perfect capture or model drill but what was important was that the whole team were engaged, they learnt how to carry out a drill and had fun at the same time. I’m sure we will see big improvements on our next drill.

Anyone know where I can find a meerkat costume?

Weeds, Reeds and Trees, Our 3 Little Piggys Move Home

Tue, 30 Aug 2022 11:05:27 GMT

At Auchingarrich we have 3 pigs - Jill , Daisy and Dexter

They have lived in an enclosure which has been tilled a hundred times and they are desperate for greener pastures … or somewhere with plenty of roots to grub up at least.

The Perfect Enclosure

Close to the entrance of the park is a redundant enclosure with a well worn but solid shelter. Huge patches of weeds, reeds and trees were smothering the ground - a pigs paradise in other words.

The problem was how to get them there. We didn’t have a horse box or trailer and hiring one for the kilometre long drive didn’t seem practical.

Stretching Those Legs

There was nothing for it than to walk them down! Jill is a big ol girl and the team were concerned that she wouldn’t make it so they had carefully planned rest stops for her … considering even an overnight rest to break up the journey! They couldn’t have been more wrong.

As the last visitor left the park, the team rallied the pigs and opening the gate watched as they took there first step to freedom!

Daisy and Dexter, the two little gingers ran and skipped then gobbled a ginormous mouthful of grass before running off again.

The donkeys watched on in bewilderment as Daisy eyed up their paddock with envious delight. She was determined to make it hers and sprinted towards them.

‘No way Jose’ said the Donks as they charged along the fenceline bucking and neighing!

Pandemonium ensued … as Keepers were full on sprinting in all directions barely able to breath but still calling out for the piggies to stop! Pigs were darting in every direction refusing to walk sensibly in one direction. Donkeys were frolicking and creating such a hullabaloo.

Even Jill was managing a steady and determined jog … all the way to the bottom paddock. The excitement was just too much!

Home, Sweet Home

The pigs were guided to their new home just as the sun pushed the clouds apart a rainbow touched down on the new enclosure. What better way to dig for that pot of gold than with our big bellied beauties.

Rhea Wrestling

Tue, 02 Aug 2022 16:19:43 GMT

Our beautiful girl, Miss Rosie has a swollen knee joint. She is limping but still quite bright so after some hands off treatment from Erin at Forth Valley Vets we thought it was time to get hands on and have a look.

Our managers Kevin and Sam and I entered the field and approached slowly. With strategy confirmed (not!) Kevin grabbed her by the wings and tipped her backwards. Rhea’s have a prominent central toe that they can use in defences or attack and she was certainly flailing her legs around.

Kevin managed to get her wrestled to the ground. I used my arm to hold her wings down safely and snuggled her neck into mine. Kevin pinned her to the ground and Sam held her legs down and steady so Erin could investigate.

Now - from afar it looked like some odd game of Twister and attracted many onlookers. We were just a knot of bodies and feathers lying in a field.

What they didn’t see what that it was a windy day and I didn’t have my hair band.

So my long dark hair (with no grey at all this week! ��) was flapping in Kevin’s face.

Sam commented that someone’s hair smelled nice and as my hair was up Kevin’s nostrils he confirmed.

I apologised profusely but couldn’t do anything about it as we were holding down the Miss Rosie!

As I occupied myself by considering the size of Rhea poo’s and whether we were knelt in any, I could hear Kevin pft’ing my hair out of his mouth. He was trying to speak with Erin who was drawing fluid out of the swollen joint.

Miss Rosie was whimpering in my ear not understanding that we were trying to make her better. I have to say though that she was more than a little dramatic when we let her go fanning her wings and mock staggering as if to faint.

She recovered quickly and we await the results to find out what is wrong.

I’ll update soon.

What’s that noise?

Tue, 24 May 2022 16:26:26 GMT

Oh No! We were too slow!

Keeper Sam came running upto the Dizzy Duck Cafe out of breath and unable to talk but with some very important news!

The meerkat has had her babies.

She crawled into our fabricated burrow to have her babies.

We haven’t been able to see them but can hear them squeaking.

The others in the meerkat family are meant to take her food but that doesn’t appear to be happening yet.

We are keeping well away as Meerkats can kill there young if they are threatened.

So far, dad and sister have moved into the burrow to keep the family warm at night.

It’s a case of watch this space in the next three weeks for the babies to take there first park outside. Eek! I’m excited!