Zoo Animals Get a Flippin’ Good Treat for Pancake Day!

Pancakes were the dish of the day for the sloths, camels and armadillo at Drusillas Park, as the Zoo Keepers served up a Pancake Day feast to mark the Shrove Tuesday tradition.

Unlike our traditional recipe of flour, egg and milk, the Sloth’s zoo crepes were created from sweet potato topped with a sprinkling of sweetcorn and served to the animals in a frying pan by Head Keeper, Sophie Leadbitter.

Roxy and Lofty, the Bactrian camels tucked into a simple sweet potato recipe while Gretel the Armadillo enjoyed pancakes made from mushed up leaf-eater pellets.

Head Keeper, Sophie Leadbitter, commented: “As we are a fruit-free zoo, something like sweet potato makes the perfect treat for our animals. All fruit items have been removed from our plant-eater’s diets completely and replaced by vegetable alternatives.”

“The reason for this is that the fruit cultivated for our own consumption is much sweeter, higher in calories and lower in fibre than that which the animals would naturally eat in the wild. This is not only bad for their waistlines; it is also bad for their teeth. We might love a sweet, sugary Pancake Day treat, but this would just be no good for the health of our animals.”

Delivering the animals’ meals in imaginative and unusual ways is part of the zoo’s daily enrichment programme. This ensures they receive a varied and diverse diet, as well as encouraging them to think and work for their food as they would in the wild.

Head Keeper, Sophie Leadbitter, said: “We work hard in the zoo to deliver food and other items of interest to the animals in ways that will keep them mentally stimulated. The camels love sweet potato so we had to fill the frying pan right to the top and they scoffed it down pretty quickly, so it’s safe to say it Pancake Day at Drusillas Park was a success!”