A Zookeepers Life #11 Christmas at the Zoo

Do you ever wonder what happens to the animals on Christmas Day? Almost all industries are closed throughout the festive season, even zoos are usually closed too but what happens to the animals? Do keepers still work on Christmas day? The answer is yes!

Midway through the year a discussion is held with all the team to find out who would want Christmas off and who would want New Year off. For me, as I live far from my family I see no point in having any time off over Christmas and I would prefer to work it. In the lead up to Christmas we are very busy on our section as we have the very special Santa’s Reindeer to take care of, this means we are required to dress up as elves and take turns standing with them. We are required to answer a series of questions both as an elf and as a normal keeper depending if children are in ear shot but every question we are asked we have answers for both! Sometimes I can be quite cheeky and even if children are not nearby and I get the question “Where are they from?” the answer will still be the North Pole.

Ronnie resting up for the big day

Christmas Eve is a crazy day, with the events adding the pressure to our section we spend the whole day cleaning and preparing for Christmas Day, as well as ensuring every guest is having a fun filled festive day. This means the mad rush trying to find 32 buckets to create 4 sets of feeds, preparing 2 days’ worth of veg and fruit chop up, bringing 8 bales of hay and 8 straw bales down to the section, and putting together all the wheelbarrows of cleaning tools ready for Christmas Morning. At 3pm we begin to shut the section and move the feeds, wheelbarrows, hay and straw to the appropriate areas to ensure the morning runs as smooth as possible.

---

Christmas Morning

Whilst kids are running down the stairs to see if Santa has arrived, I am arriving at work for 7:30am. We are a small team of 5 and we meet at our horses where we head collar them up and turn them out for the day, as there is 1 extra person they are to check the reindeer have returned safely from their journey and are given extra food to compensate the energy lost travelling around the world. I left the team quickly cleaning the fields and headed down to the section to check all the animals are alert, accounted for and are well. I can honestly say that is probably the most stressful aspect of the day, especially trying to locate 49 lorikeet birds!

Upon the walk round, I am to deliver their morning feeds that are sat near their exhibits and stand for a few minutes making sure they feed. Once I had reached the sheep I was finally joined by the rest of the team, which is fortunate as the sheep and goats require 2 people to feed as one goat loves to jump a 4ft fence and eat the sheep’s feed! Whilst I stand and wait for the sheep to finish the team gather up the wheelbarrows and head to the front of the exhibit. Just because it is Christmas, it doesn’t mean we can skip cleaning, we clean absolutely everything as if we were open to the public. The only difference is that there are 5 of us working together in all exhibits, which means it’s done quicker and more efficiently, it also means we can stand to have Christmas photos with our animals!

By 10:30am all eight exhibits are completely cleaned and the animals are fed, medicated and given their Christmas hugs. We then have a quick tea break where we devour boxes and boxes of chocolates the public bring in to us. On Christmas eve, I was approached by a lovely family who gave me a small box of chocolates and they thanked me for looking after the animals, it was really touching. This is something we now see more of, being recognised for the work we do in the form of chocolates- yum!

At 10:40am we split up where 2 of us go to the stables to muck out and the rest clean three more exhibits and move evening feeds to appropriate areas. I decided to go up and do the stables with another staff member, I really like mucking out so it only took around 60 minutes before we were all finished, giving us time to finally get our Christmas photos with the reindeer. This is an annual event for me, a new Christmas photo with my favourite boys either Basil or Ronnie. This year it was Ronnie’s turn and well I am pretty chuffed with how the photo came out

At midday, the calls around the zoo come in the form of sections offering other sections help to finish and go be with their families. Everyone was on time and we all met at the radio room to wish one another a merry Christmas and to hand over to the afternoon team.

Christmas time does not mean we can skip cleaning, or even feeding our animals, it is treated like any other day without public walking around. Our animals are our life, I don’t think anyone in the whole community worldwide would be able to just throw food at their animal and go home without ensuring they too have a nice clean warm house to rest in. It’s a very peaceful morning but it is very hard work cleaning absolutely every section in one go, whereas we usually split the section into smaller areas to make the work lighter.

Christmas day is the only day we are closed throughout the year meaning Boxing day is just like any other day starting and finishing at the normal time.

Next time you visit a Zoo and see a keeper, we are always so happy to share our stories, answer questions or to simply guide you around the Zoo. If you want to give your gratitude to us just like the small family did for me, the way to our hearts is through our stomachs. Above all else, seeing you treating the animals with respect and enjoying your day is all we ever want.

Basil and I hope you all had a wonderful Christmas and a brilliant New Year!

---

For more Zookeepers Life editions you can find them here:

Snow day
Saying Goodbye
Animal Training

Any many more

---

All photographs used are my own

---