For Kids - Do You Know?

Zoo Kitchen could test your fear factor!

Does the thought of hundreds of giant mealworms called "super worms" crawling around in a container in your refrigerator give you the creeps? What about buckets of smelly fish? Or rats and mice arranged neatly on a tray?

While the regular and super mealworms are part of the regular balanced diets for the lizards, skinks, Lady Amherst pheasant, and peacock pheasant, they are quite a delicacy to several primates including the tamarins, marmosets, and squirrel monkey. Usually just a small handful is fed to each animal that enjoys the little wiggly creatures, but this amounts to nearly 130,000 mealworms a year!

The animals that eat the smelly fish such as capelin and smelt can usually be detected before you get to their enclosure, because the sometimes strong fishy smell precedes them. Some of the most gorgeous and interesting birds like the roseate spoonbill, considered the jewel of Louisiana birds, ibises, herons, and pelicans all require fish in their diets. The fish are also stuffed with vitamins for animals that need additional diet enrichment. Sometimes the fish are a vehicle to get medicine to the animals, rather than stressing the animal by capturing it. Fish are also given to bears, clouded leopards, fishing cats, and bobcats as treats. Around 8,000 pounds of fish are ordered from Gloucester, Massachusetts, annually to keep our seafood loving creatures happy and healthy.

In one year over 1,600 frozen rats and mice are ordered according to size -- pinkies, fuzzies, weanlings, large and jumbo! The birds of prey, caracara, kookaburra, and red-legged seriema receive one mouse a week. Lucky creatures such as the maned wolves get a jumbo rat every morning! Rats and mice are shipped to the zoo frozen in baggies according to size. Vendors that ship these items to zoos around the country have names like "Mice on Ice", "Mouse House", and "Bayou Rodents"!

A chilling activity that is included in some Summer Safari sessions is a visit to our walk-in freezer to see what we store as animal food. No matter how disgusting the campers may consider the items in the freezer to be, everyone seems to enjoy the rush of cold air that escapes as the door is opened for our investigation.

You can learn a lot about the animals from the foods they eat. You can also learn a lot about the zookeepers when you watch them prepare the sometimes yucky diets.

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WHY CAN'T THE VISITORS FEED THE ANIMALS?
Only the fish and waterfowl can be fed food provided in the machines on the decks. All other animals require special diets provided by the zoo and should not be fed other items. Improper food items can cause illness or death. Other items (coins, plastic items, etc.) thrown into the animal enclosures can cause injury, illness or death if eaten by the animals.