This week, we’re talking a subject no doubt everyone is familiar with during lockdown – food!

The donations of fresh fruit and veg from local businesses and individuals are supporting us through this strange time.

Each day we chop over 70kg of fresh fruit and vegetables. From carrots to melon, apples, pears, papaya, mushrooms, leafy greens, cabbage, tomatoes, peppers, mango, swede, grapes, watermelon, raspberries, blueberries, beetroot, aubergine, courgette, squash, spinach – nothing is off the menu!

Some animals, like baboons and bears, have spuds as part of their diets, but never uncooked, so each morning we cook 57 potatoes. On Mondays and Thursdays our primates, tamarins and raccoons enjoy boiled eggs, so on Sundays and Wednesdays we boil 65 eggs!

Ring Tail Lemurs eat 9.7kg of fresh food daily. They get a third at breakfast and the remaining in an evening. Their fruit and veg is chopped into 50p size chunks so they can hold it in their hands.

Little Cotton Top and Emperor Tamarins have 840g of veg and 210g of diced fruit plus 200g of tamarin cake – a special mix of the nutrients they would naturally find in insects, vegetation and tree sap delivered as a powder and mixed with water to bind into a cake!

One of the most surprising diets is that of Maned Wolf Danna who absolutely loves her 500 grams of fresh fruit at supper time. She also enjoys rats and chicks once a week and a daily pellet and really loves the occasional avocado!

Andean Bears Mona and Zippy eat a protein rich pellet in addition to 4kg of fruit and veg – they love exotics like papaya or mango but give a paws down to peppers and banana!

Tapir Kaya has a high fibre, low starch pellet and 5kg of fresh food which is mainly root vegetables like parsnips, carrots, swede and beetroot but she also goes wild for aubergines and courgettes!

A massive thank you to everyone who is helping us through this tough time.