Feeding Time At Knowsley Safari Park

My boys adore animals, but don't get to see them that often, so an invite to check out the Family Workshops at Knowsley Safari Park was very welcome.

We met at 10am in the Safari School building, which was a really great room with all kinds of amazing skeletons and other interesting things to look at while everyone arrived. Our session "Food and Feeding" was led by two of the Park Rangers Nicky and Sue.

We started with explanations of the different types of foods animals, insects and other creatures eat and how their teeth work - including close ups with an Elephant's tooth and Lion's jaw

Then we met some of the creatures - the Hissing Cockroaches made everyone jump!

The Australian Tree Frog very kindly showed us the pads on his feet...

And the Giant Land Snails weren't as slimy as we thought they'd be...

My boys were just as interested in the deceased though! The collections of skeletons fascinated them. 

 

Then we made food for the Meercats! The Rangers explained they like to make it as interesting as possible, so we'd be filling hollowed out melons and logs.

This session is ideally designed for people aged 6+. Because my boys were younger they weren't allowed to handle Mealworms, our logs were filled with dog biscuits and fruit, plugged with melon and then carried over to the Meercat Enclosure.

Then it was over to the giraffes. Again, under 6's aren't allowed to feed giraffes due to some obscure Health & Safety, but everyone still got a good close look!

We were told that giraffes have black tongues to stop them getting burnt because they stick them out so much!

Back to the Jungle School and we prepared fruit for one of my favourites - bats.

 

And we were allowed into the really dark Fruit Bat enclosure where the keeper hung up the strings of fruit. The bats flew all around our heads and went crazy over the food. I did my best to take some flash free photos...

We had an amazing time. It was really great to get up close and personal with so many creatures and animals and my boys came home and told the other children all about it. We all learnt a lot, in a really friendly atmosphere.

I'd recommend these sessions to anyone because they make so much more of your day out. I really do like bats and being so close to so many is an experience I won't ever forget.

Knowsley Safari Park regularly run all kinds of Family Workshops at a cost of only an extra £6.50 per person for 2 hours, and children receive a badge and certificate. All sessions are shown on their website. I've also posted a more general post about what's at Knowsley - including the amazing Seal Lions!

We received entry to the park and Family Workshop free of charge for review purposes.