Bats and balls!

DZG Trainee Keeper, Cara Sheldon, devised some fun and games for our Egyptian and Seba’s short-tailed bats.

Using seven colourful plastic children’s ball pit balls, Cara punched holes in them and filled them with a tasty fruit shake – consisting of grape, melon, apple and pears.

Cara said: “I whizzed the fruit together using a food blender which was donated through the zoo’s Amazon Wish List, along with the balls and I placed them in different places around the enclosure, so they could move them about to get the juice out.

“I left the enrichment in their Castle Creatures enclosure from 11am until 4pm and it worked really well, although the Egyptian bats seems more interested in it than the Sebas.”

As well as the plastic balls, Cara also strung up bird feeders, packed full of pieces of orange, pear, apple and melon and she even tried hanging a whole melon up – which soon disappeared!

Cara added: “We don’t like making things easy for them. Making them work for their food keeps them occupied for longer.

“It’s the first time I’ve tried something like this with them, but I’ll definitely try it again.”