Meerkats are my favourite animal and for our anniversary, my fiancee Tiernan booked us an animal experience. A chance to get up close to your favourite animal. Drusillas Zoo which is in East Sussex offers this experience as well as others. We often go to Drusillas as its an hours drive away from where we live, it also is the only place locally that has our favourite animals. Tiernan is animal obsessed and I swear he is Dr Dolittle, he just has a way with animals. Drusillas has lots to offer families it has a play area for younger guests as well as rides for the whole family. It's a good day out if your looking for something to do in Sussex.
Before going into the enclosures I was a bit nervous, I've admired them from the other side of the enclosure and wasn't sure what to expect.On meeting our keeper Sam, he told us all about the Meerkats that they had and let us feed them bugs. They were very inquisitive and noticed I had black tassels on the end of my scarf which a couple of Meerkats became interested in. One thought it was food and began trying to eat it and the other began playing with them. Sam then took us behind the scenes where they had three more Meerkats. These Meerkats have been raised by keepers as they had lost their parents at a young age. We were allowed to climb into their enclosure and Sam told us to stretch out our legs so the Meerkats could climb up on us. As soon as they heard the door open, these Meerkats where immediately intrigued at who was entering their enclosure. I climbed in and one of the Meerkats came to say hello. Sam gave me a Meerkat named Oleg to hold and I was overwhelmed. Tiernan too sat in the enclosure and two of the Meerkats began fighting over who sat on his lap. Oleg became fascinated with my scarf and made himself a bed, lying on my lap he snuggled into me as I stroked his back. When I stopped, he looked up at me as if to say ... keep going! This is something I know I'll never forget and I would love to do again.
Next we went and fed the Raccoons. Our keeper, Charlie gave us Mice and nuts to feed them. The two Raccoons at Drusillas are called Bandit and Turpin. Raccoons are usually seen as vermin but actually are very intelligent and clean animals. They were very cautious and nervously came over to say hello. Charlie said we could hold out our hands with nuts in it to see if they were comfortable with taking it from us. This was something that wasn't really done and we weren't bothered about being bitten or scratched. Holding out my hand, Bandit came over to me and took them from my hand and for a while Bandit just kept eating the food from my hand and I kept him topped up! Tiernan fed Bandit, Mice which he seemed to enjoy.
Thank you Drusillas for this amazing experience and especially the amazing keepers (Sam and Charlie) that showed us around and told us more about our favourite animals. This is something I'll never forget.
If you want to find out more as well as how to go about doing an experience like ours, you can find Drusillas website here.
Please note this isn't a sponsored post. This was just our day out. All views, experience and photos are my own.
Till next time......
Kayleigh xx
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