Shepreth animals keep warm in winter

THOSE in the animal kingdom have been struggling with the big freeze in recent weeks too.

The inhabitants of Shepreth Wildlife Park have been huddling up to keep warm as temperatures stooped to below minus ten degrees.

The conditions even caused a power cut, which meant keepers were alerted to a potentially dangerous situation for the animals.

Rebecca Willers from Shepreth Wildlife Park said: “We were woken at 7am on Sunday morning with all the alarms going off because of a power cut - possibly my worst nightmare scenario.

“It was below minus ten degrees and there was no heat for the animals. Luckily it came back on quite swiftly so we didn’t need to rig up the generators, and were able to use microwave heat pads to warm all the exotic animals.”

Keepers spent most of the weekend building nests out of straw for the paddock animals, birds and large carnivores. They also fed them over more than double their normal amount, and drinking water was constantly warmed up.

Rebecca spotted how one quick thinking species made the most of the situation.

“A mara used its initiative after being rejected by its own species, and went to keep warm under the thick coat of a guanaco,” she said.