Fruits And Vegetables
80 lbs. Apples
50 lbs. Bananas
8-10 lbs. Carrots
16-20 lbs. Grapes
4-6 Heads of Romaine Lettuce
4 lbs. Spinach
15 Heads of Kale
20-25 lbs. Yams
3-4 Mangoes
4-5 Melons
1-2 Watermelons
40 Oranges
6-10 Pears
1 Case of Fresh Corn
Seasonal Fruits
Meat/Poultry/Fish
50 lbs. Horsemeat
10 lbs. Canine Meat
120 lbs. Feline Meat
80-100 lbs. Chicken
3-4 lbs. Whole Smelt
5 Dozen Eggs
500 Crickets
1,000 Mealworms
25-35 Rats
50 Mice
(Grocery List May Vary)
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Feeding the Animals
The animal keepers at the Brandywine Zoo feed and care for the animals. They prepare the food and feed the animals twice a day.
The tiger eats about 8-1/2 - 13-1/2 pounds of meat a day. But what can you expect from a 400-pound animal?
The zoo uses the services of a zoo nutritionist from the Philadelphia Zoo and the University of Pennsylvania Veterinary Hospital to decide what to feed and how much to feed the animals. The keepers watch carefully what the animals eat and how much. They want to make sure the animals are getting a balanced diet.
 In the zoo kitchen there are "menus" or diets posted for each species. There is a scale so everything can be weighed.
 The animals are fed both specially prepared dry food, which is made by Purina for specific zoo animals, and fresh fruits and vegetables.
The carnivores are fed raw horsemeat, chicken and prepared meats by Nebraska Brand meats. There are frozen mice and rats for those who eat rodents.
Medical Care
The animal keepers watch the animals for any signs that they might not be completely healthy. If necessary, a veterinarian is called in. The zoo uses the services of Dr. Lyn Klein, a veterinarian from the University of Pennsylvania. She has been working with the animals at the Brandywine Zoo for many years. She provides routine physicals and takes care of their shots. If an animal is sick, Dr. Klein performs an examination, then she develops a treatment plan for the animal. The Brandywine Zoo also works closely with the Exotics Clinic at the University of Pennsylvania.
Animal Training and Enrichment
In addition to their many other responsibilities, zookeepers play an important role as animal trainers. As they take care of the animals, every time they walk into an exhibit, they influence the animal's behavior, whether good or bad.
The animal keepers at the Brandywine Zoo use a special kind of positive reinforcement with the animals called target training.
Target training is not something new. It is a technique that has been around for a lot of years. Most zoos throughout the world use target training as their main form of behavior modification. One of the most important things when beginning to target train is for the animal to be comfortable with the keepers. Before we ever start to train, we build a relationship with the animals in our care. Once we have this, it makes training so much easier because there is a trust between animal and keeper. Some items that we use during a training session are a target stick with a ball on the end, clicker or whistle and treats. The target stick is what we use to direct the animal to do what we are asking either by pointing to an area or having the animal come to the stick. The clicker or whistle is what we use to let the animal know that it has done the requested behavior and that the reward is coming. The treat is just that...the treat.
Here at the Brandywine Zoo we have been target training with our animals for several years. We started with the otters and the monkeys. With the otters we started by getting them to "station" in one spot when we asked. Then we began to have them stand on their hind legs and present their paws. Once they became comfortable with these commands, we decided to introduce a carrier and a squeeze cage. Training them to enter the carrier or squeeze cage on their own makes it so much easier to administer annual vaccinations, medications, etc. to the animals.
With our monkeys we started by just having them jump to wherever we placed our finger. Since a lot of our monkeys are in a breeding program, we introduced a scale so that we can monitor pregnancies.
From the porcupines, to the birds to our clouded leopard and binturongs, we are working with just about all of the animals in our collection at the zoo. Another benefit of target training is what is called behavioral enrichment. Target training becomes a stimulating exercise that the animals come to enjoy during their day. We offer all the animals behavioral enrichment of some sort for almost every day. How we determine what "toys" we are going to give out depends on the animal and its natural behaviors. For example, our coatis would spend a lot of their time in the wild digging for food such as bugs, worms, etc. We will take a box and fill it with mealworms or crickets and then seal it shut. The coatis then have to dig into the box to get their treats. Our monkeys are foragers and so we may scatter their daily meal around their exhibit for them to find.
Both target training and behavioral enrichment are tools used by almost all zoo keepers throughout the world. These techniques have become valuable tools for animal keepers to better care for their animals.
We have a "keeper watching" program every day during the summer months in which we talk about different animals and sometimes offer a training session as well. Please come and join us.
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