Chicken is a staple in many human and animal diets including the attractions binturongs, Ellie and Elliot, who keepers have discovered prefer their poultry cooked!

To ensure the pair always have their portions to their liking, staff have installed a table top hob in the section kitchen to boil the chicken for two-year-old Elliot and one-year-old Ellie. Senior Keeper Sam Grove, said:

“Our binturongs have a really varied diet, which includes a wide variety of fruit which they eat three times a week and hard boiled eggs twice a week.

“They also eat rats, mice and quail raw twice a week but for some reason they’ll only eat chicken if it’s cooked, so we boil six large chicken breasts in the section kitchen for them twice a week and they then both wolf them down.”

The pair are weighed regularly as part of their weekly health checks using inbuilt scales in their back dens and keepers are delighted with their progress, especially Ellie, who is now half way to her optimum adult weight. Sam added:

“Females are usually larger and heavier than the males, but Ellie is still very young and is quite a small binturong anyway, but we’re really pleased she’s putting on weight steadily and hitting her targets.”