The Exotic Resort Zoo

About a week ago we headed to the U.S. for Home Leave.  Since arriving at Nana and Grampa's house we have spent a lot of time swimming, tubing, boating, swimming, dock jumping, jet skiing and swimming.  Did I mention swimming?  We were getting a bit water logged so we thought we would take a day off and dry out.  Nana and Grampa live about half of an hour from this really cool safari park that they thought the girls would really enjoy.  They were right.  

We got to the Exotic Resort Zoo and were greeted by this beautiful Scimitar Oryx (which is believed to be extinct in the wild and only bred in captivity and hopefully will be reintroduced to the wild):

We purchased our tickets and our bucket of feed (more like a trough), shown to the tractor and trailer that would take us on our guided tour and given some basic instructions.  We were told that feeding the animals by hand was OK in most instances but the Scottish Highland Cows and the Water Buffalo should have the feed dropped into their mouths instead of having them take it off of your hand.  The Ostriches and Rhea birds should have the bucket held up for them to eat directly out of (don't want that big animal pecking at your hand) and the Zebras should have the feed put on the wheel cover so you could pet them while they were eating.  But there really wasn't an animal that was off limits to feed.  Well, except for Shrek the donkey, but not because the donkey's are dangerous but because he doesn't play nicely with others.

Humphrey the Bactrain Camel was the first guy we encountered.  Not shy at all.  He trotted along with us for almost the entire tour and wasn't shy about trying to get himself some food.  He was harmless, if a bit slobbery, but persistent.  He even gave me a nose print on my camera lens at one point during the tour when he thought I should be paying more attention to him than what I was shooting.

Humphrey may have been our most loyal follower (and most persistent) but not for lack of trying by the other animals.  They just lacked Humphrey's long leg and neck combo that allows him to feed right up and over the top of the rail of the wagon.  The other animals had to be a bit more creative in their pursuit of food.  Like Snowman the reindeer...

the Scottish Highland Cow...

And this very rare species that has perfected the art of begging for food...

We had our hands full of feed and our eyes peeled the whole ride (about 45 minutes) and were never disappointed.  There was always something new coming up to tickle our palms with their tongues or scrape our fingers with their teeth...

At one point I turned around and saw this...

And they just kept coming.  There were Rhea birds...

And Ostriches...

And goats (oh, there were goats of all kinds)

And a couple of Llama's thrown in...

When we got back to the main house we found that we still had about 1/4 bucket of feed left so it was off to the petting zoo to finish that off.  The petting zoo has mostly pregnant mama's, newborn nurslings and a few older babies that just aren't ready for the wild yet.  A perfect fit for my two kiddo's.

The animals greeted us immediately and immediately started to nibble on our clothes.  You will see in a bunch of the pictures that while we are busy feeding one animal, another is chewing on a shorts leg or a dress bottom.  No loose fabric was safe.  But they were harmless and the girls had so much fun being down in the muck with the animals.  We spent about 20 minutes feeding and petting them all.

This baby is only a few days old.

Look Mom, it's just my size.

She was shaking her head and feeling a bit sorry for this VERY pregnant pygmy goat.

This Scottish Highland baby was my favorite!  He is only 7 months old and such a cutie.

We even let him finish most of the bucket.

On our way out we spotted the Lemurs (and sang a bit of Move It, Move It from Madagascar) and a few turtles.  We washed our hands, all the way to our elbows, to get rid of all of the slobber and dirt we had accumulated.   We had a blast in the few hours we were at the Exotic Resort Zoo and will definitely be back next time we are in town.