Longleat Fennec Fox kits thriving and could soon be on display
The trio were born earlier this year
Animal keepers at Longleat Safari Park in Wiltshire are updating us on the progress of the Fennec Fox kits being hand-reared at the park.
The triplets were born earlier this year and are the second trio to be born at Longleat.
There's one boy, named William, and two girls called Pinky and Greenbean.
However, sadly, last years kits all failed to make it to adulthood, despite keepers stepping in to hand-rear two of them.
But this year, the team, led by Samantha Peeke, stepped in from the beginning, feeding the babies every two hours in the early weeks of their lives, with the trio now beginning to thrive.
"So far, so good," Sam told Greatest Hits Radio. "They are growing really fast, they're almost five months old now and eating us out of house and home at this point!"
Sam revealed the trio are becoming more self-sufficient, while keepers continue to care for them. She said: "They are feeding themselves and running around doing everything you would expect foxes to be doing, which is great news for us."
Sam also told us that there are plans to allow visitors to the park to see the kits, as they are likely to stay separate from their parents.
She said: "They're doing super well, but they are still young and they are still quite nervous of loud noises and big crowds and things like that.
"So hopefully over the coming sort of weeks and months, our guests might be able to catch a little bit of a glimpse of them, but it would be when we think that they're ready because obviously them being happy is our main priority."
The trio are likely to become part of a breeding programme, with Longleat keeping thorough records of what has and hasn't worked in the hand-rearing process, with Sam hopeful those learnings will be passed on to other collections to allow them to have success too.
A career high
Sam said there's a major sense of achievement among the keeper team to have got the kits this far, saying it's been worth the sleepless nights.
"There are definitely those moments at four in the morning where you think it's never going to happen. But the amount of work that the team have put in is incredible. It's completely above and beyond the call of duty," she told us.
Sam added that the team love the job they do, and love caring for the animals, revealing that they have developed a soft spot for the Fennec Foxes, saying that they're "probably one of the most spoiled animals at the park at the moment".
She told us it's been on of the highlights of her time as an animal keeper: "Seeing these little ones running around chasing each other, jumping about, having a great time and looking really good is definitely a real high point of my career so far."