Colchester Zoo – Feeding Time For The Animals

Last weekend something unexpected and amazing happened, the sun came out! I kid you not the sun appeared in the sky. As it was a little warmer we jumped at the chance to visit Colchester Zoo. We dusted off our gold passes. It feels like ages since we purchased them. We were hoping we would get the chance to see some of the feeding time events again.

On arrival at the zoo, a lion was welcoming the children in. Obviously not a real one because that would be interesting! He is a friendly Colchester Zoo mascot. We stopped for a photo with him. Ethan wasn’t impressed!

We had actually arrived at the zoo in time for the first public giraffe and elephant feeds. This was something that I had wanted to do for a while so we headed over to their enclosure.

Colchester Zoo Giraffe and Elephant Feeding Time

Whilst we waited for the feeds to start I tested out the zoom on my bigger camera lens. Trying not to drop it as I changed them. It really wouldn’t surprise me if I did that one day!

Feeding The Giraffes

The first feed of the day is the giraffe feed. You have to queue up along a set area of the fence. The giraffes come over for their treat.

Darren held Ethan and helped him to feed the giraffe. I knocked everyone else out of the way trying to take a photo of my son feeding the giraffe. Yes, I have turned into one of those parents…

It is quite a scramble to feed the giraffes. I did notice that they do this feed for about ten minutes. When we get to do this again I will hang back to be one of the last people to take part. That way it isn’t such a fight.

Feeding The Elephants

It was then time to move over to the elephants. This is a more organised queue. It moves very quickly to make sure that everyone has a turn.

After feeding the elephant both Ethan and Darren were covered in elephant slime. This was quite funny as Ethan has got very sensory with his hands. We quickly got it washed off.

The time the feeds had finished we had been at the zoo for about an hour. We decided that we would make our way back towards the exit. This is the real beauty of the Gold Pass. You can visit the zoo in short bursts. There is no pressure to make sure you get your monies worth from the daily entrance fee.

Feeding The Horse At The Petting Zoo

We ended up walking through the petting zoo section. Having always skipping this area on previous visits. We always felt Ethan was too young and he never really showed an interest in the animals. This weekend he started to look at the horse and even reached out to stroke him. We let him spend some time with his new friend. For 50p you can buy some food for the horse so that is what we did.

After feeding the horse we ended up walking into the goat section. This wasn’t really planned it was more of a ‘shall we see what’s in here’ move. Well, this was the highlight of the day! Ethan was surrounded by goats and loving every minute. He was laughing his head off and having so much fun with them.

It was such a lovely moment we had to capture it on video.

We ended up spending nearly three hours in the zoo. It was a fantastic day enjoying feeding time with the different animals. I’m really looking forward to our next visit and more time with the goats.

On the way out Darren even found an animal to do a funny pose with, I think he is trying to make this his zoo tradition!