Animal Diaries Archive

Our Herb Garden

26 October 2007

Everyone's familiar with the use of herbs in cooking, but here at the zoo their value has nothing to do with culinary enhancement... it's all about smelling something new for our animals' noses! We have our very own herb garden which has been established for several months now and I'm pleased to be able to say that all our plants are growing well.

You may have seen reference to the term 'Enrichment' in some of our previous articles. Well, today I'm here to tell you all about herbs and the role they play in enriching our animals' lives. We have quite a wide variety of herbs growing, different types of mint, basil, thyme, lemon grass and coriander, just to name a few. We have had a HUGE amount of success using our herbs to enrich the lives of our dingoes and foxes. The herbs can be used fresh straight out of the garden or even dried first. We use them as scent trails, scatters or even in parcels full of surprises. Nothing smells better to our dingoes than some coriander or basil mixed with a slight hint of blood, chicken or cheese gravy.

Cooya one of our 8 year old dingoes LOVES the smell of basil. We were pleasantly surprised with how enthusiastic and excited she gets with the smell of it. Where as our younger girls get very enthusiastic about mint. Any area that we scatter the herbs onto is guaranteed to get a thorough inspection from the girls, and more often than not will have the dingoes dropping onto the ground and rolling around in bliss covering themselves with the scent!