Animal Diaries Archive

Mary's Story

29 May 2008

Mary had two little lambs,
Their fleece was white as snow,
And everywhere that Mary went
The lambs were sure to go!

But it wasn’t always that way. You see, in this particular case Mary is actually a big brown Damara lamb who grew up with goats. This is her story...

Mary was orphaned at six days old and came to Kids Zoo with five baby goats. She settled in pretty well, after all Damaras are renown for being a lot more like goats than any other breeds of sheep. For example they are browsers and grazers rather than just grazers.

Mary even tried to join in with some of the goat games that her pen mates would instigate, although her participation always had to be at ground level. The goats had the advantage of being able to leap over and jump onto the various logs and platforms put in their pen to provide activity and enrichment. When the games got too intense we would sometimes see Mary sitting on the ground chewing her cud looking up in amazement at all the commotion going on with the goat antics!

But as the kids got older their games got rougher and Mary needed OUT!

So when two little white Texel lambs arrived in Kids Zoo we decided these would be perfect as Mary’s new buddies. We introduced them and the little lambs were enthusiastic to be Mary’s friends but poor Mary was freaked out by these little white wooly boys wanting to cling to her side! The boys would run up to her and Mary would take off running to the nearest keeper for protection. We didn’t push the issue but over the next week or so we gradually integrated them and got to the point where Mary would tolerate the boys following her around. Actually, in the last few days on a couple of occasions Mary has instigated some lamb games with her woolly boys while the new baby goats are off bounding around with their own full-on games! Mary’s even been seen sleeping with the boys tucked in closely at her side.

Kids Zoo Crew