Wingham Wildlife Park

Keeper for the Day

Another great gift idea or even a treat for yourself!

Enjoy a day working with the keepers, meeting many of our animals up close, helping with the feeding & getting dirty with the cleaning, whilst learning all about our fury friends on the way!

You will have a hearty lunch before more of the same in the afternoon rounded off with a special commemorative certificate. 

We try to get you in with a large variety of animals including Wallabies, Ring Tailed Lemurs, Pet Village Inhabitants, Deer, Pheasants and many more (sadly we are unable to give you access to the Meerkats, Penguins, Reptiles, Tigers and category 1 primates such as Gibbons and Macaques etc. as part of this experience).

This day can be booked for any day (although of course children may only do it during holidays and weekends) and runs from 10:30am - 3:00pm during the summer season and from 9:30am - 2:00pm during the winter season (when the clocks go back).  The price of this day is £50 for children and £55 for adults, which also allows you entry to the park afterwards should there be anything else you want to see or do, and a cooked lunch.

Children must be over the age of 9yrs to be able to take part in this experience without an adult (we can allow under 9s to take part, but an adult will have to do the experience at the normal price with them).  Children aged 9 to 12 must have a parent or guardian on the premises during the event, even if that adult does not take part in the keeper for the day experience themselves. Please contact us for more details.

To book this experience please either:

Talk to a member of staff at the park

Click here and send off a printed copy of the form along with a cheque made payable to Wingham Wildlife Park

Call our reception on 01227 720836

Or Finally use our new online purchase option by clicking the BUY NOW link below.  This option will give you a pre-paid voucher which you can book in at a later date, within a year of buying the voucher (on the payment review page please click participants name and enter the name of the person this experience is for):

Adults (16+): BUY NOW!

Children: BUY NOW!

Further information & frequently asked questions

Weather:
Our keepers are at work every day of the year, no matter what the weather is like!  Equally you can expect to get as much enjoyment out of the park when it is raining as you could when it is sunny.  We run the keeper for the day experience all year round, and if there are weather extremes to contend with such as heavy snow we will give you as much notice as possible to re-schedule the day if we feel it is unsafe.

Food & Refreshments:
The price of the experience includes a cooked lunch from our cafe menu (in the case of a childs experience this will be a choice from the childrens menu) as well as a drink.  You are more than welcome to bring other refreshments to walk around with during the day, especially on hot days.

Clothing:
The clothing is completely weather dependant.  Please remember that you will be outdoors for much of the day so bring water proof clothing during rainy periods and wear clothes which are both comfortable and which you don't mind getting dirty.  As for foot wear, this should once again depend on the weather, and we recommend water proof footwear (such as wellies) during the wetter periods and hiking boots or trainers during the summer.  Please do not wear open toed shoes or sandals / flip-flops.

Valuables & Photography:
We recommend that you do not bring valuables or too much money with you on the day as there will not be anywhere secure for these to be kept.  However please do feel free to bring a camera as you will be allowed to take photos during the experience.  Alternatively if you have a friend or family member following you on the day (not doing the experience itself) they are more than welcome and should be easily able to take photos of you during the day.

Group Size:
We are able to cater for a maximum of 4 people per day, so groups will need to be limited if required.  This does also mean that you may be joined by other people during the experience.  Where ever this happens we try to ensure that people doing the experience on the same day are of a similar age group.  Whether there is a group of people doing the experience or whether you are doing it on your own, the amount of animals you get to see and the work you get to do will not be affected.

Spectators and accompanying adults:
You are more than welcome to bring people along to watch you do the experience (and for children under the age of 12 this is actually a requirement).  However if they are not doing the experience they will need to pay their normal days entry fee.  You will be in various enclosures while the park is open, so especially on busy days you should expect that people may watch while you feed some animals (this is a naturally popular thing for people to enjoy watching, whether it is a keeper or member of the public doing it).

Is this experience just for children?
We have people of a variety of ages doing this experience, and while we do say that 5 or 6 is possibly a little bit too young for the experience due to the amount of work involved, as long as you are fit and able to perform physical tasks, there is no upper age limit for this day.  It is something which can be enjoyed equally by adults and children.

Animal Contact:
Throughout the day you will be taken in to a variety of enclosures which will inevitably get you closer to a lot of our animals.  However we can never guarantee that the animals will come over to you or interact with you, as we will never force an animal to bring itself in to a situation it does not want to be in.  At the same time there is a lot to do and you do come to this experience to do what our keepers do and see the work which they carry out.  This work does not include stroking, touching or playing with the animals during their cleaning and feeding regime, and as such these practices are also not encouraged with keepers for the day.

Which animals are included?
We can never guarantee which animals you will get to go in with during this experience due to various factors including animal health, recent or upcoming animals movements, enclosure maintenance, changes in feeding and keeper availability etc.  However we do try to get you in with as wide a variety of animals as possible and animals which you can expect to go in with may include Ring Tailed Lemurs, Pheasants, Rabbits, Marmosets, Deer, Wallabies, Prairie Dogs, Rhea, Llamas, Pigs and more.  There are a number of species which for various reasons are not included in this experience including the Reptile house, Penguins, Gibbons, Barbary Macaques, Tigers and Meerkats.