This week Bird Garden and Farm Manager Nick Dowling and his team created some special ice lollies…

As the nation is enjoying/managing unprecedented temperatures and with the heat as high as 34 degrees in Yorkshire this week, we’ve been taking measures to ensure the wellbeing of the animals in the Harewood Farm Experience.

Whilst the penguins at Harewood are not unaccustomed to warm temperatures, this is a Humboldt penguin colony, from the Atacama Desert in South America. The bird though did appreciate giant ice blocks of frozen sprats thrown into their pool, which cooled the pool down too.
Over to the pot-bellied pigs and the goats, a mixture of fruit and vegetables were frozen into ice blocks and then hung for the animals to approach and lick to cool down.

The blocks included grapes, corn, carrots and other fruit. The goats in particular approached these with great interest.

Nick said; “There’s plenty of shade here for the animals to rest and relax in, whilst the temperatures rise, but we wanted to give them an extra treat and an opportunity to try something new, hence the ice blocks. Whilst Trotters and Pudding (the pigs) were not initially sure about it, the goats seemed delighted, and we’ll just keep adding new blocks as the ice melts over the warm weather.”

Visitors can book onto a Keeper Experience at Harewood, feed the penguins and walk the alpacas…find out more online.