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Wales Online
Wales Online
National
Neil Shaw

Turkey on the menu as zoo animals prepare for Christmas Day

Zoo animals will be getting their own festive dinners this Christmas - but you may not find them quite as appetising as your own.

At Paignton Zoo in Devon, the big cats could get a whole turkey, complete with feathers and entrails.

Curator of mammals Lisa Britton said: "It's all good roughage - the bones, everything. It's the sort of carcass they'd be eating in the wild."

Meanwhile, Alfie Junior the Southern cassowary has a Christmas dinner of vegetables such as broccoli, cauliflower, potato, sweet potato, carrot, beetroot and parsnip - all served cold.

Keeper Sam Gray said: "All the veg is steamed until soft, though he will eat raw carrot.

"We do cut the veg up; it doesn't need to be too small, though, not like for some of the smaller birds.

"A cassowary can manage pretty large chunks as they might in the wild."

Cassowaries are predominantly fruit eaters but in the wild will take small birds, mice, insects and carrion.

The cassowary is one of the tallest and heaviest birds on the planet - and has a kick like a velociraptor.

The zoo's birds of prey will be given bought-in young chickens for their Christmas dinner by falconers.

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