PIGS have been seeking sun protection and ponies have been keeping cool during the sudden burst of hot weather this week.
Staff at Foxburrows Farm in Hainault Forest Country Park are making sure the animals there enjoy the hot temperatures, which have reached as high as 29C so far.
Country park manager Paul Browne said: “The key thing is ensuring the animals have access to adequate shade and making sure their water’s topped up.
“Most of the stuff is what we do day to day, but it’s more important in the summer.”
He said some animals were better adapted to hot weather than others.
“With the pigs, we sometimes put some sun protection cream on them,” he added. “We keep an area muddy for them and they will wallow in that, which keeps their skin protected naturally.
“Goats are generally from hot regions in the world anyway, so they’re designed for that sort of heat, as long as they’ve got shade.”
But he said the farm’s meerkats, which populate the Kalahari Desert in Africa in the wild, could not get enough of the recent warm spell.
“They’re in their element,” he added. “They do like to sunbathe and heat themselves up in the morning, exposing their bellies to the sun.
“In the evening, they get the last rays of the sun and it’s quite funny to watch them.”
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