Keeper Tessa’s Blog 9/15/21
Recently we installed new larger food chutes on some of our enclosures. The lions, Roman and Reina, were the first to give them a try and so far, they are getting rave reviews! We use food chutes at Carolina Tiger Rescue to ensure the safety of our staff, volunteers and animals while feeding. All of our wild cat residents have some kind of food chute attached to their enclosures. The small cats have a small chute and the medium and large cats have larger chutes made from PVC piping. Our amazing site team recently started replacing our big cat feed chutes and these new food chutes are large enough to allow us to feed larger whole carcass diets to the cats with ease.
Feed chutes can be used for feeding an animal a partial or full meal, giving enrichment to small and medium cats, and giving treats to certain animals.Standing about three feet from the enclosure fence, staff and volunteers can safely open the lid of the feed chute and safely place the food or enrichment items into the chute where the item will then travel down the chute and into the animal’s enclosure.
All staff and animal care volunteers are properly trained on using food chutes to ensure the safety of both humans and animals. We also ask that our cats have some basic manners at mealtimes and train all staff and volunteers to not put anything in the food chute until the animal has all four paws on the ground. This ensures that all staff, volunteers, and animals are safe while using the food chutes at Carolina Tiger Rescue. The new big cat food chutes have been a big hit among the keepers and animal care volunteers!
