Christmas dinner? Try feeding 1,600 animals at Dudley Zoo

Christmas Day is the only day of the year that the attraction is closed to the public but the site’s 1,600 rare and exotic animals still all need to be fed, watered and cleaned.

A team of around a dozen keepers will be on duty throughout the day and will be sharing the festivities with all of the residents in their care.

They include senior keepers Jodie Dryden, aged 28, and Sam Grove, 26, who say they wouldn't have it any other way.

"We spend every other day with the animals so it would be sad not to spend Christmas Day with them when it's a day for everyone being together," says Jodie, who works in the lower primates section which includes the chimpanzees.

Preparations for Christmas Day begin the day before with the whole team of 30-plus keepers mucking in with getting the different meals ready in advance to make it easy for those who are on duty.

"All of the food prep, like chopping up the veg, is done on Christmas Eve. It's a nice day to work as everybody is always in getting ready for Christmas Day. There is always a nice atmosphere," says Jodie.

Sam says it will be an earlier start than normal with keepers arriving on site at 7am to enable them to get through the workload. "First we check on all of the animals and make sure they are all well," he says.

"We give them their breakfast, let those out who need to go out and give them their breakfast. We might do some enrichment activities with them and do any cleaning that needs doing.

"We them go home and return later to check on them, give them some food, some more enrichment and we get them all in for the night and turn off all of the lights," adds Jodie.

During the day all creatures great and small will also be discovering gifts galore as the keepers enjoy making a fuss of them.

And it’s not uncommon to find those not working popping on site with a few treats of their own for their favourite charges.

"I wrap all of their food in Christmas boxes - it takes hours to wrap it up and seconds for the monkeys and chimps to destroy it.

"They don't know it's Christmas but it's nice to do something special for them. We also do enrichment activities which keeps them busy while we go home for our Christmas lunch,"

Jodie says it's a condensed version of a normal working day as some of the non-essential duties can be left until the next day meaning they can concentrate fully on the animals.

"We obviously have to do some cleaning as we want the animals to be clean. But one good thing is that the display windows don't need cleaning because there aren't any visitors.

"This can take a lot of time so it's nice not to have to do it and it means we get more time with the animals," says Jodie.

It's never a chore to work on Christmas Day says the keeper who first began working at the zoo as an apprentice at the age of 16.

"When I was younger I thought 'I'm never going to work Christmas Day'. I thought it would be an inconvenience but it's really not.

"I think we all enjoy working Christmas Day and everybody is always in a good mood because it's Christmas," says Jodie.

"It's a busy time but it's a lot of fun," adds Sam, who has been a keeper for almost 11 years and works in the carnivore section

It's not just Christmas Day when the animals enjoy some treats as last Boxing Day chimpanzees, howler monkeys and gelada baboons tucked into lashings of bubble and squeak.

The dish was made using surplus vegetables, including potatoes, peas, sprouts and carrots, from keepers’ Christmas Day roast dinners.

The zoo is open as normal on Boxing Day.