The Meerkat Family

Our meerkat group is now situated in a new purpose built enclosure in the Discovery Zone. A very special member of this group is the female named Tiggs, who was born in May 2009 and was hand reared by keepers.  Tiggs and her sister Tess were born to female Tellula who, despite being a good mother, had never had any offspring survive more than a few weeks due to issues with a bacterial infection known as toxoplasmosis. This disease is fairly common in a number of species – including meerkats – and is particularly dangerous to newly born animals as it affects the immune system. In light of this, a decision was made to remove Tiggs and Tess from the original meerkat group.  

Sadly, Tess died after just 10 days but luckily Tiggs responded well to the medication she was given as well as the hand rearing process. Keepers had to feed milk to Tiggs every 2 hours with milk and this demanding care schedule meant that several keeping staff took it in turns to"meerkat-sit" while Tiggs enjoyed the luxury of a whole department of expert keepers at her beck and call. 

Tiggs is now the only remaining member of our original group, and was joined by two new males from Marwell Zoo on the 7th September 2010.  These two males have been named Chizi and Achari which is Swahili for Cheese and Pickle!

Tiggs has gone on to become a very busy mother, and in 2011 she gave birth to two litters less than 3 months apart! These cubs are now reaching the equivalent of their teen years in meerkat time, and are behaving in quite an unruly fashion! However, Tiggs is always on hand when things get too hectic though and rules the group brilliantly – despite her rocky start, she really has proven to be a fantastic matriarch!