Have you heard the saying, "March comes in like a lion and goes out like a lamb." Well here at Wildwood Wildlife Park, March came in with 4 lambs - Barbados Lambs that is!
We welcomed these adorable Barbados sheep on March 28, 2011.
These regal looking sheep is a breed of domestic sheep that originated in the Caribbean island of Barbados from hair sheep brought in by traders from Africa during the 1600s. They are also known as Blackbelly Barbados.
The Barbados sheep are very fast and in many ways resemble deer. They are "hair sheep" which means they do not grow wool. Instead, they have long coarse hair. Barbados sheep raised in cooler climates, such as at Wildwood Wildlife Park, will adapt to the cooler temperatures by developing a very fine wool undercoat that they will shed in the spring.
Bibliography:
Internet: www.blackbellysheep.org; http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Barbados_Blackbelly-Sheep
These two adorable Capybara babies are the newest editions to our Wildwood family who arrived on March 4, 2011.
Some of our visitors think Capybaras look like large, hairy pigs! Capybaras are the largest rodents in the world whose diet consists mainly of grass and aquatic plants.
Capybaras can run very fast and are excellent swimmers; you can see their webbed feet in the photograph. Did you know Capybaras can dive in the water and have been known to remain underwater for as long as five minutes?
Adult Capybaras can be as long as 4 feet and weigh more than 100 pounds. These little ones have a lot of growing to do before they are that big! They weighed about 2 pounds when they were born and will be full grown by the time they are 18-months old.
Capybaras live in South America which is where they got their name which means "master of the grass." They don't dig burrows like some rodents but they like to make beds in the shallow dirt.
Bibliography:
Internet: http://nationalzoo.si.edu; www.switcherroozoo.com
