To be embarrassed he was feeding sausage rolls to the meerkats...

[DippyDooDahDay]

At the zoo, dad to dc was sneaking bits of sausage roll to the very appreciative meerkats. Other people looked on in horror. He disobeyed the signs not to feed the animals! One woman in particular looked at us like we should be shot. I did tell him to stop....very not zoo etiquette

[ClapHandsIfYouBelieveInFatties]

Nothing to do with etiquette but disgusting behaviour in my opinion. the salt in one of those things is enough to make a small animal like that sick. THE SIGNS ARE THERE FOR A REASON. I hope you told him?

[SunshineAndShadows]

I wouldn't be embarrassed I'd be angry. Meerkats suffer from a condition call cholesterol granulona where the cholesterol in their diet accumulates in their brain causes neurological disease and kills them. Sausage rolls are full of saturated fat and cholesterol.

[puntasticusername]

YANBU. He was being a dickhead.

[whois]

He's a fucking idiot. Signs are there for a reason.

[pictish]

I'd have been cringing.

[CocktailQueen]

I'd be embarrassed and angry. What a twat. No wonder people were looking at him.

[DippyDooDahDay]

As I suspected. Made me feel very unreasonable challenging him. Oh dear.

[Gileswithachainsaw]

I'd be more than embarrassed! !! I'd be absolutely livid tbh.

Loads of human food is unsuitable and dangerous to animals. Many animals will be on medication or special diets and can have allergies too.

He could have killed one or more.

[DippyDooDahDay]

Pictish .. I was, hugely.

[Staywithme]

very not zoo etiquette

Not very zoo etiquette! Are you serious. If I'd been there I would have given him a bollicking! How dare he assume to know more about the animals than their carers. He should be ashamed of himself.

[Fabulous46]

I'd have walked away as soon as he started feeding them with DC and gave him a piece of my mind in front of onlookers. As others have said signs are there for a reason. This sort of thing really riles me. I have horses and get twats wandering up to them all the time feeding them even although there is HUGE signs saying 'Do NOT feed the horses'.

[EvansOvalPiesYumYum]

Absolutely your Dad was wrong
I do wonder, though, why the Meerkats weren't kept in a more secure enclosure, to prevent this type of thing happening.
You always get someone who thinks they know better than the advisory signs.
Zoos/Animal Keepers should know this by now, for crying out loud!

[CrabbyTheCrabster]

What a fucking knob.

[MyFairyKing]

Is he your partner? He sounds like a knob, yanbu at all!

[DippyDooDahDay]

:)..he is my EX partner. If I had done any more than pointed out that he should not be doing that, he would have got very angry..
Is one of those situations where it embodied his unreasonableness, but I thought others might think I was being critical.
'Zoo etiquette' was me making light of it, but of course I did not feel happy with it or I would not have posted!

[MrsTerryPratchett]

If he's an ex, why are you spending time with him? I know there might be very good reasons BTW

[TheWitTank]

What a knob. He could have made the animals very poorly. It's like the people who used to feed my horses over the fence with grass clippings from their mower -very dangerous and can cause colic. They just thought I was being mean saying no and they just ignored my sign but they could have done my horses serious harm! Plus they had a carefully balancer diet and I used to have people trying to feed them all manor of crap. Bloody irritating!

[BerylStreep]

Awful behaviour.

Award for most eye-catching thread title though

[inlawsareasses]

Was it a Greggs sausage roll?

[andsmile]

Oo I was in Greggs yesterday and there was no sausage rolls ready - settled for a cheap sarnie instead. Bloody meerkats eh?!

[pictish]

Poor you OP. He's an absolute clown, be glad he's your ex.

[pictish]

Beryl
I just re-read it and laughed.

[ChinUpChestOut]

I bet his name is mud within the meerkat community. You know how they gossip.

[SistersOfPercy]

Kind of reminds me of the scene in The Inbetweeners 2 with Neil feeding the dolphin burgers. That was hilarious (not so much for the dolphin).

DD fed Meerkats last year as part of a zookeeper day. They have incredibly sharp little teeth from memory and devour raw meat and lots of it. The fact that there was meat in said sausage roll to feed to the meerkats tells me this wasn't from Greggs.

[LumpenproletariatAndProud]

"If he is your ex why are you spending time with him."

I get this ALL the time on mumsnet. To the point where, when I need advice about something unrelated I have to refer to him as my friend or DP because the thread always derails with 'why are you hanging out with your ex?' And totally misses the point of the thread that I made.

It must be incredibly rare on mumsnet for ex's to get along. So much so, that when someone posts about Meerkats, what gets questioned is why the ex's are in the same place at the same time deliberately.

I haven't been with my ex for years, yet we get on great and hang out together with the kids regularly. We have a sick child who needs dedication and constant communication and endless hospital visits so its imperative we have a good relationship.

But even without that, I think we would get on well because its natural and isn't a forced situation.

With regards to the OP, you just reminded me that I have a baby Oleg coming to me in be post very soon!

And baaaad ex for feeding them sausage rolls!