Pictured: Puppet gets little pygmy hippo to eat again. (schmaltzy but sweet)

DailyMail.uk ^ | 17th November 2008 | Daily Mail Reporter

[yankeedame]

Chico the hungry pygmy hippo gets a helping hand (puppet) to rediscover his appetite

A pygmy hippo which started turning up his snout at food has been given a helping hand to start eating again. Chico worried keepers at his home in Heythrop Zoological Gardens when he began to refuse food.

Chico chomps happily on his favourite carrot sticks fed to him
by Gloria

But the little animal was lured back to his trough under the watchful eye of Gloria, a hand puppet...

Chico was refusing to eat until
he met his new puppet playmate

Zoo keepers... said they had been 'trying everything' to tempt the fussy eater back to his meals when they stumbled across the hippo glove puppet in a supermarket....

Now keepers don the puppet to hand feed the diminutive hippo...despite his portly appearance, Chico had stopped feeding and was in danger of losing weight.

...Head keeper, Michael Howes, was desperate to find a way to encourage the animal start eating...As a last resort he decided to use the toy to try to lure Chico to tuck back in.

'We had been trying everything...I thought I'd give it a try,' Mr Howes said. 'We were extremely surprised when he took a liking to... and...have been using it to feed him ever since.'

Now Chico loves supper time

[yankeedame]

You know, there's a possible children's book in this somewhere.

[retrokitten]

That is soooooo cute!!!!

[wastedyears]

I wonder what kind of voice they gave the puppet.

[SolidWood]

The headline made me believe for a moment that they fed a hippo to a puppet.

[Recovering Ex-hippie]

This reminds me of how we were fed the Bailout!!!!ha.

[mancini]

LOL, I thought the same thing. I was like, “OH NO!”

[OneWingedShark]

>The headline made me believe for a moment that they fed a hippo to a puppet.

LOL

Puppet: Yay! Pygmy hippo for dinner again; these guys taste great!

[Larry Lucido]

[wolfcreek]

Concidering they are the most dangerous animal in Africa, the young ones are pretty cute.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Gp-0BtK1zIk&NR=1

[domenad]

Nice to know Ms. O’Donnell is feeling better.

[The_Victor]

Or maybe it's just coincidence that the hippo decided to start eating again at the same time they started using the puppet.

[Petronski]

I wonder what kind of voice they gave the puppet.

Equal parts Vincent Price, Jack Palance and Hannibal Lector.

[Daaave]

Years ago I saw a story about California condors. They were using a puppet to feed a baby condor. I've seen something similar for baby monkeys.

[Kimmers]

What a sweet story....I think baby hippos are soooooo cute !!!!

[radiohead]

Too cute!

[Skooz]

This is very cool.

Thanks for posting.

[tophat9000]

man did I miss read this headline... I thought they were feeding puppy's to a hippo

[TexasRepublic]

This reminds me of feeding small children — “Here comes the airplane, open the hangar!”