--- title: Feeding times and the zoo kitchen — a lesson of Mova's school · trees and pragmatics description: «Feeding times and the zoo kitchen», a lesson of the biology course of Mova's primary school, sentence by sentence with dependency trees and pragmatics. It begins: Behind every zoo is a busy kitchen where keepers prepare hundreds of meals a day, and each one is planned for one kind of animal, or eve --- [Mova](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/) · [this page in HTML](https://mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/biology/111-feeding-times-and-the-zoo-kitchen/) [home](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/) / [corpora](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/) / [school](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/) / [Biology](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/biology/) / Feeding times and the zoo kitchen # Feeding times and the zoo kitchen Lesson 111 of the biology course of Mova's primary school: 15 sentences, each with its syntax tree and pragmatics. The lessons are written for Mova, and their agreed trees are part of Mova corpus 0.4 (CC BY-SA 4.0). How Mova does on its tests: [the lesson at school](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/school-run/biology/111-feeding-times-and-the-zoo-kitchen/). - [0](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/biology/111-feeding-times-and-the-zoo-kitchen/0/) — Behind every zoo is a busy kitchen where keepers prepare hundreds of meals a day, and each one is planned for one kind of animal, or even one single animal, by a zoo nutritionist who works rather like a doctor. - [1](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/biology/111-feeding-times-and-the-zoo-kitchen/1/) — The food is chosen to match how each animal eats in the wild: whole carcasses for big cats and vultures, frozen and thawed mice for snakes, live crickets for frogs and lizards, leafy greens for monkeys and a mushy ant-like mix for the anteater. - [2](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/biology/111-feeding-times-and-the-zoo-kitchen/2/) — Feeding is also a job for the brain: gorillas find their food scattered in the grass, apes get big pieces to hold and bite, and big cats even have days with no food at all, just like their wild cousins. - [3](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/biology/111-feeding-times-and-the-zoo-kitchen/3/) — That is why the sign says «please do not throw food to the animals»: every meal is measured, and a crisp from each of a thousand visitors adds up to a sick, fat animal. - [4](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/biology/111-feeding-times-and-the-zoo-kitchen/4/) — Zoo kitchens prepare hundreds of meals a day, and nutritionists plan the right mix of food for each kind of animal. - [5](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/biology/111-feeding-times-and-the-zoo-kitchen/5/) — Food is cut to suit each mouth: tiny pieces for small beaks and big pieces for apes, so they hold, bite and work as in the wild. - [6](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/biology/111-feeding-times-and-the-zoo-kitchen/6/) — Many zoos give big cats one or two fast days a week, because wild cats do not eat every day and fast days stop zoo cats getting fat. - [7](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/biology/111-feeding-times-and-the-zoo-kitchen/7/) — Big cats are often fed whole carcasses with bones and fur, which are good for their teeth, and vultures are fed whole dead animals too. - [8](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/biology/111-feeding-times-and-the-zoo-kitchen/8/) — Snakes and birds of prey are fed mostly frozen, thawed mice, rats and chicks, which is safer for the snake because a live rat can bite it; keepers often warm the food, because snakes find it by smell and warmth. - [9](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/biology/111-feeding-times-and-the-zoo-kitchen/9/) — Many zoos breed their own crickets and mealworms, and dust them with vitamin and calcium powder before feeding them to frogs and lizards, because insects alone do not have enough of what those animals need. - [10](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/biology/111-feeding-times-and-the-zoo-kitchen/10/) — Feeding times are when many animals are most lively, so zoos hold public feeding talks, and some change the times daily so animals do not just wait at the gate. - [11](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/biology/111-feeding-times-and-the-zoo-kitchen/11/) — Scattering food in the grass makes gorillas walk and search, which is called foraging, and keeps them busy for longer. - [12](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/biology/111-feeding-times-and-the-zoo-kitchen/12/) — Anteaters get a specially made mushy mix that copies an ant diet, because a zoo cannot collect enough wild ants. - [13](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/biology/111-feeding-times-and-the-zoo-kitchen/13/) — Farm fruit is bred to be much sweeter than wild fruit, so many zoos give it only as a treat; some British zoos stopped giving monkeys bananas and gave leafy vegetables instead. - [14](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/biology/111-feeding-times-and-the-zoo-kitchen/14/) — Visitors' food can poison animals, make them fat or carry germs, and animals have choked on plastic bags and coins thrown by visitors. - ← previous: [Behind the scenes: the zoo vet and the animal hospital](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/biology/110-behind-the-scenes-the-zoo-vet-and-the-animal-hospital/) - next →: [Training and enrichment: keeping zoo animals busy and healthy](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/biology/112-training-and-enrichment/) - ↑ back to [Biology](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/biology/)