Adorable video: See baby meerkats hand-reared at Yorkshire wildlife centre

Animal keepers at the Tropical Butterfly House, Wildlife and Falconry Centre in North Anston, near Rotherham, have had their hands full with the pair who are being hand reared after their early ordeal.

Staff Elisabeth Blezard and Amanda Linley have taken on the responsibility of taking care of the meerkat pups, who have been given their Russian-sounding names after the popular characters in television adverts for car insurance.

Centre staff said when the mother abandoned the babies, they were only around nine days old and, at approximately eight centimetres long, were incredibly fragile and seemed unlikely to survive.

But the two keepers rose to the challenge and have been feeding the pups every two to three hours day and night and keeping them warm in a heated brooder, which is usually home to newly-hatched chicks.

The two pups are now around three weeks old and are very strong and healthy, supplementing their diet of milk with small pieces of scambled egg.

They were found abandoned in Meerkat Mansion, the centre’s meerkat enclosure which is currently home to twelve of the animals.

The first three residents were a male, Stumpy, and an “alpha pair”, known as Mr and Mrs Meerkat. The other nine are Mrs Meerkat’s babies from the last three years.

Staff said they reasons for the mother neglecting to rear her latest pups after just a few days cannot be known for sure, but the they speculated that she may have felt the “mob” had reached full capacity.

Miss Linley, said: “It was a difficult decision to rescue the baby meerkats instead of letting nature take its course, but we wanted to give them the best chance of survival

“It had become clear that Mrs Meerkat had made her mind up that she wouldn’t be caring for them”.

Hand-reared meerkats often grow up to be relatively tame but Miss Blezard said this can be a disadvantage later.

She added: “The longer the baby meerkats spend time with humans, the closer the bond will become and, although that might seem like a nice idea, it will make it more difficult to re-integrate the babies with the other meerkats when they are old enough”.

The keepers at the Tropical Butterfly House will continue to hand rear the Meerkat pups until they are able to feed by themselves and will, at that point, attempt to reintroduce them to the rest of the family.

Visitors will be able to meet the babies in the coming weeks during “animal encounter” sessions with staff.