College zoo is meerkat's whiskers!

Tucked away in the picturesque countryside surrounding the Staffordshire village of Penkridge is a unique new tourist attraction where more than 750 animals of all shapes and sizes wait to be discovered.

Rodbaston College Animal Zone was more than a year in the planning and opened its doors to the public in October.

Visitors to the £200,000 project might be forgiven for expecting goats, sheep and cows but in fact the Animal Zone, located in the college grounds off the A449, couldn't be more different.

The kind of wildlife on show at the new visitors centre is truly amazing and easily matches that found at much larger zoos.

Just a few miles from Penkridge and Cannock live more than 750 animals from 160 different species.

Among those making their home at the agricultural college are African meerkats, iguanas from Brazil, endangered lemurs from Madagascar, porcupines, racoon dogs, and all manner of creepy crawlies.

Staff at Rodbaston invested more than 18 months hard work planning the Animal Zone, which was granted a zoo licence last year.

This paves the way for the college to bring in even more exotic animals and to create bigger habitats.

With a newly-built visitors' centre offering refreshments, families can spend the best part of a day exploring the site.

Keepers at the centre offer animal encounters where youngsters can actually meet some of the animals up close and get taken on a tour through the centre where they can learn about the inhabitants from the people who care for them.

But what is really fascinating about the Animal Zone is that Rodbaston College is now part of a worldwide conservation effort to not just showcase different animals, but also to try to save them through breeding programmes.

On April 16 staff were delighted to find they had two new baby meerkats which are a definite hit with children.

During the next 12 months the college is set to invest even more to create a special nocturnal display with fruit bats and expand the number of species on display to more than 250.

Many may ask the question why a college, even one which deals with animal and land-based education, like Rodbaston, would want to set up a zoo in its grounds.

The answer lies in the fact the Animal Zone gives students at the college the chance to learn first hand how to care for exotic creatures.

Next year Rodbaston will become the only educational institution in the UK to offer a specific degree level course in zoo animal management so the development of the Animal Zone is a win-win situation.

Chris Mitchell, animal centre manager, whose experience ranges from raising lions to spending time with African gorillas, explained: "The animal zone is like a living classroom. We have more than 300 students studying a variety of animal management courses and they are involved in the day-to-day running of the centre, which gives them valuable hands-on experience."

The Animal Zone employs just three full-time staff including Mr Mitchell, aged 44, with the rest of the work carried out by students. He added: "I live and breathe animals, it's all I have done and to have something like this in Staffordshire is great for local families as a day out and as a learning experience for our students."

Costing £30,000 a year in just food and vets bills alone, the centre is not a small project but Mr Mitchell seems driven to expand the Animal Zone further.

Already visitors can see wallabies from Australia, bizarre skinks from the Solomon Islands, fish from around the globe and even the odd giant rabbit or two.

Mr Mitchell added: "From my previous jobs I had a lot of contacts with other zoos and we work with them on breeding. We don't sell any of the animals and other zoos donate them to us if they can and we will try to breed them.

"Breeding takes a lot of hard work, the conditions have to be right but we will hopefully breed every endangered animal that we have here."

Visiting the Animal Zone today, work is clearly still going on to bring the vision of the college into reality but already the experience is amazing.

The Animal Zone is open to the public every weekend and on school holidays from 10am until 5pm. The visitor centre, shop and tearoom is open every day from 10am until 5pm. Admission is £4 for adults and £3 for children with a family ticket costing £12. For details call 01785 710560.