MEERKAT MISCHIEF

They’re cute, they’re clever, and they hang around in gangs. Meet the meerkats.

Finding fame through Meerkat Manor and Compare-the-Meerkat, these cute and cuddly creatures have hit the big-time and become increasingly popular pets. But despite their new-found fame, keeping them might not be as ‘simples’ as many people think. We asked four fanatical meerkat keepers to share their experiences.

“Meerkats certainly aren’t for everyone,” explains Chris Newman. He’s been a meerkat keeper and enthusiast for over 10 years. “As with every companion animal, for some people they’ll be a perfect pet, but for others they’re a nightmare. It all depends on whether you’re willing to love them and their crazy natural behaviours, warts and all.”

Wise words indeed. It’s an important principle to remember for anyone looking to take on a new pet, especially an exotic species with such specific needs. Meerkats are fascinating, and there’s certainly plenty to love about them, but you’ll need to do your research if you want to provide for them properly. Here’s what you need to know.

Housing

There seem to be two different schools of thought when it comes to how to accommodate your meerkats. While many keep them indoors, much like you would a cat or a dog, others prefer a custombuilt outdoor enclosure. Which method suits you will likely depend on how house-proud you are, but you should also consider how you will provide enough opportunities for them to display their natural behaviours.

While meerkats are undeniably cute and cuddly, they’re also enormously mischievous creatures and can be quite destructive. Keepers have told us that their kats have pulled up carpets, destroyed houseplants, emptied cupboards and drawers, and found their way into every nook and cranny. Mess and mayhem is a distinct possibility if you don’t meerkat-proof your house.

Toileting is another important consideration when deciding if you’re happy to keep your meerkats in your home. Some meerkats will choose to use the same corner as a toilet –most of the time. Some can even be litter-tray trained, but they will inevitably go in other places too. Meerkats also like to mark their territory by scenting which, most of the time, isn’t too offensive. However, some meerkats’ scents smell worse than others.

There are also territorial issues to consider, as your meerkat might want to protect you when strangers come into the house. Meerkats are conditioned to defend their tight-knit social groups, and they do not take kindly to strangers invading their territory. Even if someone familiar, such as a family member, goes away for a while, re-introducing them to the meerkats can be difficult and it’s not unusual for strangers to get nipped. It’s worth considering these issues before deciding whether a meerkat is the best pet for you.

Finally, whether you choose to keep them indoors or outdoors, it’s important to ensure you can provide them with the opportunity to display their natural behaviours, such as digging, tunnelling, foraging and keeping a lookout.

Here’s what our four keepers have to say about how they house their meerkat mobs.

Meerkat Subspecies

There are at least three different subspecies of meerkat, but specialists believe more will be officially described in the future as genetic differences between populations become proven.

• Suricata suricatta suricatta – These are found in South Africa, ranging in colour from brown to orange.

• Suricata suricatta majoriae - Found in Namibia, this subspecies is whitish in colour and banded around the eyes.

• Suricata suricatta iona – This subspecies is found in Angola.

• Suricata suricatta sp. – Another possible subspecies has yet to be scientifically described. They are found in the Southern Cape of Africa and they have orange bodies and grey heads. However, further DNA research is needed to prove them to be a 4th subspecies.

The meerkats we keep as pets are difficult to accurately identify and are possibly a result of interbreeding the different subspecies.

Aled Jones is the owner of A&S Animal Encounters, an edu-tainment company offering Animal Encounter experiences. He’s been keeping meerkats for nine years.

Aled’s meerkats: Boo, Meeko, George Best and Bobby Charlton

We’ve kept meerkats indoors but found it to be a rather smelly and messy affair. Nowadays our four male kats live in an outdoor enclosure with the option of using a heated indoor facility when they fancy it.

The15ft x 10ft outdoor, open-top area has 4ft high sides made from decking planks installed vertically to thwart the kats’ attempts to climb out. We’ve also installed windows in the walls around the enclosure, not only to give the kats a view, but because it also helps create warm areas as the low sun shines through the glass. It works well, even on the coldest days, and we often find the meerkats hanging out there.

The base of the enclosure is concrete to prevent burrowing escapes, and it’s set on a slight angle to help with water run-off. A layer of gravel is topped with a mix of play sand and builders’ sand to create the most suitable substrate for drainage and digging. We’ve also sunk a network of pipes which the kats love to explore and use as hides.

Their enclosure also has an indoor area, essentially an insulated 6ft x 6ft shed, equipped with a mercury vapour lamp which is on during the day, and a ceramic heater which is on all the time. However, they don’t spend much time indoors at all, preferring to be outside exploring and foraging. They don’t seem to mind the cold and will even be outside playing in the snow. You’ll usually only find them indoors when it’s raining heavily.

Chris Newman is Chief Executive of the Reptile and Exotic Pet Trade Association and has been keeping meerkats for 10 years.

Chris’ meerkats: Sergei, Alex, Billy, Thomas, Arthur and Alfie

Most of our meerkats live in a custom-built outdoor facility, but our two original meerkats made up their own minds where they wanted to live. They were our first meerkats, Alex and Sergei, and they came to us quite unexpectedly when they were just a few weeks old after their mother died. Over the course of a couple of weeks I worked my ass off to build the most naturalistic outdoor enclosure I could. Underground burrows, digging opportunities, lookout stations, enrichment facilities – the lot.

However, when it came time to introduce them to their new home they were entirely underwhelmed and clearly only wanted to be wherever we were. Despite having the opportunity to live in the Kalahari Desert-like environment I had created, they showed much more interest in sitting with us on the sofa watching telly. So that’s what they did.

I was a little concerned that sitting on a sofa watching TV with us was pretty far removed from the naturalistic existence I had in mind for them so, I built an indoor sandbox with pipes and burrows to try to cater for their needs. Once it was ready I took them to see my creation, and good old Alex and Sergei took a good look around, explores it thoroughly –and then never used it again.

These two seemingly abnormal meerkats lived with us in the house for their entire lives. They liked nothing more than to snuggle up with us, and even took to coming to bed with us when we turned in for the night. It was a habit we couldn’t break once the meerkats had realised that bedtime snuggling was an option.

I do understand those people who say meerkats are wild animals as they retain many aspects of their wild behaviour. However, those we keep as pets are descended from multiple generations of captive breeding and will have invariably undergone some amount of domestication. Alex and Sergei were, without a doubt, highly domesticated and were as suited to a life indoors with us as much as any cat or dog. Yes, there were challenges, but that’s equally true of any companion animal. If you’re willing to work with them, Meerkats are a fantastic pet.

Tasha Lewis is the owner of Living Things, an animal experience company which provides educational talks in schools and other educational facilities, as well as providing meerkats for TV shows and documentaries. She has kept meerkats for over ten years.

Tasha’s meerkats: Steve and Stanley

Like pretty much everyone else who starts with meerkats, mine were kept indoors at first. As someone who is quite house-proud I like my home to be clean and tidy. This was not an easy thing to achieve with a couple of meerkats doing their very best to mess the place up.

While they did enjoy spending hours on the windowsill protecting the house and watching the world go by, they did also tear my sofa and dig under my fridge and cooker and pull out and play with any bit of fluff they could find. Although they were litter trained, they would still occasionally pee in other places, and they would regularly rub their anal glands on my furniture, causing gross brown smears. Eventually I decided enough was enough.

I built them an outdoor enclosure, doing my best to provide an environment that is as naturalistic as possible. They have plenty of opportunities to dig – something I couldn’t do easily when they lived in the house. And they have burrows and dens built into the enclosure, along with logs and branches to enable them to climb. They also have heating and UVB lighting installed. Not everyone thinks UVB is necessary, particularly when the enclosure is open- topped and gets direct sunlight, but I think it’s good to give them an opportunity to bask under UVB if they want to. Mine frequently do.

Matthew Rendle is the lead exotics nurse at Holly House Veterinary Hospital, Leeds. He’s cared for meerkats for 20 years in several zoo collections.

Meerkats like to dig, and they’ll do so regardless. That’s why you’ll often see meerkats digging up carpets or ruining furniture if kept in the home where there are few opportunities to display their natural digging behaviour. Digging in unsuitable places can cause injuries, such as foot lesions and nail problems. Having somewhere they can dig to their hearts’ content will go a long way to avoiding these common injuries.

There are also important points to consider when building outdoor enclosures. Even if you provide your meerkats with buried plastic pipes to use as tunnels it’s likely they’ll still dig to create their own tunnel network. It’s worth making sure no meerkats are hiding underground if you enter their enclosure, just in case your weight collapses a tunnel when they’re inside. That said, it’s good to purposely collapse their tunnels at regular intervals, just so that they can keep themselves busy digging them out again. It’s an enormously effective enrichment activity. Just be sure your meerkats are safely out of danger before treading the tunnels down.

Mob Rules

Social interaction is hard-wired into these animals. Their natural behaviour is almost entirely geared toward protecting their social group, which in the wild can number up to around 70 individuals. They need constant companionship and lots of social stimulation, which is why the vast majority of meerkats are kept in groups of at least two and usually more.

While there are occasions where a single male can become a pet, this is extremely rare and relies on them having a human who is constantly available to interact with. Most modern homes cannot provide this constant attention because most keepers go out to work. That’s why almost all meerkats will be kept as part of a group, often known as a ‘gang’ or a ‘mob’. When you watch meerkat gangs’ behaviour in the wild it’s easy to see why social interaction is so important.

Aled

We chose to have a group of four bachelor males for a couple of good reasons. First, because we’re not interested in breeding meerkats, but also because males are less aggressive than females, making them much more suitable for our animal experience work. Meerkats are one of the few animals where females have more testosterone than males, which explains why meerkats live in matriarchal groups with a female as the alpha.

Meerkats have developed specific behaviours to help protect the group too, and you’ll see this in their behaviour whether they’re in the wild or in captivity. You’ll soon notice that if a meerkat isn’t digging or eating, they’ll be on sentry duty, keeping a lookout for danger. They even have specific calls to alert their gang-mates to different predator threats. I can tell if one of my meerkats has seen a cat or a bird of prey because the`y make a slightly different call depending on which hazard they have spotted. Interestingly, despite having excellent near-sighted vision which they use to find food, my meerkats can also somehow spot a bird of prey from miles away in the distance when it looks like just a dot in the sky to me.

Tasha

I currently have two male meerkats. One of them is neutered and the other is not. I’m thinking about getting a female to add to the group as having a female alpha is more like what they would do in the wild. Males follow a dominant female.

Females are sometimes aggressive and fights can happen if you have more than one. Fights which happen within an established group are usually only minor scraps for hierarchy dominance, and the resulting war-wounds are minor – missing toes and nipped tails at worst. However, major fights can occur, usually when introducing new kats to the mob, and while serious injuries are rare, it’s important to be alert for issues when introducing new animals. Meerkats might be cute, but they can be savage.

Chris

We got our first meerkats largely by accident and they settled into indoor life so well we didn’t have the heart to force them to use their outdoor enclosure. Despite both being female they were mostly friendly and peaceful, and it was interesting to see how they would react to strangers. They’d get on wonderfully with most new people, being adorably cuddly and affectionate. Other people were simply ignored, with Alex and Sergei being neither friendly nor aggressive. But, every now and again, they’d take an instant dislike to someone, and I have no idea why they would single that person out as a threat.

Those people would almost always get nipped!

Interestingly, they also have a spectacularly impressive memory and will remember people, even if years had passed since they last met. If they took a dislike to you five years ago, you can bet they still wouldn’t like you today, so get ready to be bitten.

Matt

Small injuries from fighting meerkats are quite common, particularly around the tail area. Antiseptics and antibiotics, if necessary, will treat the vast majority of these well enough. More serious injuries, such as tail fractures, can occur if a submissive meerkat cannot retreat from an aggressive attacker, so it’s important to watch out for low-grade dominance and, ideally, sort the problem before such injuries occur. You’re looking for animals which are being routinely chased away from food, not allowed in prime basking or lookout sites, or any which are repeatedly chased and nipped. Bullied meerkats should be moved to another group if that’s possible.

The likelihood of these things happening essentially depends on the stability of your group. Some individuals will simply not be compatible, and it’s particularly difficult when introducing new individuals to an established mob. Introducing two groups together is even more difficult to achieve successfully. There are methods and tactics which may smooth the process somewhat, but it should only be attempted by those with the necessary knowledge and skills.

Breeding

Breeding meerkats is easy, and if you have males and females together you will almost inevitably end up with babies. Usually only the matriarchal female boss will mate and produce young, but sometimes a subordinate female will get lucky. In this instance there’s an extremely high likelihood the subordinate’s babies will be attacked and possibly killed.

Female meerkats can have several litters each year consisting of up to three or, sometimes four, babies. At that rate it is easy to see how you could become overrun with meerkats, especially if you do not have responsible homes lined up for the offspring. Neutering is possible, and having male-only groups is a good option.

If you do breed your meerkats you should be prepared to decide if you want to hand-rear them or leave them to be reared by the group. Each option has pros and cons, and the considerations are too complex to explore in this article. If you have a pair of meerkats with the potential to breed it is important to be prepared and understand what breeding meerkats entails.

Enrichment

These are highly intelligent animals with much of their natural behaviour being formed around the dynamics of their group’s needs. It’s difficult to stress how important social interaction and stimulation is, so finding ways to keep them entertained is vital for their welfare. Thankfully there are plenty of ways to go about it and, as you’ll see from the accounts below, it’s just as fun for the keepers as it is for the meerkats.

You can also check out this months featured web spotlight, Wild Enrichment for some great ideas on keeping your kats entertained.

Tasha

Meerkats are super inquisitive and intelligent and they must be provided with plenty of activity and enrichment. We put foods inside empty water bottles – usually mealworms or other livefoods, but any suitable food will work. The smaller the opening the better, as this means the meerkats will spend ages flipping the bottle around and grasping inside trying to get the bugs out.

The logs in their enclosures provide ideal enrichment opportunities too, as there are loads of holes where we can hide bits of food for them to find, and we also randomly scatter insects in their enclosure, making the meerkats dig for their supper.

But their favourite means of entertainment is to watch the alpacas, geese and rheas in the next-door field. They spend ages gazing out of their glasssided enclosure at the goings-on in the paddock opposite. They do love a good look-out.

Chris

If you regularly order stuff online you’re probably going to be a wonderful meerkat keeper, because the single greatest enrichment item for a meerkat is a new cardboard box. That’s because meerkats are seemingly the nosiest animals on the planet. They get into everything and anything new which comes into the house has to undergo a thorough meerkat inspection. Even our weekly shopping isn’t safe. Within seconds of us putting the shopping bags down there will be two meerkat backsides protruding from the bags as they dive in to inspect it all.

You will find, however, that old boxes are not good enough to keep them entertained. They’ll find a new cardboard box to be fascinating, but in less than an hour they’ll have had enough of it and it will be ignored thereafter. But if you offer them a new box, they’ll be all over it again. It’s probably a scent thing.

While we’re talking about enrichment we should also include the enrichment that the meerkats provide to their keepers. I suffer from depression, and it’s amazing how Alex and Sergei would pick up on this. If I’m feeling down they won’t leave my side and become noticeably more affectionate. I can’t tell you how soothing it is to have cuddly meerkats around if you’re feeling low.

Aled

Digging and foraging is a massive part of meerkat life and providing the opportunity to do this is important. They’ll spend much of their day or digging for food and, often, just digging for fun. Scattering insects around their enclosure for them to find is a great way to keep meerkats entertained.

Sometimes we’ll dump a handful of mealworms in a box full of shredded paper. The kats can spend hours digging through it looking for a tasty morsel. We’ll occasionally also suspend small pieces of meat or a defrosted rodent on a piece of string at such a height that the meerkats have to stand on their back legs to pull shreds from it to eat. It’s quite hard work for them rear up and tear off small pieces and it’ll keep them going for ages.

Treat filled dog toys are another great enrichment option. We often fill a Kong with minced up meat and insects which keeps them occupied for hours. Making life a bit difficult for them is the key to enrichment. A bowl of food is no challenge at all. We like to make them work for it. It’s always entertaining to watch!

Our meerkats are also target trained, which means we’ve trained them to do a specific behaviour in exchange for food. It’s an enormously useful trick which not only provides enrichment for the animal while they’re being taught, but it also makes our lives and theirs far more practical and relaxed. Each meerkat knows and responds to its name, and their training means they can be easily encouraged to enter their transportation containers when we’re heading out to an event or taking them to the vet.

But the best meerkat enrichment is the interaction they have with others of their kind. That’s why keeping them in groups is pretty much essential.

Nutrition And Diet

Proper feeding and nutrition is not only important from a nutritional perspective, but is also closely associated with the necessary enrichment which meerkats need. In the past many meerkats suffered from high-cholesterol issues which affected their health, largely as a result of inappropriate diets. Thankfully, today’s keepers are better informed and able to provide a more suitable diet which negates this issue.

Matt

Wild meerkats are specialist feeders, eating predominantly scorpions and other invertebrates. This low-protein, low-fat, low-calorie diet means meerkats spend an enormous amount of time and energy looking for and eating their food.

In the past zoos and private keepers had trouble replicating this diet, relying instead on food items which were more cheaply and readily available, often including high-protein foods such as defrosted rodents or day-old chicks. While, at the time, this seemed a sensible way to offer quality proteins, this diet did in fact lead to health problems.

The meerkats fed on high-protein, high-cholesterol diets developed granulomas, a kind of benign tumour which affected the brain and the blood’s circulatory system. This was a relatively common issue with captive meerkats in years gone by. But, thanks to research and greater knowledge among keepers, this condition is now relatively rare.

Today, obesity is the most frequent meerkat health issue we see, as is the case for many pet species. Again, this is often caused by inappropriate food items, but it’s also caused by overfeeding by eager pet owners who enjoy making their animals happy. It’s difficult to convince pet keepers to give their animals less food, but this is the best way to ensure your pet maintains a healthy weight and remains happy, healthy and long-lived.

Aled

A low protein, low-fat diet is the aim for meerkats. Invertebrate prey such as gut-loaded morio worms, pachnoda grubs, dubia cockroaches and snails make up the main part of our kats’ diet. This can be supplemented with lean meat, such as low-fat turkey mince and, very occasionally, defrosted rodents.

Wild meerkats have also been observed eating roots and tubers, so root vegetables such as yam, parsnips and sweet potatoes are also provided.

Tasha

In the wild meerkats eat predominantly insects and invertebrates, but they will also eat small lizards, snakes, birds and other mammals if they can catch them. They’ve also been seen standing on each other’s shoulders to raid nests and steal honey from beehives. It’s often difficult it is to find food in their arid environments, so meerkats have become pretty versatile feeders.

Mine are fed mostly invertebrate live foods with a little bit of meat, such as defrosted mice, and a small amount of vegetables. I supplement most meals with a calcium, vitamin and mineral supplement.

They’ll occasionally get a boiled egg, and even sometimes a raw egg when the nearby chicken breeder brings us some surplus, but these are a rare treat. I also breed African Land Snails and would often donate baby snails to local schools as pets. However, the lockdown has meant that more of these are now ending up as meerkat food. They’re a great source of calcium.

It’s easy to say which foods we should offer, but it’s impossible to say how much we should provide as meerkat lifestyles differ so much. Mine have such a large enclosure and have lots of activity and enrichment, so they need loads of food. They’re always on the lookout for lunch. I keep my males at around 1kg, and females are usually a little lighter. I’ll fatten them up just a little for the wintertime, but you’ll soon notice if they are getting chubby. If that happens, cut back on the treats.

Chris

Meerkats are scavengers and thieves and they’ll eat anything they can get their hands on. As such you’ll have to lock away any food you don’t want them to eat. Alex and Sergei once managed to break into a food cupboard which was supposed to be locked and threw every can and bottle out onto the floor before proceeding to shred two bags of flour across the whole kitchen. They tried to look innocent when I found the mess, but the tiny white footprints led me to two flour-covered meerkats in the next room, and we all knew who the culprits were.

As for their actual intended diet, they get mostly livefood insects. In the house they are fed predominantly locusts, and while we do occasionally have locusts escape long enough to hide somewhere in the room, it’s not long before one of the kats finds it and eats it. As reptile keeper meerkats are brilliantly helpful because they will invariably find and eat any crickets which escape from the lizard enclosures. We also feed them mealworms and, occasionally, morio worms, but we’re sparing with these as meerkats love these high-fat treats. We offer them crickets too, but only outside because we don’t want them all over the house, so it’s usually during the warmer months that this happens.

Apart from that, it’s root vegetables – potato, carrot, swede and the like. We did once give them beetroot, but the meerkats’ fur ended up dyed red for several weeks afterwards, so that didn’t happen again. And they also get the very occasional defrosted mouse.

Meerkat Mischief

Aled - Because you’re worth it!

Our first pair of meerkats lived in the house with us and, predictably, caused mayhem. As well as ripping up flooring in the kitchen and smearing scent and faeces on the furniture, one day, they went too far.

When we were otherwise occupied and looking the other way, they broke into my wife’s makeup box and trashed 100s of pounds worth of cosmetics. We knew they had been up to no good when we noticed that one of the kats had a suspiciously bright-red smile. Turned out they had found and taste-tested an expensive stick of Maybelline lipstick. Everything else in the box was either smashed, mashed or strewn around the room. My wife was not happy, but I think the meerkats enjoyed themselves enormously.

Tasha - Not cuddling

My meerkats do NOT like my brother one bit, and I have no idea why. The first time they were introduced my brother ended up standing on a chair, while my meerkats stalked him like sharks, tails in the air ready to attack. They remember him even years later and we have to b`e careful when he’s around or he’ll be bitten for sure. I know first-hand that meerkat bites aren’t nice as I was once nipped by a friend’s meerkat when I was pet-sitting. I still have a scar on my foot to remember the occasion and I know of others who have had to have stitches after being bitten deep down to the bone.

The funniest meerkat introduction I’ve seen was when one of my kats took a particular liking to a friend who came to visit. She was over the moon when Steve the meerkat came over to cuddle her arm, snuggling in closer and harder, shuffling himself around on her arm for a better position. I didn’t tell her until later that Steve wasn’t cuddling – he was being, shall we say, over-amorous.

Matt - How sweet!

During my first week working in a large zoo collection I received a phone call from a distraught meerkat keeper. Apparently, one of the kats had some kind of tumour in their mouth which was bleeding and causing great distress to the animal. And this was all being observed by several members of the public.

As I rushed over to the enclosure I was a little nervous as my experience of working with meerkats was limited and, being new to the job, I had a lot to prove. It took a while to get the meerkat into a box so that I could examine it, but I saw what the problem was within seconds.

The meerkat was eating a rhubarb and custard boiled sweet, which had, no doubt, been thrown into the enclosure by a visitor. The blood was, in fact, red saliva running down the meerkat’s chin, and the distress was actually the meerkat’s frantic attempt to keep hold of his prize, knowing we’d take it away if we caught him. It was such a relief to know that there was no great emergency, so I let the meerkat finish his sweet treat before releasing him back into the enclosure.

Find Out More

The Meerkat Owners UK group on FB is a great place to find out how to keep these gregarious creatures properly. Remember that buying or selling animals on Facebook is banned and will result in you being removed from the group and, possibly having the group shut down.