Animals & Afternoon tea

The best way to spend a birthday

By Melissa Keizer

March 26^th, 2019

Last year my friend organised an animal themed party for her three year old son. Someone from Party Animals NI came to their home with an array of exotic animals for the children to interact with. Naturally, I decided this was also a great idea for my 28th birthday party.

To make it slightly more grown up, I swapped balloons and party hats for Prosecco and cupcakes. Needless to say, I was very excited about my party plans.

Saturday afternoon came, and to my delight, David from Party Animals NI brought along a very special member of his clan, Luna the Silver Fox.

Luna was absolutely gorgeous and now I can tick "walked a fox" off my bucket list.

David told us about how Silver Foxes are a variation of the more commonly seen Red Fox. More of the dark-coloured pigment, melanin, develops in their skin to cause the black/silver colouration, so it's essentially the opposite of albinism. Silver foxes are very rare, with only one in a thousand Red Foxes having this colouration.

Back inside, it was time to bring out the rest of the critters, beginning with this absolutely adorable African Pygmy Hedgehog.

As well as the cute, furry creatures, we also got to meet some of David's scalier creatures, including a very inquisitive Corn Snake, who I got to know very well during the visit!

An energetic millipede and lovable, little tortoise were among the animals David brought along.

Edward the Bearded Dragon was another member of the clan we got to meet. As a special birthday treat, David handed me a live maggot to place on my hand and allow Edward to catch with his tongue. That was a first!

To round off our animal experience, David took out this adorable Chinchilla. She was definitely a crowd pleaser!

My animal themed birthday party was even better than I had hoped. It was lovely to see the passion David has for his animal clan and it was super getting up close and personal with them!