Lizzy is a red deer who has been here at White Post almost all of her life and she has a very interesting story to tell.

She came to the farm as a little fawn. We are not sure how old she was but we think she was only a week or two. She was found in a supermarket car park near Nottingham in summer 2004, sadly lost without her mum. A member of the supermarket staff called the farm to see if we could help. Farmer Simon, who had just moved into the White Post Farm house decided he would do all he could to give the little orphaned fawn the best chance of survival so in she moved. He named her Lizzy and began to give her regular bottle feeds day and night and she soon started to show signs of strength.

No only that, she became incredibly friendly and responsive to people, very rare for a red deer. She made friends with a number of other animals too with her best friend being Flake, an equally friendly Toggenberg goat. Then, after a number of years Lizzy moved with our herd of Fallow deer. It was really important she always had company. But at this point she also loved the company of humans and would head to the enclosure fence to be fed and stroked by our visitors, all of whom fell in love with our friendly girl.

A new friend for Lizzy

In recent years our zoo development has seen lots of changes to the farm, one of which was to move the fallow deer to a part of the farm where they could behave most naturally, slightly further away from humans. This however was more of a challenge for Lizzy who missed her regular pets and strokes from friendly families. So we decided we needed to get her a new best friend, another red deer and we found the perfect candidate. Heidi was another adult red deer that wanted company. With the help of the team at her previous home, Yorkshire Wildlife Park she moved in with Lizzy and they quickly became firm friends.

They now eat together, groom each other and sleep together. Best friends indeed! As Lizzy approaches 20 years old we are so pleased she’s found a soulmate to enjoy her twilight years. (Although she still gets a stroke and a scratch from our animal team!) You can see them both, along with our fallow deer at the top of the farm between the cows and the Oxford Sandy and Black pigs. Make sure you say hello!

The White Post Team