Chico the young pygmy hippo is choosy over who she will and won’t eat with.

Trainers at Heythrop Zoological Gardens, near Chipping Norton, were mystified when Chico started refusing to eat and was in danger of losing weight.

And bizarrely the youngster will now only be led to her feeding trough if someone dons a glove puppet of Gloria, the hippo star of animated children’s film Madagascar, to feed him carrots.

Chico is one of more than 500 exotic animals kept at the private west Oxfordshire zoo which, under the name of Amazing Animals, provides the media and advertising industry with wildlife film sequences.

It is set in extensive grounds outside the small village of Heythrop and is home to lions and tigers, as well as spiders, fish and, of course, Chico.

Zoo keepers said they had looked at different ways to tempt the fussy eater back to his meals when they stumbled across the hippo glove puppet in a supermarket promotion.

Head keeper Michael Howes said: “We had been trying everything as Chico was refusing to feed, and when I saw the Madagascar hippo puppet in the supermarket I thought I’d give it a try.

“We were extremely surprised when he took a liking to Gloria and we have been using it to feed him ever since.”

In the wild, pygmy hippos — a much smaller relative of the larger hippopotamus on whom Gloria is based — can spend six hours a day eating.

They need to consume one and a half per cent of their body weight every day to remain healthy.

In the animation film, produced by DreamWorks, Gloria is one of four zoo animals who get shipped to Madagascar off the African continent.

The others are Melma the giraffe, Marty the zebra and Alex the lion.

Amazing Animals was founded in 1977, and the majority of its animals were born in zoos.

It trains some of them sequences and stills in the film, TV, advertising and photography business.

One of their lions, King, was once used in a Conservative Party campaign.

The zoo at Heythrop is not open to the public but claims to have the biggest private collection of exotic animals in Britain.

Clients can choose from an A to Z list, starting with the exotic fish Achilles Tang through to Wallaby.

It is licensed by West Oxfordshire District Council to keep, transport and exhibit wild animals at venues throughout the United Kingdom.