Galvanized frames for a rhino enclosure

Rhino enclosures: there’s a first for everything at Joseph Ash Galvanizing! 

Folly Farm Adventure Park and Zoo is based in Pembrokeshire, Wales. It was opened in 1988 after being converted from a former dairy farm, and now receives over 400,000 visitors a year.

The park is home to many different types of animals, from lions to penguins and giraffes, and in October 2015 it welcomed two black rhinos to its family.

The rhinos are very rare animals – with fewer than 650 left in the wild – and they have been made welcome at Folly Farm with a brand new rhino enclosure.

The rhino enclosure features a bespoke house that includes four indoor facilities and straw beds for the rhinos to sleep on. The house is called the Kifaru Reserve, and it has separate interlinking rooms for the rhinos, as they are quite solitary creatures, not often enjoying the company of other rhinos.

Joseph Ash Galvanizing and Folly Farm

The new enclosure is a flagship exhibit and an exciting chapter for Folly Farm. It has also been an exciting project for Joseph Ash Galvanizing who was tasked with the job of galvanizing the steel frames for the rhino enclosure.

Folly Farm fabricated the steel frames themselves at their in-house fabrication unit. And Joseph Ash Bridgend and Joseph Ash Telford galvanized the 14 tonnes of steel.

As the local plant to Folly Farm, Joseph Ash Bridgend collected all the steel and galvanized the smaller pieces. The Joseph Ash Telford plant then collected the steel from Bridgend before dipping the larger pieces into their larger galvanizing bath. Once this process was complete, the steel was delivered back to Wales, where the Joseph Ash Bridgend team placed everything onto Joseph Ash Galvanizing trucks and drove it back to Folly Farm.

Folly Farm chose to contract the work to Joseph Ash Galvanizing not only because Joseph Ash Bridgend was local, but also because Joseph Ash Galvanizing provides such a flexible service that not only gets the job done to a premium quality, but also takes all the hassle out of transport and supplier logistics.

Rhinos’ home protected for many years to come

Galvanizing improves the appearance, as well as protects and prolongs the life of steel, so we hope the rhinos will enjoy their new surroundings for many years.

You can find out more about Folly Farm on their website or their Facebook page.