AN appeal for odd socks to help keep a family of chipmunks warm over Christmas has left keepers at Longleat overwhelmed by people’s generosity.

Keepers at the Wiltshire wildlife attraction issued a request for old socks for their chipmunks who use them as sleeping quarters and places to store their food.

However, they were not prepared for the extraordinary public response with literally hundreds of socks being sent in from as far afield as New Zealand.

“We put out a message on social media inviting people to send us their odd socks to act as colourful nesting material for the chipmunks,” said Longleat’s Alexa Maultby.

“We also thought it was a fun way to recycle old clothing but we weren’t quite prepared for the huge number of socks the public have provided us with.

“There’s now a sock mountain and we’re looking for other uses for them around the Safari Park. The plan is to use them for bedding for some of our other animals.

“We’d like to thank everyone who has made the effort to donate. We definitely have more than enough now so we’d kindly request no more are sent in,” she added.

The word 'chipmunk' is North American Indian for ‘head first’ so named as this is the method that they use to descend trees.

A chipmunk can carry nine large nuts at a time: four in each cheek pouch and one between its teeth. The chipmunk's cheek pouches can stretch almost to the size of their head.

They only collect hard food that does not mould, such as nuts and cones and can stock up to eight pounds of food in its burrows.