For adults who are interested in apprenticeships as animal keepers, there are special part-time courses that prepare them for the Federal Diploma of Vocational Education and Training (VET Diploma) and enable them to continue working. This allows adults to catch up on their vocational qualification alongside their conventional work.

Training in animal care for adults lasts two years and is completed in the training companies for animal keepers. It takes place alongside work at vocational school and in inter-company courses.

Depending on the specialization chosen during an apprenticeship as an animal keeper Federal VET Diploma, graduates can find employment in a variety of places, for example in companies that look after pets, in research facilities of Universities and industry and in special laboratory animal breeding facilities or in zoos, animal parks, possibly in the pet trade and similar businesses.

Adults who are interested in an apprenticeship as an animal keeper and would like to take part in the qualification procedure (formerly the final apprenticeship examination LAP) in order to obtain the Federal Diploma of Vocational Education and Training (Federal VET Diploma) must provide evidence of at least five years of professional experience before the examination, of which at least three years must be in animal care.

Apprenticeships for animal keepers can be completed in very different areas. Before starting their basic training, the prospective apprentices decide on one of the three specializations:

• Pets
• Wild animals
• Laboratory animals

Participants are taught about biology, animal husbandry, hygiene and diseases, business organization and logistics, professional ethics and law, communication and customer contact as well as special work in the relevant field during their apprenticeship as an animal keeper and during their school education. You will learn everything you need to know about the anatomy and physiology of animals, animal husbandry, genetics and reproduction, nutrition, ethology, parentage and domestication, ecology, farm logistics, transportation, computing and IT, administration, safety culture, equipment and materials, killing and legal regulations, as well as communication and conveying facts. In addition, there is the keeping and, depending on the specialization, the care of pets, breeding and breed science, administration of pets, or hygiene of laboratory animals, animal experiments, breeding of laboratory animals or poisonous animals and zoo biology in the specialization of wild animal husbandry.