SPRINGFIELD -- The Agriculture Department predicts food prices will jump 5 percent by the end of the year. Food prices have already jumped 5 percent this year. If you think you're taking a hit, zoos are really feeling the impact.

If you think feeding the hungry hippos at home is a big deal, consider this. Dickerson Park Zoo goes through 750,000 crickets each year, nearly 25,000 rats and mice and pound after pound of alfalfa.

The bongos from Africa can tip the scales at 900 pounds. That's a whole lot of animal to feed.

The bongos get about 15 pounds of alfalfa pellets each and every day. The cost of these pellets is going up between 11 and 14 percent.

"Most of the animals are going, 'Hey, where's my food?'" said Brian Lampkin, the animals' chef.

Lampkin spends three to four hours each day cutting and slicing up a balanced diet for 500 animals, including the lemurs.

"We have some cooked sweet potatoes, some apples and grapes, a little bit of everything for them," he said.

And the cost to put all that food on the table, or in the bin, just keeps going up. It jumped 31 percent in two years. It now costs more than a $150,000 to feed the collection each year.

"It's always a concern. Everybody's worried about the rising cost of everything right now. Energy costs virtually affect everything," said zoo director Mike Crocker.

"It's one of those things, before I came here, I worked at Disney World, and we had a $1.8 million budget just to feed the animals and it went up every year just for rising costs Even Disney World felt the crunch every once in awhile," said Lampkin.

For now, you won't feel the bite at the ticket counter. Prices already went up this spring. And, while the travel budget here gets slashed, food won't get cut. The animals have to eat!

Zoos around the country are struggling to deal with rising prices. The animal food budget at the Kansas City Zoo has grown by nearly 43 percent in the last two years to $375,000. That zoo is cutting travel to educational conferences and leaving two zookeeper positions open.