Stocktaking: it's a tedious job, but every business needs to do it now and again -- even a zoo. Of course, conducting an inventory of animals poses its own unique problems. How do you weigh a camel? How can you tell flamingos apart as you count them? And how do you straighten out a python so you can measure it?

Despite these challenges, the Hamburg zoo Tierpark Hagenbeck successfully completed its annual stocktaking of its animals on Thursday. "Everything is in order, and all the animals are in good health," reported a zoo spokeswoman.

The inventory, which took two months to complete, involved counting the zoo's stock of 1,850 animals from 210 species. The unusual tasks included, among other things, weighing camels on a scales normally used for trucks, measuring snakes and elephants, and counting flamingos.

The zoo was the brain child of Hamburg fish seller Carl Hagenbeck, Sr., who established an import business of wild animals on the side in 1848. He passed on the management of his menagerie to his son, Carl Hagenbeck, Jr., in 1866, and the zoo was first opened to the public in 1907. It is still owned by the Hagenbeck family today.

All the animals were successfully accounted for in the stocktaking -- except one Vietnamese sika deer. The missing animal is listed in the zoo records, but keepers could find neither hide nor hair of him.