A five-day-old reticulated giraffe whose mother will not feed receives a milk bottle from Guy Pear, her keeper, at an enclosure at the Safari Zoo in Ramat Gan, near Tel Aviv, Israel August 30, 2016. (REUTERS/Baz Ratner)
Whoa, baby!
One of the newest family members at the Ramat Gan Safari located near Tel-Aviv is getting extra special attention from staff members.
According to Ynet, the baby, a boy giraffe born last week to mother Dikla, measures about 6’3. Caretakers noticed that the calf was not nursing properly and that Dikla showed little interest in feeding her new baby after he was born. After treating Dikla with hormones and sedatives intended to assist in the process proved fruitless, the caretakers switched to Plan B and contacted the Agricultural Research Organization. Caretakers were worried the baby wasn’t getting vital nutrition and began bottle feeding the calf colostrum from a cow. They switched him to regular milk the second day.
"During the first two days, we hardly left him. It was obvious we were going to do whatever it takes for him to survive," said Itzik Franco, the head of the Elephants and Giraffes Department at the safari.
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