Zoo Babies

A patter of tiny feet in the zoo’s ring-tailed lemur colony has been a welcome surprise, coinciding with the unseasonably warm early spring. Two pairs of twins have been born only weeks apart. Hugging their respective mums, they can be seen enjoying the sunshine in their paddock enclosures during the day. The older babies at 28 days are just beginning their first explorations off mum, but not very far!

Kiva and Zip, our elderly black lemurs, have amazingly just started a family! As lemurs, mum and dad are in their twilight years and this has been little short of a miracle. Kiva is being a doting mum and has outcast Zip for now. This should all change as their baby grows up and wants to play!

Any baby is special, but especially so if it is a Diana monkey, as there are only 25 individuals in a special breeding programme throughout European zoos. Growing in leaps and bounds (literally), baby “Filo”is fast becoming a little hooligan!

Ahhh! Nearly Easter chicks, two white-naped crane babies have just hatched at the zoo. Mum and dad, in their enclosure, incubated the eggs for 24 days and the zoo’s head keeper Derek Gibson (with a little help from the incubators) helped them into the world. So few white-naped cranes remain alive in the world that it was too important to let the parents attempt to rear their chicks naturally. Maybe next year?

Now this is a prickly event! Recent arrivals to the zoo, the North American tree porcupines gave birth to a single youngster. He will have to spend his first few days on the ground as mum suckles him as he gathers strength!

The ugliest baby in the world? Ground hornbill chicks have got to be an out-standing contender! At just 5 days of age, really only mum and dad could possibly love him. Brutus and Bronte our Abyssinian ground hornbills are parents by proxy as they are currently the only breeding pair in British zoos and their babies are needed to help with a European breeding programme! Dad and mum are zoo keepers!

If any zoo animal has to be a star then baby “Mali” our little meerkat has been just that. Born in the autumn of 2006, he was mum and dads first baby and they did everything wrong, yet he has survived! Introduced outside to the world just days after he was born (instead of at 3 -4 weeks), he has survived a tough, hard up-bringing. Hopefully, his brothers and sisters in the future will find early life a little easier!

Deer fawns are beautiful miniature versions of mum, yet very secretive as they are hidden from predators. Baby muntjac deer are born with spots that actually improve their camouflage and which they lose as they grow up! Our little fawn was born on 07.04.07, but you will have to look very hard and be patient to see him in his enclosure here at the zoo! Tip; watch where mum goes!

Baby maras are usually born as twins! Like guinea pigs (a very close relative) they are born eyes open, fully covered in fur. They can run almost straight after birth, but they hide underground for the first few weeks of life, only venturing out occasionally when mum or dad return to the crèche! Pictures like this one are quite difficult to get!

The zoo has a tame herd of wallabies and this is Wilma’s baby joey. The baby is actually born as a naked wriggling foetus about 3 centimetres long and crawls up mum’s stomach, then disappears down into her pouch for at least 4 – 5 months where it feeds and grows before having a look around outside! This baby joey will not be weaned until it is nearly 8 months old. We love the way they just hang in there!

Coucals are African cuckoos, except unlike our indigenous cuckoo they look after their own young (not foster them out)! These chicks look like miniature porcupines and within 14 days of hatching they are fledged. This is amazingly fast. Our pair of Coucals produced a British first as they were the first born in captivity in this country back in April 2005.