The zoo visitors are unanimously delighted. “This is a fratz!”, “Sugar sweet!” And “She’s still so tiny!” The calls are when the elephant calf Kaja raffles for the first time over the outdoor area of the Opel Zoo in Kronberg in Taunus almost three months after the birth. The young animal runs quickly and springy between his mother Kariba and the older elephant cow purple over earth and grass. Kaja swings and bends the trunk, plays with branches of leaves, even gets a trunk rolling. A piece at least. Then the elephant baby suddenly disappeared. Seconds later, it pretended between Lilak’s front legs. “She is based on the matriarch,” says zoo director Thomas Kauffels on the viewing terrace of the Zoo restaurant Sambesi. From there you can see how Kaja usually changes back and forth between the two cows. To suck she goes to the mother Kariba, then she hopped back to Lilak. The behavior of the old cows has changed according to Kauffels ’observation by the young animal. “Lilak didn’t care about what happened in the facility before. Now she shows where it goes.” 150 kilos light: Kaja is now almost three months old. Lando Hassseit of the birth on May 27th has increased the elephant boy about 50 kilos. At that time it weighed 97 kilos, now it is around 150 kilos. That comes from eight to ten liters of breast milk a day, says Kauffels. In the beginning, the mother and daughter had to learn with the help of the zookeepers, the zoo veterinarian and also the matriarch Lilak how suckling works, and elephants such as sea kows and primates have “breast -employed marm -glands”, as the technical term is: The young animals drink only two breasts. The teeth are gradually coming through at Kaja, reports the district manager of the elephant house Daniel Scheinkönig, who recently put the young animal into their mouths. Kaja does all the laxes of Kauffel. “She does everything to the old man, goes into the mud hole and arises.” Because it now works well with the suckling, the Opel Zoo is now sending the rearing milk that it had received from the Zurich Zoo. Now the replacement food goes to the Schönbrunn zoo, where an elephant baby was also born on Wednesday. Arms between the old cows: In addition to mother Kariba (right), the young animal is also based on Lilak (left), the matriarch of Herdelando Hassin Kronberg, it was the first elephant birth in 57 years – after 641 days of wearing after the last blanket. In the meantime, Kaja measures about 1.50 meters to the shoulder. If she is a good six months old, the zookeepers will start training. Then Scheinkönig will teach the little elephant with a bamboo stick, to raise your feet and move the ears to command. The animal should not learn how to learn to: “We have to be able to call up every part of the body in order to be able to provide it medically.” The female calf, which can remain with the mother, calls “nucleus for a functioning herd of elephant” more on the subject of zoo director. Elephant bulls are loners, so Kaja’s father Tamo is not with the others either. At the age of 20, Kariba is rather old for a first -time bonus, says Kauffels. But she could be covered again. The third cow Cristina and her son Neco should get to know Kaja soon. But first the elephant baby will explore the outdoor area in peace – always in the morning.
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