Chester Zoo's premature arrival stands tall at 5ft

Jan 31 2008 by Liam Murphy, Liverpool Daily Post

DESPITE being two weeks premature the latest addition to Chester Zoo’s collection is already standing tall.

Margaret is one of the small-est giraffes ever born at the Zoo and is the first female Rothschild giraffe born there.

Little Margaret is being hand-reared by her keepers who are bottle-feeding the baby giraffe.

The first calf for six-year-old mum Fay, Margaret, tipped the scales at just 34 kilos and is a mere 5ft tall.

Giraffe’s are usually pregnant for 14 to 15 months and give birth standing up. Within hours of being born the babies can usually move around themselves, although they tend to spend their first couple of weeks not exploring too much.

Tim Rowlands, team leader of the Giraffes section, said: “Margaret is potentially one of the smallest giraffe calves we have ever seen. Fay isn’t the largest of giraffes and Margaret was also early which might go some way to explaining her size.

“Margaret was having difficulty suckling so our keeping team are now hand-rearing her and she is going from strength-to-strength.

“We have a good track record when it comes to breeding giraffes and we are delighted to welcome another to the fold.”

The birth of Margaret – who is named after Tim’s mum – is all the more welcome as there are only 600 Rothschild giraffes left in the wild, primarily in Kenya and Uganda.

Rothschild giraffes, also known as Baringo Giraffes, are one of nine generally accepted types of giraffe, which are spread across Africa from Chad to South Africa.

The giraffe house is open to the public, where zoo visitors can see the new addition.

Last year a local farmer won an environmental award for a unique scheme to feed Chester Zoo’s giraffes using willow he cut back to create a wetland habitat for birds on his land.

Chester Zoo has enjoyed some success breeding giraffe’s, with baby giraffe Molly who weighed in at 150 lbs – and was walking 30 minutes later – being born in November 2006.

Margaret’s story also features in the new series of Zoo Days, which takes viewers behind the scenes at the Zoo, and starts on Channel Five on March 3.

liammurphy