Skip to playerSkip to main content
  • 11 months ago
The Folly Farm family is expected to grow later this year, as the team announce their breeding female Dakima is pregnant with her second baby.

Category

šŸ—ž
News
Transcript
00:00You know, what started over 30 years ago as a little dairy farm to now have rhinos that
00:09could one day go back into the wild is absolutely amazing.
00:13Folly Farm is a family holiday staple for so many people in Wales, but on top of that
00:18fun day out, the team worked tirelessly to help endangered species of animals survive
00:23and have babies and keep species alive.
00:25This year Folly Farm have announced some very special news as they're set to get another
00:29baby as part of the family in the form of a little rhino calf due later this year.
00:34So we have eastern black rhinos here at Folly Farm and we have three rhinos.
00:41We have a breeding pair and a non-breeding female.
00:45She's unable to breed because of a few health issues, but our breeding pair have already
00:50bred and giving birth to Glyn in 2020.
00:54And we're pleased to announce that in November a new calf will be born, if all goes well,
01:02to Dekima and Nkosi.
01:06Spare a thought for Dekima, who's been pregnant since August and is carrying a baby rhino for
01:10well over a year.
01:11The team of Folly Farm say they're making sure to give her extra care and attention while
01:15she's carrying the new baby and need to stock up a little bit of food.
01:19But can you blame her?
01:19She's got an awfully big extra mouth to feed.
01:22So, yeah, she conceived in August last year.
01:26It's a 15 to 16 month gestation.
01:29So, yeah, a really long time.
01:31But that ensures that when the calf is born, it's able to get up, walk around, even run
01:38around away from many predators in the wild.
01:41So they keep it nice and safely inside them until the very last minute and it pops out.
01:48But Dekima will get increased care, so she may have an increase in appetite to feed that
01:54extra little body.
01:57The eastern black rhino are one of the most endangered species of rhinoceros in the world.
02:01Jack says it's really important to the team at Folly Farm to be able to help species like
02:05this, given their low numbers in the wild.
02:09So there's lots of different types of rhino, but the specific ones that we have, they're known
02:13as the eastern black rhino, and there are around 1,400 of them left in the wild.
02:20Their numbers are increasing, thankfully, but rhinos in general aren't doing very well
02:26because of the poaching for their horn.
02:28So the horn is used in traditional Asian medicine in places like China and Vietnam.
02:35And about two or three rhinos a day are killed in South Africa alone, and that's purely just
02:43for their horn.
02:44And it doesn't have any medicinal value, so it's actually been scientifically proven.
02:50This won't be Dekima's first baby, though, as she's already had Glyn, born in 2020, who's
02:55hoped to be part of a breeding pair in the near future.
Comments

Recommended