April the giraffe still has not had her baby!

[csziggy]

Streaming video at:

I watched a couple of hours last night and stopped because I didn't think she was going to have her baby soon. I've never watched a giraffe have a baby except on video but from my experience monitoring my mares foaling I didn't think April was within a day or two.

Tonight she is much more restless and she's not spending any time hanging out with the giraffe outside her stall. The position of the baby has changed, which can be another sign birth is closer. I'm not sure she'll have her baby tonight but will watch for a while!

[shenmue]

1. Awwww

[PoindexterOglethorpe]

2. Has she been in labor all this time?

Or is the live streaming simply because she's near term?

[csziggy]

3. I think it was because she is near term

The streaming began, according to the YouTube page, on Feb. 23.

As a long time horse breeder I know it's hard to estimate exactly when birth will occur even when you know the exact breeding date and the average length of gestation for the individual mare. I had one mare who carried almost every foal for 342 days - two out of a dozen were not born at that gestational length. One was born 24 hours past that length, the other was two weeks early.

And as a mare watcher, I have to say that even when I KNEW the mares were not ready to foal because the time was too short, their milk wasn't ready, the hormone tests said not, I was out there every night from a month before they were due checking on the mares and watching for those babies! That's one reason my mares let me handle their foals from the first - they were used to me being around in the middle of the night.

[PoindexterOglethorpe]

8. So, just like humans.

A lot of women think their "due date" is either the exact date they'll have the baby, or it's the date which is the last possible date to have it. No one, least of all the OB, explains to them that it's a midpoint, based on average length of human gestation, and plus or minus two weeks (or perhaps plus or minus three weeks) is the normal range for humans.

I'm sure there is some normal range for all mammmals.

[Laffy Kat]

4. Poor mama.

She been in confinement all this time? She must be getting tired of being inside. Maybe she should be able to walk around some.

[csziggy]

5. I guess they want to monitor her closely

I'm not sure how tame the giraffes are. If she were out in a larger enclosure it would be harder to keep her in view of a camera to watch her without disturbing her.

As I said above, my mares were used to me being around them in the pastures at night. Most of them had been born here and had known me from the moment they hit the ground. So me wandering the pastures and checking on them didn't bother them.

But when we first started breeding many of the mares we bought were not trusting and did not like having people around. There was even one who was a danger to anything that got into her pasture. Before I bought her, she'd taken a chunk out of the vet's back when he was treating her sick foal. We stayed out of her pasture when she foaled but one of our cats didn't and almost lost his life. She picked him up with her teeth, shook him and threw him twenty feet! Ruptured all the muscles in his abdomen and he had to be sewn up from one hip to the other.

[3catwoman3]

6. Those poor giraffe babies...

...have such a long drop.

[fNord]

7. Not my thing, but......

Been watching! Well, checking in from time to time...... I love giraffes!.....

It's like if Goddess painted a zebra with leopard paint, stretched out its neck, gave 'me alien ears, and a black tongue......awesome!

I go to the D.C. Zoo at least once a year, and wile my friends are off antagonizing the primates, I'm always hanging with the giraffes......( the keepers let me feed one!......once)

Agin, this is not my kind of thing, but..... watching

Thanks for posting

[Throckmorton]

9. She is waiting for March 14th.

My 20 year old daughter is an absolute giraffe fanatic.

March 14th will be the 13th anniversary of her mother, April's Death.

Maybe they can name the infant giraffe Allie!