The Endangered Species centre located an orphaned rhino in the mud late on Wednesday & are delighted to announce that Muddy, has found his surrogate mother.
The baby rhino was found on a private nature reserve in the vicinity of the Hoedspruit Endangered Species Centre, he was completely stuck in mud. It is suspected that his family left him behind when they could not free him.
Dr C. Steinmann and Janelle were called to rescue the young animal and bring him to the centre where he was immediately treated for dehydration, and given vitamin injections to boost his immune system.
This baby rhino is approximately two weeks old and weighs 50 kg. He’s been given the name ‘Muddy’ – for obvious reasons. As Muddy was clearly stuck in the mud for some time, his little feet are very soft. It will take a bit of time before they get back to normal. Thankfully they are already starting to dry out, despite him having been at HESC for not even a full day.
About three weeks ago the centre received another baby rhino. They have a resident pedi female sheep that acts as a surrogate to the babies who they look after when their mothers have been poached or they have been abandoned.
This sheep is crucial for the babies as they cant have too close human contact. The challenge is that the sheep (her name is Lammie) can only “foster” one baby at a time and they desperately needed another female Pedi sheep to help be a surrogate for the latest baby.
The arrival of Muddy put the reserve in a bit of a difficult position, because they did not have a Pedi Sheep to mother the orphaned rhino. They appealed to the community for assistance, and once again they came to the party with a solution. An extremely generous man from Tzaneen, Scott Atherstone sponsored the Pedi Sheep & we couldn’t be happier for little Muddy.
“Our new mother sheep hasn’t been named yet, and as a precautionary measure we are keeping her in quarantine for a while before our curators introduce her to Muddy, her baby rhino.”
“THANK YOU a million times over. We are beyond grateful.”
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