Chester Zoo Pregnant Rhino

hi rhino buddies.does anybody know how many black rhino's have been born at chester zoo since they first arrived?many thanks for any help.
 
6 have been born there, including the two females on show in the Tsavo rhino house
 
ZooMania said:
6 is rather poor of a number is you aks me considering how many rhinos they've had.
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it gets worse. None of the 4 previous calves born at Chester (before Kitani & Mayani that is) themselves bred, either at Chester or elsewhere. Two of them died quite young, and the other two- Emma & Jasper, died as adults never having bred. 6 is indeed a very low number of births given the long period they've been keeping this species.
 
unicornis there was 2 other rhino births in the 90's one of the young was stillborn and the other survived a week before dying.they were both males.these 2 were the offspring of esther and parky.also after the birth of kitani and manyara the male(quinto)was moved to another collection and an unproven male was brought in.the same happened with parky and hence the rhino breeding program at chester zoo was put back.what i can gather the zoo had no real say in what happened with the proven males and had to send them to other collections.
 
maximus that is very interesting.i now see why the breeding program had stopped until now.i suppose it can be frustrating for the staff to have been breeding black rhino so well and then having no say in what happens with the proven males and end up not breeding black rhino for nearly 10 years.
 
maximus said:
unicornis there was 2 other rhino births in the 90's one of the young was stillborn and the other survived a week before dying.they were both males.these 2 were the offspring of esther and parky.also after the birth of kitani and manyara the male(quinto)was moved to another collection and an unproven male was brought in.the same happened with parky and hence the rhino breeding program at chester zoo was put back.what i can gather the zoo had no real say in what happened with the proven males and had to send them to other collections.
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Yes, by six births I actually was referring to ones where the animals survived the early months. It is still a very low number given they've kept the species since the early 1960's and Kitani will be the first Chester-bred rhino to produce a calf of her own.

I think both Parky(to Port Lympne) and Quinto (to Whipsnade) were sent elsewhere during periods when there was no breeding potential for them at Chester. This was probably a sensible decision at the time but the problem was with the younger bulls which arrived and no more breeding took place. Both Esther and Pangani should have been able to produce more calves than they did. And with both of them (and the original Emma) dead there's not much breeding opportunity for Quinto now.
 
the only reason thay did not produce more calves is the males were sent away and had no chance of geting the females pregnent again before thay where moved on ie seperate the calf at a year old get the female pregnent at this age the calf would be old enought and allso easter had 3 full term calves born that is very good for a animal at that age ie 15 months gestation 3calves need to try harder bye
 
taun said:
6 have been born there, including the two females on show in the Tsavo rhino house
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From a posting in a previous thread

Black Rhinos born at Chester Zoo are

1967 1.0 Reginald exported to Moscow
1971 1.0 Jaspa exported to Paignton and later returned
1973 0.1 Linda, died 1975
1991 0.1 Emma
1993 1.0 did not survive
1994 1.0 did not survive
1997 0.1 Kitani
1998 0.1 Manyara
 
unicornis said:
teaster had 3 full term calves born that is very good for a animal at that age
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3 calves is not a great total overall for an adult breeding female to produce in her lifetime... some of Port Lympne's (and elsewhere) have had five or six... sadly Esther's only surviving offspring now is Manyara(or is it Kitani?)
 
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if esther did not die at such a early age she would of went on to have more calves she did very well for her age and changing males to often did not help
 
Agreed Do you know why Esther died? I was told that either Esther or her daughter Emma collapsed and died suddenly after a mating session with a male. I don't remember which one it was though.

I'm hopeful Chester can get the current rhinos breeding more regularly though...
 
Well, am hoping to try and get an update this weekend. As am sure it was mentioned somewhere here that she was due mid september.

Does anyone else has any news on this? If not I hope to update this sometime at the weekend.
 
Pygathrix said:
I was at the zoo last weekend and the baby had not been born then
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Yep still no baby rhino, but they are all prepared incase anything happens from now on.

There keeping one side of Rhino house off limits, just incase she goes into labour so they can hopefully shut her off in a clean area.
 
Went to day, no signs of a baby rhino.

How Kitani is now seperated from Manyarai and has access to a back pen which has a sand covered floor ready for a birth.

Having watched them for a few years now, Kitani definitely seemed a little stressed hopefully she was just uncomfortable or the calf was on her way.
 
Baby Rhino

Went to the zoo today (30 October 08). Kitani gave birth last night. Tsavo is currently closed to allow mother and baby to settle. We spoke to a keeper (carnivores) who told us they were doing OK but they didn't know the sex yet.
 
Yeah, thats great!!! I am keeping my fingers crossed that things will continue to go well!
 
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