Zoo Keepers Rear Abandoned Antelope

7:10pm UK, Saturday January 23, 2010
Heather Christie, Sky News Online

The first Kirk's dik-dik antelope has been born at Chester Zoo, but because it was rejected by its mother, the keepers are stepping in to raise the baby.

Standing only a few centimetres tall, the female newborn was abandoned by her mother who gave her the cold shoulder during the recent big freeze.

While the zoo's keepers are looking after the youngster, they told Sky News that a reunion between mother and baby is not on the cards.

"It's probably unlikely, unfortunately. Mum stopped looking after her and keeping her warm, so we've had to do that instead," senior keeper Helen Massey told Sky News.

Ms Massey and her team are hand-rearing the unnamed baby. They are bottle feeding it milk five times a day until she is old enough to eat the species' regular diet of buds, shoots, and fruits.

The spindly-legged creature is also being fed hay and a nutritious concentrate.

"Kirk's dik-dik is one of the smaller of the antelope species but what they lack in stature, they make up for in appeal," she said.

"Our addition is growing stronger by the day and we hope she will be holding her own in the next few weeks."

Although the little one does not have a name yet, Ms Massey says her staff are working on one.

"We're hoping to decide on a name all together, we need to whole team to be here for that, though," she told Sky News.

Click here to see more pictures of the baby antelope.

A tiny species that looks like a pygmy deer, the Kirk's dik-dik is Native to Kenya, Tanzania, and Namibia and is named for the sound it makes when fleeing danger.

The Chester newborn, whose parents arrived to Britain in 2008, will grow to be about 40cm tall.

The female's parents came from Colchester and Hanover zoos.

See video at: http://news.sky.com/skynews/Home/UK-News/First-Kirks-Dik-Dick-Antelope-Is-Born-At-Chester-Zoo/Article/201001415534237?f=rss