Dublin Zoo Baby Elephants' Birthday

As if Saturday wasn't special enough being Beckett's Birthday, it turned out that it was also the birthday of Dublin Zoo's three baby Asian Elephants, Kavi, Ashoka and Samiya. To celebrate the day The Natural Confectionery Company and Dublin Zoo hosted a special media event. For the weekend, the Zoo was transformed into an elephantastic birthday bash with music, face-painting, fun and games and a whole host of fun-filled family activities.

So at 9am we rolled up to Dublin Zoo ready for Beckett's first visit and his first glimpse of a whole host of animals, especially the baby elephants.

To say Beckett was excited would be an understatement. He was totally captivated by the crazy little elephants. Between just rambling around and play fighting with each other, he absolutely loved it. To make it all even better, we also had the opportunity to meet Gerry Creighton, Operations Manager for Animals & Grounds at Dublin Zoo.

  

Beckett and Jules checking out the Elephants

Beckett hanging out with Gerry Creighton, Operations
Manager for Animals & Grounds at Dublin Zoo

Dublin Zoo’s elephant care team shared some of the calves’ developmental highlights as they continue to thrive:

• Kavi now weighs almost 700kg, or the weight of a fully grown dairy cow. Little brother Ashoka weighs in at 500kg while little sister Samiya is a dainty 450kg. At birth they weighed in at 80kg, 70kg and 68kg respectively
• All the calves are still drinking from their mothers and will do until they reach about five years of age or another calf is born. Their appetite is increasing and they have begun to enjoy solids like hay and fruit. Their favourite foods include bananas and apples. The calves all love to pile on top of one another to sleep. Their big sister Asha, now eight years old, keeps an eye on them. The keepers can see from their night cameras that the calves like to wake the whole elephant house in the morning by jumping on their mothers!
• They sleep for an average of six hours a night and take regular naps during the day, particularly on hot days when they tire themselves out playing with the water
• Kavi is a brave little bull who likes to follow his father Upali. Ashoka started off a little shyer but now that he’s getting bigger he’s challenging his brother more each day
• Samiya enjoys spending time with her mother Dina and sister Asha but also loves to play with her brothers. She also likes chasing wild birds out of her habitat
• All three love to wrestle and splash in the two large outdoor pools, climb on big boulders, tree stumps and sometimes their sleeping mother’s heads!
• They are actively swimming more and more each day. After a dip in the pool they like to roll around in the sand to dry off before enjoying some more wrestling!
• As their confidence increases, they are learning how to use their voices more and more to communicate