Orphan Rhinos
On 3rd April 2009 a baby male White Rhino was found abandoned in the veldt- still wet from his birth. From the ground-sign it was apparent that his mother had been chased off by an elephant herd and all efforts to find her over the following 3 days- by foot, vehicle & helicopter- were fruitless. In the meantime he needed milk and so he was taken in and named "Khombe" after the Zulu word for White Rhino.
We quickly constructed a stable & corral for the little guy who readily (read "greedily") accepted the bottle and settled well although he needed company- so we got him a nanny goat- "mBuzi" as a friend.
The little guy went through 2 liters of milk 6 times a day- every 4 hours day & night. Rhino milk is similar to horse milk (very low fat, high milk sugar compared to cow's milk) so we had to get him onto commercial foal milk formula.
At the beginning of July 2009 our good friend & client Mick Reilly of Big Game Parks, Swaziland called to say that he had a problem with a 5 week old baby female White Rhino who was eating dry grass since her mother's milk had dried up for some reason- we later figured out that it was due to the calf having been premature. We were obliged to immobilize mum and remove the calf for bottle-raising. Thus "Nyoni Rhino" arrived at Zvaka-naka to join Khombe.
Little Nyoni was very small (in fact smaller @ 5 wks than a newborn), in shocking body condition, absolutely covered in tick bites and with an attitude from hell. She wanted to kill us all- people, goat and especially the other rhino calf Khombe. She was a horror- pinning her ears back and roaring as she charged- smashing into ankles or any other tender bits. It took a huge amount of patience (and courage) to get her onto the bottle after many sleepless nights. For this we are hugely indebted to our helping star Amy Kacharowski- a volunteer from Canada- who had agreed to extend her stay with us specifically to help settle the little fireball into the family. Between Amy & Lisa they did a wonderful job at overcoming the little rhino's fear-fueled aggression and getting her to accept the all important nutrition of the bottle. Since then little Nyoni hasn't looked back and is the most loving & affectionate (although mischievous) young rhino.
The two rhino quickly formed an iron-strong bond and are totally inseparable. They grew rapidly and were each soon glugging down over 20 liters of milk formula per day. Our various volunteer students were invaluable in assisting my fatigued wife by doing midnight feeds until Nyoni was about 4 or 5 months old at which time this feed was no longer necessary.
At the beginning of November 2009 potential disaster struck- Nyoni pulled the rubber teat off her milk bottle and -before anyone could react - she swallowed it whole. Dosing with mineral oil yielded no rubber teat in the dung but she continued unaffected for over a week until colic set in and she showed obvious discomfort and went off her milk. I gave her 24 hours before making the decision to load her and take her on the 9 hour trip to the Onderstepoort Veterinary Academic Hospital in Pretoria for surgery. We arrived at about 9pm and the Onderstepoort team set to work under the guidance of senior equine colic surgeon Dr Johan Marais. The surgical team was brilliant and soon located and removed the rubber teat from the stomach outlet.
We kept watch over her all night. In the morning she was sore but of greater concern was her depression- I knew I had to get her back to her friend Khombe asap (Lisa had also told me on the phone that he was incredibly upset at Nyoni's absence and was going absolutely berserk). We arrived home in the dark, cold, windy rain but that didn't stop the incredible display of affectionate greeting between these 2 young rhinos- with both of them squealing with intense relief of being reunited throughout the offloading.
Since then Nyoni was quickly on the mend and back to her old self- these animals astound one with how tough they really are. She is a fighter and a survivor- which we always should have known given her history. Just 8 weeks after the operation her scar is barely visible depite her insistance on dunking her wound into a filthy mud wallow every day!
The 2 of them now have the run of the garden during the day- mowing the lawn & making a nuisance of themselves whenever visitors are trying to drive through the gate. They are truly part of the furniture. The next step is to construct a larger camp outside the garden where they can graze- as soon as finances allow. Until then they will be our rather intimidating watchdogs!
