Recently a tiger gave birth to a rare set of triplet tiger cubs in California USA. Unfortunately, due to complications in the pregnancy, the cubs were born prematurely and due to their tiny size, they died shortly after birth
The mother tiger after recovering from the delivery, suddenly started to decline in health, although physically she was fine. The veterinarians felt that the loss of her litter had caused the tigress to fall into a depression. The doctors decided that the tigress could surrogate another mother.
After checking with many other zoos across the country, the zoo was unable to find any tiger cubs of the right age to introduce to the mourning mother. Nevertheless the veterinarians decided to try something that had never been tried in a zoo environment.
Sometimes a mother of one species will take on the care of a different species. The only orphans that could be found quickly, were a litter of weanling pigs. The zoo keepers and vets wrapped the piglets in tiger skin and placed the babies around the mother tiger. Would they become cubs or pork chops?
Interestingly the source of this story has a domain name entitled fiveblondes !
Monday 11 February 2008
Tigress Acts as Surrogate to a Piglet Litter
Labels:
Animals,
Geography,
Health,
Human Interest,
Science
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