Elephant calf Fenya's morning milk bottle 🍼🐘with Adine💚

Greetings from Fenya the Survivor’s Nursery💚!

Fenya has reacted well to her new surroundings, eating grass and branches continuously and snacking on apples, bananas, oranges and sweet potatoes, and we are so happy that she is now taking milk from a bottle from her carers and Adine beautifully — tremendous progress considering the horrendous one-to-two month ordeal she has gone through with the snare around her neck.

She has come a long way, but she is still very weak and thin. We have run blood tests and they have shown that her red cell count is low and albumin is extremely low, not a surprise considering how starved she was when rescued. We have increased her milk intake, we have to do this cautiously to try to avoid diarrhea, and are glad that she is now also eating a few pellets or "boskos" as we call it and some Lucerne among the branches, bark and grass. Her dung so far has remained in a healthy condition.

The team continue to monitor and clean her wounds daily — trying to make life as comfortable as possible for her while still doing the difficult work of treating severe and sensitive wounds.

Dr Rogers and the team from Provet returned yesterday to have a good look at Fenya’s wounds. He put the calf under a low dose of BAM standing sedation, and gave her wounds a thorough clean, administered extra vitamins through a drip but decided she is too weak to undergo stronger sedation at the moment to start stitching the wounds.

Once she is strong enough we will consider doing a blood transfusion from one of the Jabulani elephants to assist with the low albumin levels.

Fenya is slowly developing a bond with her new family, carers Joshua, Liverson, Reply, Khensani and Adine. We are so grateful for the team providing her with constant care and company during the day and night. Joshua says the trick is to sleep like a rabbit beside her, during the night shift, to be alert enough to monitor her and keep her feeding at intervals between sleep.

We are in the process of getting her used to the presence of the scale in her nursery to soon be able to weigh her and properly track her progress. We managed to measure her height which reads at 184cm!

We have to remember that with immense emotional trauma and the sensitive natures of baby elephants, we must remain alert and cautious. In the case of calves, especially those that have experienced intense trauma, their conditions can change at any time.

Thank you to everyone again for all the support and love - we are overwhelmed by everyone's kindness and concern.💚

To Donate: https://herd.org.za/product/donate/

Видео Elephant calf Fenya's morning milk bottle 🍼🐘with Adine💚 канала HERD Elephant Orphanage South Africa