Baby Elephants

I love babies. And baby elephants are just way fun!

These are a few photos from the David Sheldrick Wildlife Trust elephant orphanage nursery division in Nairobi, Kenya.

It was a really fun and awesome day!

A two year old drinking his milk. He gets 3 bottles every 4 hours.

The little ones heading off with their keepers. Each baby has keepers assigned 'round the clock. Elephant calves need their mamas just like human babies do. The keepers are the surrogates and even sleep with the babies in their pens, waking up their charges for night feedings as well. I love their little security blankets... so colorful.

Elephants like eating leaves. Their trunks come in really "handy" for helping them pick stuff up and getting it to their mouths.

Here come the babies for their noon feeding. They raced towards their assigned keepers waiting with their milk bottles. This little guy won by a lot.

And the winner is... The littlest ones drink two bottles of milk every 4 hours.

Elephants are allergic to cow's milk. It gives them diarrhea and they die. So, they drink a baby formula milk from England, which was designed for human babies, but after trial and error they found it's perfect for baby elephants.

They're just so cute!!!

This keeper was awesome. She told us everything we ever wanted to know about elephant babies. She's the one talking in the video below. I think this is her dream job. Lucky!

This little guy was so cute. He sniffed me up, covering me with orange Kenyan mud. Apparently, he liked the way I smelled. Absolutely amazing!

I love baby elephants... sigh.

And nope, my mom won't let me have one.