Pregnant Rhino » Chester Zoo

15-05-2008

what exactly do you mean by 'fully mature'? what makes him different to sammi and mugardi? I'm not very clued up on rhino's, I just have an interest/soft spot

15-05-2008

Fully mature term i believe means the bull is a full grown adult who is also a proven bull.

16-05-2008

Absolutely. Quinto and Kingo (now again at Port Lympne) are both in their twenties. Both reached full size and weight a long while back, and they are experienced in mating. Such bulls are usually more successful at serving/impregnating females than their younger,smaller & less experienced counterparts. In Black rhino 'full maturity' is reached at about ten years- though ' mating experience' in captivity will obviously depend on the number of female partners available.

16-05-2008

Thanks for the confimation. I do feel that chester only other hope for another calf in Manyari.

Rosie seems quite a handfull even to the fully mature Quinto and the other pairing seem a couple of years to young.

16-05-2008

Even an experienced bull like Quinto can't mate if the female won't let him. I believe he chased Rosie around a lot so she became stressed and so they(probably wisely) parted them. The problem is with Rosie obviously. The difference between a mature bull and a younger one is the older bull is less intimated by 'odd' or aggressive behaviour in a female and he's also likey to be much more persistant in his mating attempts too...
Its just possible in Rosie's case she might find one of the younger males more to her liking, so I imagine they might try a different pairing here.

Its unfortunate too that Quinto is Mayani's father as that would probably be a successful mating otherwise...

I guess I should add that 'proven' (obviously) isn't the same as 'fully mature' -the first relates to mating ability, the second to growth & age- though they're often connected... If Kitani is pregnant by Sammy then he is a proven bull- but he's not yet a fully mature one...

21-05-2008

hi rhino buddies.does anybody know how many black rhino's have been born at chester zoo since they first arrived?many thanks for any help.

21-05-2008

6 have been born there, including the two females on show in the Tsavo rhino house

22-05-2008

6 is rather poor of a number is you aks me considering how many rhinos they've had.

22-05-2008

it gets worse. None of the 4 previous calves born at Chester (before Kitani & Mayani that is) themselves bred, either at Chester or elsewhere. Two of them died quite young, and the other two- Emma & Jasper, died as adults never having bred. 6 is indeed a very low number of births given the long period they've been keeping this species.

22-05-2008

unicornis there was 2 other rhino births in the 90's one of the young was stillborn and the other survived a week before dying.they were both males.these 2 were the offspring of esther and parky.also after the birth of kitani and manyara the male(quinto)was moved to another collection and an unproven male was brought in.the same happened with parky and hence the rhino breeding program at chester zoo was put back.what i can gather the zoo had no real say in what happened with the proven males and had to send them to other collections.

22-05-2008

maximus that is very interesting.i now see why the breeding program had stopped until now.i suppose it can be frustrating for the staff to have been breeding black rhino so well and then having no say in what happens with the proven males and end up not breeding black rhino for nearly 10 years.

23-05-2008

Yes, by six births I actually was referring to ones where the animals survived the early months. It is still a very low number given they've kept the species since the early 1960's and Kitani will be the first Chester-bred rhino to produce a calf of her own.

I think both Parky(to Port Lympne) and Quinto (to Whipsnade) were sent elsewhere during periods when there was no breeding potential for them at Chester. This was probably a sensible decision at the time but the problem was with the younger bulls which arrived and no more breeding took place. Both Esther and Pangani should have been able to produce more calves than they did. And with both of them (and the original Emma) dead there's not much breeding opportunity for Quinto now.

24-05-2008

the only reason thay did not produce more calves is the males were sent away and had no chance of geting the females pregnent again before thay where moved on ie seperate the calf at a year old get the female pregnent at this age the calf would be old enought and allso easter had 3 full term calves born that is very good for a animal at that age ie 15 months gestation 3calves need to try harder bye

24-05-2008

From a posting in a previous thread

Black Rhinos born at Chester Zoo are

1967 1.0 Reginald exported to Moscow
1971 1.0 Jaspa exported to Paignton and later returned
1973 0.1 Linda, died 1975
1991 0.1 Emma
1993 1.0 did not survive
1994 1.0 did not survive
1997 0.1 Kitani
1998 0.1 Manyara

26-05-2008

3 calves is not a great total overall for an adult breeding female to produce in her lifetime... some of Port Lympne's (and elsewhere) have had five or six... sadly Esther's only surviving offspring now is Manyara(or is it Kitani?)