http://www.australiazoo.com.au/abou...continues-with-new-pregnancy-at-australia-zoo Mum is named Kaitlyn & Dad is Ramalon.
Ok I'm pleased that Australia Zoo is going to have cubs, and that the mother is one of the wild born tigers, as the article says, Kaitlyn is considered one of the most genetically valuable individuals in the world; But why did they mate her with Ramalon. Of course he is fertile, he already has six living offspring. His full brothers have offspring, in fact he is from a bloodline that is SO overrepresented it is not funny. There are other male tigers that they could have mated her with that aren't so over represented.
I would have liked ozz to have mated with her or her sister breeding her with Ramalon not the best plan if they had breed her with ozz then her cubs could have breed with any one besides Jalur Beranni and Cinta that would have been the best opotion
I am sure there is a good reason behind the pairing; either way, it is fantastic news (lets not count our tigers before they hatch) that the female tiger's genes will be entering the breeding program.
I'm sure they have their reasons for who they decided to mate her to. If the zoo staff are anyone like me with my cat breeding, they will have planned to 5 generations from now.
In fact, Sumatran tiger pregnancy length is 3-4 months, so she must have gotten pregnant straight after she lost the other litter! No idea if it's the same with big cats, but I breed pedigree British Shorthairs, and if we do a back to back mating like this, it usually produces larger than average litter size.
Tigers can get pregnant within days of losing a cub, as can lions etc. It'd be great if Kaitlyn had a large litter, not sure if the zoo would allow her to raise them or whether they would handraise them. It will be interesting to see how Kaitlyn reacts to them, being handraised, but socialised with her species from a young age.
According to the news she didn't actually 'lose' the cubs but reabsobed the feotus back into her body. Wiouldn't it solve some problems if humans could do that.
Must have done! The cubs have been sexed as two boys. And they were sexed by a tiger keeper who went into the den with the mother. Four days after the cubs were born. Not sure what I think about that, seems a bit "Lion Man"-esque to me.
I saw a clip of a recorded interview over the weekend from a few months ago that was done on live morning TV. The guys were in the enclosure with her and were feeding her milk from a baby bottle. She seemed pretty tame...
