Your morning adorable: Keepers bottle-feed rhinoceros calf in German zoo

The Allwetter Zoo in Muenster, Germany, welcomed a baby rhinoceros Sunday.  Because the calf's mother showed signs of nervousness and aggression during the birth, zoo staff decided to separate the two and now plan to raise the calf themselves.  A team of keepers will care for the hefty infant (only a day after its birth, it already weighs more than 100 pounds) around the clock.

Zoo staffers will have their work cut out for them keeping up with the calf's appetite; young rhinos normally drink 12 gallons of milk each day and gain an average of 100 pounds a month!  More photos of the calf after the jump.

-- Lindsay Barnett

1st, 4th photos: Bernd Thissen / European Pressphoto Agency
2nd, 3rd photos: Mark Keppler / Associated Press

Comments

[Nicole, Los Angeles]

How adorable!

[Carolina]

Loved the pictures. Just would love more people in this world could care and protect, respect and love animals.
A nice news to start my day.

[Mz_Understood]

Hopefully they will find an area to add this baby to the rhino habitat there. It is common practice in Europe to allow the zoo animals to breed, take advantage of the extra visitors that the baby brings in, and then euthanize it when it becomes an adult and is no longer an attraction. They have no intention of keeping the animal or sending it to another zoo. It is one of those dirty little secrets they prefer people not know. Knut, the polar bear was lucky as he was spared because amount of international attention he received. The European zoos need to start using birth control and stop using these babies with the intention to euthanize them at the end of the season.