Giraffes Can Be Trained to Weigh Themselves on Special Scales

Zookeepers at the San Diego Zoo weigh and measure new giraffe calf Obi.

Transcript

00:00We're here at the San Diego Zoo today, and we're weighing and measuring our new baby giraffe calf, Obie.

00:12Weighing Obie, it's a little bit of a process.

00:15First, we have to set up a scale for him, get that all ready to go.

00:19And then shifting them in can be a little challenging when they're young at this stage,

00:23because they're just starting to take solid food.

00:25So it's hard to get them in and understand that they can get food for coming inside.

00:33And then once he was inside, we actually have a special giraffe chute or hugger that we can bring them in and get that weight.

00:41And he's just now learning how to go through the chute.

00:43So it's a little bit of a slow process to get him to come in, but once he did, he did really well.

00:48And he walked all the way in and he stopped just like we would like for him to do, which was great.

00:55And then he walks out nice and calmly.

01:01So it was a very good weigh-in session today.

01:04And then along with weighing them, it's always nice to catch up and measure them and see how tall they are.

01:09It's a little easier for us to do that out on exhibit with a couple people.

01:13So we took an opportunity today to also get a height on him just to see how much he's growing.

01:18Obie's height today was 6'8 and he was 5'3 when he was born.

01:26His weight today was 270 pounds.

01:29And again, he was only 117 pounds when he was born.

01:32So this shows you how much in just a couple months, how much they do grow in that amount of time.

01:37We were really excited when he was born.

01:41Of course, they're always cute, but him being even extra smaller just makes them extra cute.

01:47And we've really just enjoyed watching him grow up and watching his personality come out.

01:52He's really sweet, really curious.

01:54So it's been a lot of fun.