Santa Rosa's Safari West bottle‑feeds baby giraffe goat milk from Coke bottle to keep it alive

SANTA ROSA, Calif. (KGO) -- Goat milk from a Coke bottle is not how most baby giraffes have their first meals. But at Safari West Wildlife Preserve in Santa Rosa, that's how a baby giraffe got the help he needed from the start.

The unnamed male giraffe was born Sunday at the wildlife preserve, where staff quickly realized something was wrong.

"It is definitely not normal for us to intervene and bottle feed," said Nikki Smith, the animal collections manager at Safari West. "But in his case, he was very small. Giraffes are born 6 feet tall. And his maybe 5-5? And a little under 70 pounds."

Veterinarians stepped in after the calf failed to stand within a normal timeframe.

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"When he wasn't standing up, close to a regular timeline, we went and checked on him. Got a temperature. He was hypothermic, so he wasn't regulating his temperature like he should. And that's when we decided to intervene," said Ashley Foster, a veterinarian at Safari West.

Staff say the baby giraffe is now making tremendous progress. He shares a pen with a premature calf and is expected to gain about 10 pounds a week. He could remain on the bottle for up to nine months or longer before being gradually introduced back to the giraffe herd, which includes his mother. She didn't feed him at birth, which is part of the problem.

"She definitely seems like she is interested. She does nuzzle him and all the normal behaviors. But she goes to connect to her udder, she seems to not want to do that," Smith said.

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Safari West staff noted giraffes have a high mortality rate in the wild. Another giraffe at the preserve, Safeera, was born with an infection and also failed to bond with her mother. She was bottle-fed and is now 2 years old, giving staff hope for the new arrival.

"Hopefully he will actually start to get a little taller, little wider, little stronger. He is already strong. They are surprisingly strong for their size, especially him being as small as he is," Smith said. "He has got a lot of fight in him. And that's definitely what we need to help him survive."