The Folly Farm family is expected to grow later this year, as the team announce their breeding female Dakima is pregnant with her second baby.
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00:00You know, what started over 30 years ago as a little dairy farm to now have rhinos that
00:09could one day go back into the wild is absolutely amazing.
00:13Folly Farm is a family holiday staple for so many people in Wales, but on top of that
00:18fun day out, the team worked tirelessly to help endangered species of animals survive
00:23and have babies and keep species alive.
00:25This year Folly Farm have announced some very special news as they're set to get another
00:29baby as part of the family in the form of a little rhino calf due later this year.
00:34So we have eastern black rhinos here at Folly Farm and we have three rhinos.
00:41We have a breeding pair and a non-breeding female.
00:45She's unable to breed because of a few health issues, but our breeding pair have already
00:50bred and giving birth to Glyn in 2020.
00:54And we're pleased to announce that in November a new calf will be born, if all goes well,
01:02to Dekima and Nkosi.
01:06Spare a thought for Dekima, who's been pregnant since August and is carrying a baby rhino for
01:10well over a year.
01:11The team of Folly Farm say they're making sure to give her extra care and attention while
01:15she's carrying the new baby and need to stock up a little bit of food.
01:19But can you blame her?
01:19She's got an awfully big extra mouth to feed.
01:22So, yeah, she conceived in August last year.
01:26It's a 15 to 16 month gestation.
01:29So, yeah, a really long time.
01:31But that ensures that when the calf is born, it's able to get up, walk around, even run
01:38around away from many predators in the wild.
01:41So they keep it nice and safely inside them until the very last minute and it pops out.
01:48But Dekima will get increased care, so she may have an increase in appetite to feed that
01:54extra little body.
01:57The eastern black rhino are one of the most endangered species of rhinoceros in the world.
02:01Jack says it's really important to the team at Folly Farm to be able to help species like
02:05this, given their low numbers in the wild.
02:09So there's lots of different types of rhino, but the specific ones that we have, they're known
02:13as the eastern black rhino, and there are around 1,400 of them left in the wild.
02:20Their numbers are increasing, thankfully, but rhinos in general aren't doing very well
02:26because of the poaching for their horn.
02:28So the horn is used in traditional Asian medicine in places like China and Vietnam.
02:35And about two or three rhinos a day are killed in South Africa alone, and that's purely just
02:43for their horn.
02:44And it doesn't have any medicinal value, so it's actually been scientifically proven.
02:50This won't be Dekima's first baby, though, as she's already had Glyn, born in 2020, who's
02:55hoped to be part of a breeding pair in the near future.