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Dave
and I are EXTREMELY “Fired Up” to announce the arrival
of new healthy baby Black & White Ruffed Lemur to the
list of the Sanctuary’s achievements! On June 1st at 5:30am,
Echo delivered a healthy infant. This baby represents the Sanctuaries’ 3rd
generation of CAPTIVE BRED infants for this endangered species.
Both David and
I are beyond words in describing our joy and happiness on this occasion.
Black & White Ruffed Lemurs are extremely difficult to breed in
captivity. This fact is compounded even more by the fact that Echo
is still a very young and totally inexperienced at motherhood. In
the wild and in captivity, young Ruffed Lemurs mothers are notorious
for not only abandoning their offspring; but also for delivering still
born infants. Fortunately for us this was not the case. Echo not only
delivered a healthy 98-gram live baby, but also showed fantastic maternal
behaviors. She immediately groomed and nursed the infant and did not
leave her nest box for 3 days! Echo barely ate and did not defecate
at all during this time. This is typical Ruffed Lemur maternal behavior
so Dave and I new she was right on track in her care of the infant.
By day 4, the infant gained 20 grams, so we new Echo was lactating
properly and that the baby was being properly nourished. This is a
very important fact because quite often-1st time mothers (especially
young mothers) do not produce enough milk to properly nourish their
infants. This was also great news in the fact that David and I did
not have to “PULL” the infant for hand raising. For obvious
reasons, pulling infant primates from their mothers is always a last
resort. Not only does it require extremely species specific hand rearing
procedures and feedings every 2 hours 24/7; but also takes away a
vital learning experience for the infant. Especially female infants.
Although most female primates possess great maternal instincts, allot
of technique and effectiveness is a “LEARNED BEHAVIOR”.
What this means is that a female infant parent raised by their maternal
or same species surrogate mother in turn becomes a better mother herself.
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