Elephant+Calves

Elephant Calves Elephant calves are quite interesting for many reasons; one is due to their bond with their mother. It is said that no animal has a closer bond between mother and child than elephants. There are many things to know about elephant pregnancies and calves. Elephant pregnancies are really long. The gestation period for an elephant is 22 months. Elephants can stand after about half an hour from birth. Then soon they can walk well enough to follow along with the herd. Elephants typically have one calve at a time (twins are rare). Elephants typically have calves five years apart. An elephant’s pregnancy is important because each calves survival is vital to maintaining a herd. When an elephant is born it is known as a calf. Calves weigh around 200-250lbs when they are born. If an elephant is orphaned, one lactating female or even several feed it and treat it as their own. Calves depend on their mother’s milk for the entire first year of their life. Elephants are very attentive and caring mothers. When a calve is sixteen months old, it starts growing tusks, although they aren’t visible until it is 30 months old. These tasks start to annoy the mother and she weans the calf off of her milk. Once a young elephant if around four or five years old it knows how to feed itself from vegetation. The young elephant therefore depends less upon its mother. Young female elephants will begin to help its mother with the new calf, learning how to raise a calf. Male elephant are typically driven away from the herds when they are about fourteen years of age. The young elephants are now ready to start their own lives after watching and mimicking the other elephants around them. This is the amazing process of elephants having and caring for calves. They have the calf, care for the newborn, watch it develop into a young elephant, and for female calves watch them mature into adults within the herd. Elephants truly are magnificent animals.