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During feeding times and especially during the public feeding hour, it is Kuishi and Malkia who are becoming the little greedy figures. They are quickly drinking their milk bottles and causing chaos by demanding extra bottles. Malkia does not take the Keepers preventative measures lightly and gets very stroppy. She has taken to charging towards the wheelbarrow holding the milk bottles sometimes and trying to push it over. The Keepers try their best to deter her but sometimes they just need to let her get close to the wheelbarrow. Most of the time they manage to keep her away until everyone has had their bottles. When she sees the wheelbarrow being taken away, she has taken to running after it recently and sucking up the leftover milk spilling out with her trunk. When she sees the wheelbarrow disappear from the mud bath area she rumbles in annoyance at being denied access to more milk… and unfortunately Kuishi has started to copy some of these bad character traits too!

Early in the morning when the stockade gates were opened for the orphans to come out and begin their new day, it was funny to see how quickly some of them ran out of their rooms. Ambo, Tamiyoi, Kuishi, Sagala, Ndiwa, Malima, Sattao, Emoli and Mapia all rushed out, and it was not to go out into the forest to browse but all of these babies all woke up with one thing on their mind: whether or not Maxwell had any leftover Lucerne pellets they might be able to eat! They all rushed to Maxwell’s gate where the pellets are placed for him to eat. It has become a first stop for these greedy orphans, before Max can even wake up and make his way to his Lucerne pile. Today it was very chaotic as greedy ones like Sagala, Ndiwa and Malkia were bullying the other little ones because they are not as strong and don’t have tusks like them to fend them off. Even the warthogs who were also there to try and steal some pellets were given a rough time by Malkia and Sagala. Tagwa and Sana Sana tried to make space for the little ones to join the, but Malkia and Ndiwa threatened to push Tagwa and Sana Sana away. This forced the others to all move out towards the forest in the end, leaving the older, greedy ones behind to enjoy the pellets alone.

Luggard is forming his very own little herd, as he enjoys spending most of the day with the little ones Dololo, Merru and Mukoka. Merru seems to look up to Dololo but Dololo is not very nice back. Luggard is gentle and loving towards all of them. Mukoka is settling in so well and enjoying his new surroundings and friends. It’s only at the start of the day in the early morning hours that these four are away from the rest of the herd; after the 9am milk feed Merru and Mukoka join the main herd whilst Luggard stays back to keep Dololo company as he is still quite weak and walks slower than the others. Later on Luggard joined the main herd as well and Dololo stayed back with his Keeper. Mukoka behaved very well with the older herd and followed the big girls everywhere. It was still too soon for him to attend the public visit today however, so during that one hour he and Luggard walked back to where Dololo was. When Kiko joined the elephants out in the forest today, there were wild giraffe’s browsing close to the elephants. When they saw Kiko walking towards the elephants, they tried to approach him, but he kept walking away from them and keeping close to his elephant family. Now Sagala, Kuishi and Maisha have got used to their new rooms which they return to in the evening. Emoli however is still causing trouble for the Keepers to go into his new room at night. Today he fought so hard in the evening to go into his old room, but it has now been taken by Mukoka so he has to get used to his new room eventually!

The orphans are very good at telling the time – they know when it is time to go back home for bed, milk feeding time or time to go out to the forest. They are very used to their routine! This morning however, for one reason or another, there was some delay for them to come out of their rooms. Emoli is a very outgoing young bull and when he was absolutely sure it was well past their time to leave for the forest he started yelling and shouting, complaining about the delay. As soon as some of the others started coming out of their rooms, he started celebrating and trumpeting, running towards the forest in glee. Mapia and Sagala joined him in his celebration and ran trumpeting after him. Tagwa didn’t want to accompany the others before seeing Dololo, Merru and Mukoka. She went around head butting doors and banging the milk buckets to their rooms – we are not sure if she was just playing or expressing how she felt. Whenever she was encouraged in the direction of the forest, she just kept coming back and doing the same thing. It was not until the three babies were let out that she escorted them out to the forest to join the others. Jotto gets on with everyone in the family, but we do not often find him engaged in games with Kuishi. Today we watched on as these two were engaged in a friendly wrestling game for a very long time. Kuishi takes the games very seriously and is very tough, especially towards the boys, and she does not like to give in easily!