Baby giraffe gets check up at Zoo Miami

SOUTHWEST MIAMI-DADE, Fla. (WSVN) -- A baby giraffe is one step closer to her zoo debut after a check up with vets.

At five days old, the newest edition to the giraffe family at Zoo Miami had her neonatal visit with a vet Thursday.

The newborn female giraffe gave Zoo workers a hard time when it came to getting her shots. "This baby is a kicker, she is pretty large, close to 150 pounds, like I said, close to six-feet tall," said Ron Magill, Communications Director of Zoo Miami. "She seems to be tremendously healthy, a lot of fire in her. She gave the keepers quite a challenge just to hold her to get the exam done."

According to the vet, the check up went well. "This baby looks healthy, her heart sounds good, her umbilicus is nice and clean and dry, so we don't have any signs of an infection in her umbilicus," said Zoo Miami veterinarian Chriss Miller. "We took some blood to make sure that all her organs are functioning normally and she's not anemic, and we gave her her vaccinations."

After the weigh-in and visit with the vet, the baby giraffe was reunited with parents Mia and Fezzik.

Although the check-up may have looked traumatic, Ron Magill described the birth. "It is fantastic to look at a giraffe and understand this: the mother doesn't lay down when that baby is born. That baby falls four to six feet to the floor, comes out head-first like this, and then 'Boom,'" he said. "But the reason for that is this: when a human baby is born in a hospital, you want to spank that baby, you want to hear it cry, 'Waaah, waaah,' get those lungs cleared. There's no bed out in the middle of the African bush, but when you fall four to six feet to the floor what happens? 'Gasp,' you start breathing. It's nature's way to get that baby kick-started."

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