Altina Wildlife Park welcomes a prime addition with birth of baby boy giraffe

Mother Munzi, known for being a "boy-mum" gave birth to her fifth boy late in the evening, weighing 98 kilograms and six foot tall.

The park's Animals and Operations manager Rebecca Surian was the first to find the baby boy and said he was a welcome addition, being his dad's first ever calf.

"I'm quite excited I got to see him and watch that beautiful interaction between him and mum, he was up and standing within 10 minutes ... he's really cute," she said.

"Shaka is his dad, we used to breed with a different boy but we were asked if our bachelor boy was still entire because the last of his genetics have died out in the region."

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Fortunately Shaka hadn't been castrated and was put into the breeding program.

"His genetics are very important to the breeding program so this just adds to how proud Altina is of our new beautiful baby boy," Ms Surian said.

She said in the future the giraffe which is yet to be named, will become a breeding male.

"We'll be able to spread his genetics over multiple females, so we're pretty excited."

The public will have the chance to name the new addition in the coming weeks.

"We normally do an auction or voting competition so I'm hoping to get that together soon and we'll want an African name," Ms Surian said.

"Fingers crossed we'll have a name soon because at the moment he's just 'baby boy'."

'Baby boy' will be reliant on his mother's milk for up to 12 months and will start to eat solids like leaves and grass when he's four months old.

You can see him daily with his entire family, including the new breeding female Matilda at Altina.

"He's on exhibit so jump online or call us. He's really cute to see while he runs laps and enjoys the warm weather lately," Ms Surian said.

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