hello everybody welcome to Home Safari again today my name is Marjorie Barthel
and I'm Kelly Carpenter and we're both two of the Rhino keepers here at the zoo
today we're here with Seyia our female Rhino and we're gonna talk about her
today with you guys and while we're talking also please don't hesitate to
send in those questions we'd love to answer whatever questions you guys might
have out there so this is Seyia as I said our female black rhino and Kelly's
tossing her some treats right now some of her favorites this is some enrichment
we also use it for training with her to teach her just basic husbandry behaviors
that we can use if the vet needs to check her out just like kids have to go
to the doctor Seyia gets checked out by our vet the same way so she's
eating some apple oat treats they're actually a horse treat but she really
likes these so we were tossing her some of those right now
so this Rhino is she's from Baton Rouge so she's a southern belle she
came up to the Cincinnati Zoo about four years ago 2013 yep 2013 yes what year is
it but anyway she's been a wonderful animal in our collection she's a very
full of personality she's very energetic very sweet very sassy she always lets us
know how she's feeling for the day for sure she's very playful she likes to get
baths often Kelly and I try to give her a pretty regular bath involving a scrub
brush an actual soap that we have just for the Rhinos they I think they use it
for the elephants as well but we actually give her get her all sudded up
with some soap and she just loves it the attention she loves the feeling of the
brush these guys love to be rubbed on we actually have different enrichment
toys on the walls that they can rub on when they want to as well yeah so
something really cool there's actually a lot of similarities between what Seyia
does everyday and what we do everyday now I know it's really important that we
all eat our fruits and vegetables every day and that's actually a really big
part of Seyia's diet so every single day she gets romaine lettuce carrots bananas
apples but it's not just limited to that she can have Kiwis cantaloupe melon
asparagus now I would say that she normally does like all of our fruits and
vegetables but there are a few certain ones that she is not super fond of like
celery some other similarities between us and Seyia is it's really important
that we brush our teeth and have good dental hygiene and although Seyia
doesn't exactly brush her teeth what you're seeing Marge if her which is
willow she actually eats the leaves and the sticks of all the browse that she
gets and those sticks kind of act like a little toothbrush or floss for her so
she takes care of her teeth we also do operant conditioning training with her
so she will open her mouth on commands so we can check inside and make sure
that she does have good looking teeth not too much plaque she also is trained
for a voluntary blood draw just like we give blood and as you've seen in the
past when she was pregnant with Kendi we also did voluntary ultrasounds we do
get weights on her so right now she's about 2600 pounds but black rhino
species can get up to about 3500 our male Faru weighs in at about 2800 they
are the smaller of the African rhino species so there's two species of
African rhinos the black rhino that we have here Seyia and white rhinos white
rhinos are the larger ones so Luke wants to know how hard is their
horn so her horn is very hard so she uses it to protect herself to protect
her calfs and also when she's with Faru so what's really cool about their
horns which is another similarity is her horns are made of something called
keratin and we actually have things on us that are made of keratin as well so
that's what our fingernails and our hair is made of and you can see she does have
a beautiful horn she does shape it herself so she'll rub it they also use
that for scent markings occasionally if we had to we could file on her horn as
well so Aiden wants to know what is her favorite food Marge what was her
favorite food so her favorite favorite favorite food is actually strawberry jam
she loves strawberries but she loves strawberry jam the most we try to get
jars of that fairly often for her and rub it on like a ball or some of her
enrichment toys in her stalls or when she's out here in her yard she
absolutely loves it Connor wants to know hi Connor how many
babies do they have so black rhinos have one calf at a time and normally about
every four years between every three to four years so we have had one born here
his name was Kendi I'm sure you all know him well and we are looking to breed our
pair in the future yes we are we're on getting through winter here and probably
in the in the spring here as it gets warmer more warmer days consistently
and a lot drier weather than we've had for sure
we'll definitely continue to try to try to make another baby here so that's
exciting which I would cool about us is our logo
that is on our uniforms actually the only animal featured on it is the black
rhino so we're pretty fond of them Piper wants to know does she have a faith
keeper I am upset about this question because she does she's a that would be
me that would be Marge you know what I I greeted her when she came to our zoo she
was just a young little thing and we just bonded pretty quickly and to this
day she she won't shift very well at least when I'm in the building the other
keepers will kind of Marge get out of the building she doesn't want to shift
because she knows I'm in there so it's a special relationship I have with her but
she does love all of us though for sure I'm just a I'm the second favorite just
to make myself feel good yeah so she can be really she'll get really excited and
fixated on Marge if Marge and I are in the building together so I'll have to
tell Marge like you need to go out of sight cuz she won't move over and she's
looking at you so tre wants to know is there skin soft it is out of some places
you know behind her ears particularly are very soft their noses are pretty
soft under their eyes and the creases are really soft and those are all places
they love to be rubbed as well too so but you know it's it's rough skin but in
some spots like I said it's you know a little more soft than others so Meredith
hi Meredith wants to know why does she have hair on her ears well she's a
mammal though she they only typically have hair black
rhinos in a couple places her eyelashes her ears a tips of her tail I think it
adds some attitude to her like her own type of style so
we also asked what the difference is between a black and a white rhino so I
said earlier that white rhinos are larger they're both African species of
rhino and it sounds like they're called black and white Rhino would relate to
their color at all but it actually does it most of the time they're gray right
after or Seyia has one of her beautiful baths she can be a little bit darker
colored to her but they're the main difference is her lip so while she's
reaching for these treats you can kind of see on her upper lip she has a semi
prehensile lip so black rhinos are browsers that means that they're going
to reach into the sky they're gonna grab leaves and berries shrubs branches with
that upper lip whereas white rhinos have a square bottom lip because they are
grazers so white rhinos are really great at eating off the ground almost like
having a giant shovel attached to your mouth
Chris would like to know how big is a baby rhino when it's born first of all
they are so cute and ours was about about 80 pounds or so yeah eighty
hundred pounds so compared to her they're really teeny tiny and that was
definitely so far one of the biggest highlights of my career and I think
Kelly's as well yeah we actually Cincinnati Zoo has been very
successfully breeding black rhinos it had been a while since we had one so Kendi
was a really special gift and we're looking forward to more in the future
but something really cool about black rhino calves is Kendi was born about 80
pounds at Birth huge and he gained a hundred pounds every single month of his
life for the first year of his life so one month old 180 pounds
two months old 280 pounds and then about a year old that does slow
down a little bit but if you got to see him in the yard he every time you went
to go look at him he was just getting bigger and bigger Sophia wants to know
how long are rhinos pregnant for so they are pregnant for 15 months I can't if I
remember the days she was yeah but 15 months or so these guys are pregnant so
a very long time but obviously it's well worth the wait but yes it's a long
gestation period so long process yeah and towards the end of her last
pregnancy was when we were able to do the voluntary ultrasounds with our CREW
Department here which was really cool in the beginning not much to see but
towards the end yeah absolutely so we had another question are any of
their senses better than the other and yes they are so Seyia does not have the
best vision if something was about 30 metres away from her so if Marge was
standing 30 metres away from her she wouldn't be able to really distinguish
what that is or who that is or if it's a small tree or a human but she makes up
up for it in other ways so she has a great sense of hearing and a great sense
of smell hi Hannah wants to know can Seyia swim so these guys aren't really
aquatic animals they're just not made to really swim per se not that you wouldn't
find them in the water you'll more than likely see an Indian Rhino in the water
but we've have had black rhinos that like to go down and their pools in the
summer when it's been really hot but what these guys really love is the mud
these guys would rather mud wallow all day long so just like those kids at home
that like to get the dirt in the mud these guys do too but they do it with a
purpose not only to keep cool when it's really hot and sunny and sticky
especially humid in Cincinnati here but also to protect their skin
insect bites so they're protecting themselves from flies and things like
that as well it also helps to condition their skin really - so Collin
wants to know are they endangered so they are actually listed
as critically endangered there are about 5,000 black rhinos left and 60 black
rhinos in AZA zoos across the United States around before 1970 there was
about 65,000 rhinos and from 1970 to the early 1990s the population decreased by
96% percent bringing them down to about 2,500 obviously we've been able to
double that population but you're a support of our zoo is participating in
their conservation which is really important because I think Seyia is pretty
cute we want to keep black rhinos around Jake asked do they shed horns no they do
not shed horns they keep growing those horns throughout their lifetime
I think Kelly mentioned before that they shaped them themselves which they do but
yes those horns can grow several feet long
you know especially in the in the wild but yeah I mean these guys have these
same horns their whole life a fun activity after this is actually to
Google the difference between horns and antlers
yes it is I think it would answer that question as well
so Maddie wants to know are they born with horns
so they are not born with horns it's pretty cute when they are first born you
can see where the first horn will be the first one the front one is the first one
that will grow in you'll it'll just start as a little bump and very quickly
actually you know start forming into horn soon after that I want to say a
couple weeks after that the second horn behind the first one will start to pop
through as well so no they do not have a horn when
they're first born but it does not take long before they're growing in and
something really cool is their horns actually grow their entire lives so they
constantly shape them but if she had to you know shaped it off a little bit it
continues to grow their whole lives so we had a question on what is the life
expectancy of a black rhino so in our zoo they typically live
between 35 to 45 years in the wild about 30 to 35 Avery would like to know how
can kids help rhinos and that is such a special question by you watching this
Home Safari today you are helping rhinos you just coming to the Cincinnati Zoo
supporting your local zoo just even loving these animals is how you can help
Seyia and black rhinos and their conservation we also have something
really fun that Marge does which is called Rhino Rembrandt's do you want to
talk about Rhino Rembrandt yeah so what Rhino Rembrandt's is is it's actually
paintings done that the keepers that we sell online on Cincinnati Zoo org that
are rhinos paint themselves they use that prehensile lip that Kelly was
talking about earlier we put some paint on a canvas colors of people's choice
and these guys just paint away it's fun for us it's fun for them it's a type of
enrichment and off it also obviously is you know putting money toward rhino
conservation as well as supporting the zoo
so we had a not question about rhinos but an important question from Brittany
how do you become a zookeeper so I would say the most important thing is you
gotta love animals we work them with them every single day and being
passionate about animals is really really important but studying really
really hard in school a lot of zoos require a bachelor degree and then even
volunteering so at our zoo which in time we will be open again you can be a
volunteer even under the age of 18 you can do internships there are zoos in
every state so there's so many opportunities to kind of get experience
in the field
Natalie ask do they get dry skin yes they do get dry skin so we talked a
little bit about their mud wallowing and how that can help condition their skin
in the warm months but actually through the winter time like now when Kelly and
I give her her scrubby bath we will also use skin so soft on her as well it's
diluted a little bit with just a little bit of water but we use skin so soft we
spray it on her skin to help keep it nice and conditioned for the winter so
we're gonna answer two more questions and then we're gonna talk to you about
your awesome activity for today so Hanna wants to know what other animals do they
get along with there's two of us um so these guys are solitary you'll usually
just see black rhinos by themselves unless of course they come together for
breeding or they have a you will also see them with in the wild
especially with little birds on their back and don't ask me the name of them
all look oxpeckers thank you those the little birds little oxpeckers
help to keep the insects you know off their back they'll actually eat them off
their back for them we don't really house currently our
black rhinos with anything else here they seem to get along with ducks yeah
that we found in the yard before it's smaller birds not a whole lot of you
know yeah I think they like their space yes they do for sure being solitary
there's no usually round them in the wild anyway in
our last question from Tatum how many pounds of food do they eat a day so she
gets 14 pounds of grain alone and as we talked earlier she does get the lettuce
carrots apples bananas variety of fruits and vegetables and then she eats about a
bale and a half a hay of hay a day
she's got to maintain her figure so before we leave you we do want to end
with talking about our activity for today and it's a really cool activity
because it's gonna help you remember that there are five species of Rhino so
we're gonna count them out with you first so we have our black rhino like
saya behind us white rhino the greater one horned rhino which we have here as
well Sumatran rhino and Javan rhinos and you are going to use this handprint
and turn it into your very own Rhino so log on to the Cincinnati Zoo's website and
look at the Home Safari resources and be sure when you make it up to send us
pictures name your Rhino make sure that they have
two horns like a black rhino does we're so excited to see you we are very
excited yeah thank you thank you guys