Did you know that a baby elephant is called a calf?
Bet you didn’t know as well that it can weigh as much as 120 kilograms at birth. Just to compare, the average birth weight for babies is around 3 kilograms.
So now you can see how much bigger they are compared to you!
Calves will stay very close to their mothers for the first few months. They can also drink up to 4 litres of milk a day. Wow..That is a lot of milk! They also begin eating some plants when they are a little older but will keep drinking milk for up to ten years.
Baby elephants don’t really know what to do with their trunks when they are young. They swing them back and forth and sometimes even step on them.
Ouch! Then slowly they begin learning to use their trunks to eat and drink.
By the time they are a year old, they can control their trunks pretty well and will use their trunks for grasping, eating, drinking and bathing.
