Different Animal Species Living Together (Cross-Species Adoptions, Etc.)

[Mighty_Emperor]

6 The wolf also shall dwell with the lamb, and the leopard shall lie down with the kid; and

the calf and the young lion and the fatling together...

7 And the cow and the bear shall feed; their young ones shall lie down together...

(Isaiah 11:6-7)

Source:
http://www.carm.org/kjv/Isaiah/Isaiah_11.htm

For tales of unlikely animals living together:

Why would a tiger not eat a piglet?

Alok Jha
Thursday March 11, 2004
The Guardian

It's probably confused.
Saimai, a two-and-a-half-year-old Bengal tiger, suckled on a sow as a cub before growing up to live with a litter of piglets. The odd family live in a special "kinship to different families" unit at the Si Racha tiger farm in Thailand.

But why the tiger's natural urges don't take over and see the piglets as lunch remains a little mysterious.

"If this tiger was really suckled by a pig, it could well have quite a strange idea of what species it belongs to," says Georgia Mason, a researcher in the animal behaviour research group at the University of Oxford. "There is the odd anecdote of hand-reared animals then wanting to mate with people."

Animals do have genetic predispositions for their most obvious behavioural traits, but their early experiences will also have an effect on their subsequent development. "There are stages in [some animals'] early lives when you can imprint them quite strongly on other species and you can alter their experience, which lasts a long time."

In other words, a pig can possibly be imprinted on to a tiger cub, which will then think it's somehow related to the pig. When it sees other pigs, the tiger will think it is one of them. Of course, this is hard to prove.

If it is happening, however, another unknown is how long the imprinting actually lasts. At some stage, the animal's natural instincts will probably take over.

Minks, for example, can be quite duplicitous."Some of these animals, you hand rear them and they'll act like pets for a while and then you put a foot wrong and they suddenly attack you," says Mason, who has worked with the animals extensively.

As for Saimai, he too could eventually turn on his adoptive brothers and sisters. "Even if it's been affected by its early experience, I would bet that if it was hungry, and that piglet suddenly ran a bit too fast, that piglet would end up as dinner," she says.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/life/thisweek/story/0,12977,1166281,00.html

Emps

 

[Mighty_Emperor]

Chihuahua plays surrogate mom to chipmunk



TIMOTHY J. GONZALEZ / Statesman Journal

Buffy the Chihuahua nurses her puppy and a baby chipmunk (right) named Marty at the southeast Salem home of Imogene Wills on Wednesday.


When Buffy the Chihuahua lost a puppy during a C-section July 29, the doctor sent her home with a replacement for consolation — a chipmunk weighing less than an ounce.

Marty the chipmunk has adapted well to Buffy’s nursing, surprising even his caretaker.

“He won’t know he’s a chipmunk when his eyes open,” said Imogene Wills, 70, the dog’s owner.

The baby chipmunk, species not yet identified, was found in the parking lot of a nearby Safeway store. He was brought to the Companion Pet Clinic in Keizer the same morning as Buffy’s operation.

“It’s unusual to see a chipmunk in the city limits,” said Dr. Mark Stoenner, clinic veterinarian.

When the clinic’s receptionist, Marty’s namesake, showed the struggling chipmunk to Wills, she knew that Buffy, her long-hair, Deer head Chihuahua, could nurse him.

“I thought mother’s milk is better than frozen goat’s milk,” Wills said. “Buffy is so protective. She thinks it’s a puppy.”

It is not rare to see one species take to another, especially during whelping, because giving birth is the best time for adaptive nursing, Stoenner said.

Although Buffy and Marty are compatible now, Marty is not out of the woods yet.

It will be a few more weeks before Marty’s eyes open, and if he makes it, he most likely will not be able to be released into the wild, Stoenner said. But the vet thinks that if anybody can ensure that Marty survives, Wills is the one.

“She’s a hard-core gal,” Stoenner said. “She doesn’t give up.”

The Chihuahua-chipmunk relationship has been among the most unusual in Stoenner’s 12-year career.

“It’s kind of neat,” he said. “You like to think there’s good going on, and this supports that.”

Buffy, who will be 4 next month, gave birth to one surviving female puppy Thursday.

But Wills, who has other Chihuahuas, thinks one chipmunk will be enough.

http://news.statesmanjournal.com/article.cfm?i=84647

 

[Mighty_Emperor]

04/11/2004 08:27 - (SA)


'Rat bird' feels at home



Katrien Smit

Johannesburg - Rottie the rat thinks he is a bird... But it comes as no surprise when one realises that Madam and Tokkelos, two lovebirds, are raising this rodent.

Owner of the lovebirds, Connie Viljoen, from Florida, said Rottie moved in with Madam and Tokkelos about four months ago.

At that stage he was still very young and helpless - but the two lovebirds took over.

"One day we realised the birds were carrying on as if they were breeding but there were no eggs. That's when we discovered the small pink rat in a nest."

Viljoen said Madam initially fed Rottie bird food but they soon realised his favourite food was spinach. "When Rottie got bigger, Madam and Tokkelos taught him to eat from the bowls at the bottom of the cage."

But Rottie doesn't do this often. "He spends most of his time in the nest and the birds feed him," said Viljoen.

Madam and Tokkelos are so taken with the newcomer that they clean his nest every day. "They literally take everything out and then pack everything back neatly."

Rottie meanwhile believes he is all bird. When he does leave his nest, he sits on a narrow wooden perch - imitating Madam and Tokkelos.

Viljoen meanwhile set up a video camera in the nest so she can keep an eye on what's happening. Once Rottie is all grown up, she hopes to find another baby rat for the lovebirds to raise.

"I would really like to see exactly how the birds raise such an animal," she said.

But Rottie is assured of a home with Madam and Tokkelos, as Viljoen has no plans to get rid of her "rat bird".

http://www.news24.com/News24/Backpage/AnimalAntics/0,5583,2-1343-1348_1615648,00.html

 

[rjmrjmrjm]

Isn't cross species communication a marvelous thing? Makes you wonder about how strong empathy is in animals.

 

[TheQuixote]

I couldn't find a specific strange behaviour thread and as it is about surrogacy of a sort...

Mother who breastfeeds pup 'didn't want to waste it'

18.11.2004 -

A woman says she is breastfeeding her staffordshire bull terrier pup because she wants the dog to protect her baby girl as the pair grow up.

Hastings resident Kura "Kat" Tumanako said she started breastfeeding the pup after her own baby stopped taking her milk and she had to pour her milk away.

"I didn't want to waste it, so I gave it to Honey Boy," she said.

The pup has been having two feeds a day for the past week.

Ms Tumanako said she would probably wean the puppy in six weeks.

Her baby, Honey Pauline Philomina Flo, was born on August 29 and is now on bottled milk.

"I wanted to raise it [the pup] with my baby," Ms Tumanako said yesterday. "I wanted to bring it up with a baby. It will protect her as they grow up."
[...]

Ms Marshall said she knew of instances where a sow gave milk to puppies and dogs gave milk to cats, but she had not heard of a human breastfeeding another species.

"It's not going to hurt the puppy," she said. "I would be more concerned for hygiene issues for any baby sharing the milk."

Victoria University associate professor of anthropology Jeff Sissons said women from Papua New Guinea hill tribes breastfed pigs, but he had not heard of any other instance of a human breastfeeding another species.

The national president for the SPCA, Peter Mason, said nothing in the Animal Welfare Act that applied specifically to a case like this, but he had some concerns that the dog could develop long-term behavioural issues.

"It doesn't sound like the animal is suffering. It's not a cruelty thing as such," Mr Mason said.

The director of La Leche League, a support organisation for breastfeeding mothers, Rosemary Gordon, said she had heard of cases involving mothers giving their milk to household pets or sick or elderly relatives, but she felt the matter was "beyond the league's area of expertise".

NZPA
©Copyright 2004, NZ Herald

Source

 

[Mighty_Emperor]

Dog Who Longed for Puppies Nurses Kittens

Nov 23, 9:49 PM (ET)

EDWARDSBURG, Mich. (AP) - A Shih Tzu who, her owners say, longed for years to give birth - even to the point of going into false labor several times - finally is getting a chance to nurse some little ones: two stray kittens.

Owners Jean and Bill Schirf said the dog, named Geisha Girl, used to take a toy dog, wrap herself around it in her basket and mother it for a week or two.

Now she's doing the same thing with the kittens that Jean Schirf found two weeks ago in the woods behind her Cass County home just north of the Indiana border. The cats - a gray male and a gray-and-white female - appeared to be no more than 2 weeks old at the time, she said.

"She wraps herself around them all night long," Schirf told the South Bend (Ind.) Tribune for a story published Tuesday.

Not only did Geisha Girl start watching over and cleaning the kittens, which have been named Dilly and Dally, she started lactating within about a week - enough to provide them with some of the milk they need. Schirf helps out by bottle-feeding the cats 2 percent milk every four or five hours.

The dog, which the Schirfs bought from a pet store in 1991, never was spayed. She most recently went into heat about four to six weeks ago and never has been bred.

It's not unusual for such dogs to sometimes "have a false pregnancy and exhibit all the signs of being pregnant except for the fact of having puppies," said Dr. Michael Lampen, a veterinarian with the Bergman Animal Hospital in Cassopolis.

"They will come into milk and the whole bit. You have a dog with a false pregnancy and kittens who want a mother."

While the dog adores the kittens, the same cannot be said for the Schirfs' other pet cats, Demi Moore and Jasmine.

"They are jealous and sit back and watch them," Jean Schirf said.

She and her husband plan to find homes for the kittens after they are weaned from Geisha Girl.

Source

 

[Timble2]

"The Lion and the Lamb shall lie down together,
But the Lamb won't get much sleep."

Woody Allen

 

[Mighty_Emperor]

Tortoise Adopts Stray Hippo at Sanctuary


Jan 6, 9:55 AM (ET)

NAIROBI (Reuters) - A 120-year-old giant tortoise living in a Kenyan sanctuary has become inseparable from a baby hippo rescued by game wardens, officials said on Thursday.

The year-old hippo calf christened Owen was rescued last month, suffering from dehydration after being separated from his herd in a river that drains into the Indian Ocean.

"When we released Owen into the enclosure, he lumbered to the tortoise which has a dark gray color similar to grown up hippos," Sabine Baer, rehabilitation and ecosystems manager at the park, told Reuters.

She said the hippo's chances of survival in another herd were very slim, predicting that a dominant male would have killed him.

However, Owen's relationship with the Aldabran tortoise named Mzee, Swahili for old man, may end soon. The sanctuary plans to place Owen with Cleo, a lonely female hippo.

Source

 

[Mal_Adjusted]

Piglet adopted by cow

Greets

Ananova:
Piglet adopted by cow

A Cuban famer has spared a young pig's life after seeing it being breastfed by a cow.

Ermelino Rojas, from Calixto Garcia, was fattening the pig up for his family's Christmas dinner.

But he told Terra Noticias Populares that he could not kill the animal after seeing it with its new mother.

Mr Rojas said: "The cow was giving less milk and the pig was getting fatter by the day, so I decided to investigate and saw the moving scene.

"I was going to cook him for Christmas dinner but after all that I couldn't do it."

http://www.ananova.com/news/story/sm_1236759.html

bless

mal

 

[Bannik]

Odd couple make friends in Kenya

This one really tugged on my heart-strings:

Odd couple make friends in Kenya

A baby hippo rescued after floods in Kenya last week has befriended a 100-year-old tortoise in Kenya.
The one-year-old hippo calf christened Owen was found alone and dehydrated by wildlife rangers near the Indian Ocean.

He was placed in an enclosure at a wildlife sanctuary in the coastal city of Mombasa and befriended a male tortoise of a similar colour.

According to a park official, they sleep together, eat together and "have become inseparable".

"Since Owen arrived on the 27 December the tortoise behaves like a mother to it," Haller Park tourism manager Pauline Kimoti told the BBC News website.

"The hippo follows the tortoise around and licks his face," she said.

The tortoise is named Mzee, which is Swahili for old man.

Ms Kimoti said that if the 300kg hippo continued to thrive then in the next few weeks then they would allow the public to see the unlikely pair together before they are separated.

The sanctuary, which is on the site of a former cement factory, then plans to get the help of the Kenya Wildlife Service to place Owen with Cleo, a lonely female hippo in a separate enclosure.

This is the latest in a series of unusual bondings in the wild that have surprised and delighted zoologists in Kenya.

In 2002, a lioness at Samburu National Park adopted a succession of baby oryx.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/africa/4152447.stm

 

[escargot]

Reminds me of The line from Ghostbusters- 'Cats and dogs! Living together! Mass hysteria!' :lol:

 

[Imperial_Call]

Muriel has the pictures to prove it :lol:

 

[escargot]

Sure do! :lol:

Cats and dogs can coexist perfectly happily if they are raised together.

 

[Pete Younger]

Specially if the BF is Dr Doolittle. :lol:

 

[escargot]

By popular demand.............. :lol:

 

[Mighty_Emperor]

And I suppose if we are covering weird interpsecies helping and breastfeeding thenw e ca't leave out our own species as one of them.

An older report:

Woman breastfeeding tiger cubs in Myanmar

Sun Apr 3, 5:59 PM ET


YANGO (AFP) - A lactating woman in Myanmar has volunteered to breastfeed a pair of endangered Bengal tiger cubs recently born at a Yangon zoo and separated from their aggressive mother.

The two-week-old cubs, a male and a female, were taken from their mother Noah Noah after she killed the third cub in her litter, prompting veterinarians to engage in alternative childcare, the semi-official Myanmar Times weekly reported in its edition to be published Monday.

Hla Htay, 40, a relative of a Yangon Zoological Gardens staffer and a mother of three including a seven-month-old baby, stepped in when she learned the cubs needed breast milk to survive.

"I felt sorry for them so I decided to feed them before their teeth grow," she told the newspaper.

The cubs were the first born at the zoo for 16 years. Veterinarian Kyaw Myo Hlaing said they were being bottle-fed along with Hla Htay's half-hour breastfeeding sessions four times a day, the report said.

The cubs are to go on public display in two month's time.

Noah Noah and her mate were among two pairs of tigers sent from Thailand under an animal exchange program in 2001.

One year ago Myanmar's military government created the world's largest tiger reserve to protect its big cats, 250 of which remain in the wild.

Source

 

[Mighty_Emperor]

And a more recent one:

Indian Woman Breast Feeds Monkey Saying Its My Son

April 25, 2005, 1:01:22
Bizarre

An Indian woman is breast feeding her pet monkey because she thinks it is her son.

Namita Das treats the five-year-old monkey, named Buru, as her third child after he was rescued from a tropical storm.

She insists: "This is not a pet, this is my son. Please get that right. I did not have a son but God finally gave me one."

Astonishingly, the animal has been brought up with her two daughters and treated like a member of the family.

Source

 

[Rrose_Selavy]

Snake Befriends Hamster "meal" .

All together now........AAHHHHHHHHHH.....

Snake 'befriends' snack hamster
A rodent-eating snake and a hamster have developed an unusual bond at a zoo in the Japanese capital, Tokyo, the Associated Press news agency reports.
Their relationship began in October last year, when zookeepers presented the hamster to the snake as a meal.

The rat snake, however, refused to eat the rodent. The two now share a cage.

"I have never seen anything like it," a zookeeper at the Mutsugoro Okoku zoo said, adding that the hamster was known to fall asleep sitting atop the snake.


The hamster was initially offered to Aochan, the two-year-old rat snake, because it was refusing to eat frozen mice, the Associated Press reports.

As a joke, the zookeeper said they named the hamster Gohan - the Japanese word for meal.

"I don't think there's any danger. Aochan seems to enjoy Gohan's company very much," zookeeper Kazuya Yamamoto told the Associated Press news agency.

The apparent friendship between the snake and hamster is one of many reported bonds spanning the divide between predator and prey.


Story from BBC NEWS:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/go/pr/fr/-/1/hi/w ... 627950.stm

Published: 2006/01/19 13:01:39 GMT

© BBC MMVI

 

[Kondoru]

Snakes are silly creatures.

(not as silly as Hamsters...)

Why didnt they give it a rat? it is a rat eating snake, after all.

 

[Anome]

Possibly because of an incident that happened about 20 years ago where a class at an elementary school gave their snake a live rat as a Christmas treat, just before they broke up for the Winter break. The central heating was switched off, the snake went into hibernation, and the rat ate about a foot of snake before the staff got back two weeks later.

I don't think hamsters are quite up to eating snakes.

Don't have the reference to hand, but it is reported in one of the Stay In Touch collections from the early-mid 80s.

 

[Min Bannister]

Yuck.

I'm not surprised the snake didn't take on the hamster in the picture though, its huge in comparison! In fact I wouldn't take it on either! :eek!!!!:

 

[Kondoru]

it does look rather fearsome, doesnt it?

Perhaps they should have given it a mouse.

 

[Kathy_Pike]

Possibly because of an incident that happened about 20 years ago where a class at an elementary school gave their snake a live rat as a Christmas treat, just before they broke up for the Winter break. The central heating was switched off, the snake went into hibernation, and the rat ate about a foot of snake before the staff got back two weeks later.

I don't think hamsters are quite up to eating snakes.

Don't have the reference to hand, but it is reported in one of the Stay In Touch collections from the early-mid 80s.

This sort of thing is quite common - I've seen photos in veterinary textbooks showing snakes, still alive, with all their skin nibbled off by mice they have been given as live food. The snakes generally have to be put down. This is one of the main reasons it is illegal to feed animals with live mammals in this country - it's not only for the welfare of the prey, but for the predator too.

 

[Mighty_Emperor]

Cat Comforts Grieving Orangutan at Zoo


Mar 9, 10:22 PM (ET)

By The Associated Press

PANAMA CITY BEACH, Fla. (AP) - Tondalayo, a 45-year-old Sumatran orangutan, and T.J., a stray tabby cat, became an inseparable duo after a zoo employee introduced them late last year.

Stephanie Willard, Education Director at Zoo World in Panama City Beach, said Tondalayo was depressed since losing her mate two years ago.

Her age prevented her from moving to another zoo or taking another mate. The ducks and turtles swimming in a moat around her island were not enough, Willard told the Panama City News Herald for Thursday's editions.

When the sweet-natured orange cat wandered into Willard's life, the solution became clear.

"It's an unbelievable match," Willard said. "This has worked out a lot better than I expected it to. She's got brighter eyes now. He's brought a lot of light to her."

Zookeepers named the cat, T.K. - short for "Tondalayo's Kitty."

They play together, cuddle and sleep together each night. They have been together constantly for more than a month.

"He's perked up Tonda more than anything," Willard said.

http://apnews.myway.com/article/20060310/D8G8F1U00.html

 

[crouton1198]

Lioness adopts third baby antelope
Tourists flocked to watch the unlikely pair
A lioness in Kenya has adopted another baby oryx - her third in as many months, game wardens at the northern Samburu National Park have reported.

The lioness is said to allow a female oryx several minutes each day to feed the new-born calf.

The last calf was killed while she was sleeping
The oryx would normally represent a tasty meal to a lion, but this is not the first time the lioness has placed a calf under her protection.

One was seen in her company in December last year, but it was eaten by other lions after two weeks. Another calf was taken away from her in February and placed in a zoo because it showed signs of malnourishment.

Dangers

The chief game warden in Samburu, Simon Leirana, said that the lioness was seen with a baby oryx no more then three days old early on Saturday.

"We are baffled. We do not know what to do with this third oryx," said Mr Leirana.


Lions, like all the other species, including human beings, have this kind of feelings for babies

Conservationist Daphne Sheldrick

He said wildlife officials might decide to let nature take its course, leaving the calf to take its chances with starvation or other predators.

The lioness is said to be "fiercely protective" of the oryx - becoming very aggressive when any human come near.

Three adult onyxes have been seen near the unlikely duo though, one of which is believed to be the mother.

Grief stricken

When the last calf was eaten by a male lion while she slept, the lioness was said to have been stricken with grief - she went around roaring in anger.

Cases of lionesses showing maternal affection for animals they would normally see as prey are not unprecedented, conservationist Daphne Sheldrick said.

"It does happen, but it's quite unusual. Lions, like all the other species, including human beings, have this kind of feelings for babies," she said.

Local newspapers have noted that all three adoptions occurred on significant days - Christmas, Valentine's Day and Good Friday.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/africa/1905363.stm

There was a special on The Animal Planet about this about a year ago. The lioness ultimately adopted five baby oryxes, but I don't remeber what happened to the last two. She disappeared into the bush, and hasn't been seen since.

 

[WhistlingJack]

Panther adopted by hunting dog*

Updated 15.53 Fri Jul 20 2007

A two-week-old panther that was rejected by its mother, has been adopted by a dog.

The mother has tried to kill all of her new offspring since 1999 and staff at Belgrade zoo have a theory she may have been traumatised by the sound of bombs from Nato air strikes.

She refused to feed her latest cub, so vets paired the big cat with a Rhodesian Ridgeback who had just given birth to eight puppies.

The panther needs help from staff at feeding time because the Ridgebacks are stronger and dominate the fight for milk.

Zoo director Vuk Bojovic has admitted the panther is an unlikely member of the Ridgeback's family.

He said: "They are deathly enemies, because the panther cub's feeder is a Rhodesian Ridgeback dog. They are trained to hunt lions and other big cats, but we are sure that the panther cub will grow up with its new family despite their nature."

© Independent Television News Limited 2007. All rights reserved.

*Video on site

itn.co.uk/news/7894c0fc3ea9b9e8ef38b644fa3a2967.html
Link is dead. No archived version found.

 

[los_grandes_lutz]

Baby monkey rescued by dog in Mtongwe doing well

A baby monkey was rescued by a dog from a thick forest near Petuko village in Mtongwe last year. The dog's owner Mohamed Abdhul Kuria, a 40-year-old father of two, said the baby monkey was one week old when it was rescued.

"These are my security. The baby monkey was adopted by the dog a year ago, when it was about one week old,” said Kuria. The dog breast-feeds the monkey and carries it on her back wherever it goes

More of the story and photos on the link

 

[ramonmercado]

Eight orphaned hedgehogs have survived against the odds at a zoo in the Russian city of Vladivostok, after a kindly cat became their surrogate mum.

Muska the cat adopted the spiky brood after their mother died in a lawn-mowing accident.

The tiny hoglets, as they are known, had refused milk from a syringe, a bottle, and a saucer for two days, according to Sadgorod Zoo.

At night, the babies had a heating pad to stimulate their digestion.

Still, nothing helped.

As Muska had recently raised a litter of foster kittens, she had milk to offer - so the zoo decided to try the unusual pairing.

The hungry orphans reacted to her bodily warmth and the smell of milk, and soon began to nurse. ...

http://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-40720327#

 

[EnolaGaia]

German cows have adopted a wild boar piglet.

Herd the news? Wild boar piglet adopted by cows

A cow herd in Germany has gained an unlikely following, after adopting a lone wild boar piglet.

Farmer Friedrich Stapel told the dpa news agency that he spotted the piglet among the herd in the central German community of Brevoerde about three weeks ago. It had likely lost its group when they crossed a nearby river.

Stapel said while he knows what extensive damage wild boars can cause, he can’t bring himself to chase the animal away ...

The local hunter has been told not to shoot the piglet — nicknamed Frieda — and in winter Stapel plans to put it in the shed with the mother cows. ...

FULL STORY: https://apnews.com/article/oddities-germany-animals-ee61df377475b50be48b82c01ed8ac04