The mouflon of Terra Natura Benidorm has experienced a baby boom.
This species is living an authentic baby boom during these days, there are 7 newborns and it´s expected 10 more births.
With these births (Ovis musimon) there are more than 60 mouflons living in the zoo becoming the species with bigger number of members in the contact zone set in Europe. Other species such as deer and fallow deer are with this group of mouflons too.
After three days of life, the veterinarians have carry out this morning a complete examination of the 7 new offspring; They wait this period so the mother don´t reject them. The examination has been a success thanks to the coordinated work of veterinarians and keepers.
The examination consists in weight the offspring, discover the sex, remove parasites and supply vitamin. They have also check that the conditions of each offspring are adequate and they have verify that the umbilical cord is correct. They have also identified the mothers and have incorporate an auricular bell to have them properly identified.
At the moment, our team of experts remains expectant and alert to the birth of the other 10 offspring that are expected to be born in the next few days to repeat the same medical review with them.
In this species, the females have an important hierarchical position and an older female leads it always. It is a sociable animal that makes groups with different members depending the time of the year. In the summer, for example, males stay on one side, and females and offspring on the other.
The mouflons have two breeding seasons, in February and May. In heat time their bleating can be heard kilometres away. As a curiosity, the mothers synchronize their births and the most frequent moment in which births take place are the sunrise and sunset.
Their pregnancy last five months. Once the mother has the baby it can walk in half an hour. In this species stands out the horns they have with snail shape and are very curved in the case of males.