Chengdu's baby pandas grow up
Seven baby giant pandas were born last year at the Chengdu Research Base of Giant Panda Breeding in southwest China’s Sichuan province. They are now facing an important lesson in life. They’ve begun learning to eat bamboo as a new food, under the gentle care of their keepers, Our reporter takes a close look at their life there.
This group of baby giant pandas are growing up healthily, their weight has increased by 200 times, just one year after their birth. They have become fatter, and naughtier. They climb up trees, play on equipment, and wrestle with each other. They are starting to get used to bamboo, a traditional food for giant pandas in the wild.
Wu Kongju, Senior Vet of Chengdu Giant Panda Breeding and Research Base said “All these baby pandas have gone through a special training program. We put them outside on snowy days with increased exercise so as to improve their physical status. Now these pandas look so strong and each of them is lively. They are quite healthy both psychologically and physiologically.”
Good nutrition is a guarantee for good physique. Apart from nourishing milk, keepers need to train these baby pandas to adapt to bamboo as their main food. The babies also have a special menu for the transition period. When they are one and half years old, they will start to learn to eat bamboo by themselves. An adult giant panda eats 30 kilograms of bamboo branches a day.
Source: www.china.org.cn
