A female elephant is fertile from the age of about 10 years old, but she does not usually become pregnant until she is 12 or 14 and in general she has no more calves after she reaches the age of fifty-five. When a female is in season, at least one bull is usually attracted to the herd. The female chooses the strongest bull because she wants her offspring to be strong too. If you think this through logically, you will discover that this could be a source of potential problems: every female would want to mate with this strongest bull, and therefore all elephants born in a specific period and region would be half-brothers or -sisters. Nature has solved this problem, as not all bulls are in musth at the same time. When a bull is in musth, he temporarily has many more male hormones and is then very wild, fierce and strong. The other bulls do not want to be near him. For a female, a bull in musth is irresistible. Since not every bull is in musth at the same time, they all have a chance to become a father. It does happen that two big bulls are in musth at the same time, and if they both desire the same female it results in a fight! With their big tusks, they look like living tanks. Occasionally, the weaker one not only loses the fight, but he may also lose his life if his opponentís tusk hits him in the wrong place.

In normal circumstances a female has a baby every four years. However this rate descreases if there is not sufficient food, or if the females are unable to find a partner because they are in an area where there are very few bulls (for example if many have killed by poachers for their ivory).

A pregnancy lasts 22 months with an African elephant and 21 with an Asiatic.. Elephants usually bear one calf, but twins are possible.

Just after its birth, a young elephantís weight is more than 100 kg. That is certainly a lot, but nevertheless it is less than one thirtieth of its adult weight. (What is a human babyís weight in comparison to an adultís?)

Care for a young in a herd is shared among its mother and aunts, which means it is very well cared for. In fact, the more aunts it has, the easier its motherís life is. Young elephants like to play and someone has to keep an eye on them all the time.

In the first months of its life an elephant only drinks milk. After about four months it starts eating grass as well and slowly learns how to drink using its trunk.

If young elephants do get separated from their herd and have to be raised by humans - which is what happens at the Elephant Orphanage run by Daphne Sheldrick in Kenya - they should not be given cowís milk. After years of trial-and-error Daphne has developed the right milk formula, and as a result of this the young elephants do not suffer from being given the wrong milk.

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