In our Meet Milwaukee’s Animals series, we speak to an animal caretaker each month to share the stats and stories that make some of our favorite animals so fascinating.
Nearly 15 years ago, zookeeper Ryan Taylor stood on a scale at Disney’s Animal Kingdom in Florida, holding a day-old giraffe that was still slimy from the birthing process. She weighed 144 pounds. Taylor won a zookeeper pool for guessing closest to her weight. He cared for the young giraffe, initially named Madeline, for six months before she and her mother moved to Disney’s Animal Kingdom Lodge and Taylor lost track of her.
Today, that giraffe, now called Ziggy, is a mother of four and matriarch of the giraffe group at the Milwaukee County Zoo. She will turn 15 on Aug. 2. Incredibly, Taylor, who held Ziggy right after she was born in Florida, is one of the Milwaukee zookeepers who now care for her here. His personal connection to her past led Taylor to lobby successfully for one of Ziggy’s children to be named Asante, after the mama giraffe’s father.
Taylor, who joined the Milwaukee County Zoo staff in 2015, is a large mammal zookeeper of African hoofstock, meaning giraffes, hippos and rhinos. In a recent interview, he answered questions and shared anecdotes about Ziggy.
What kind of animal is Ziggy?
She is a reticulated giraffe, classified as Giraffa camelopardalis reticulata or Giraffa reticulata. The word “reticulated” refers to the networked pattern of color on the giraffe’s skin.
Ziggy has thicker whitish lines between her color patches than many reticulated giraffes. Some visitors wonder if that is age-related, but Taylor tells them no, “that’s just like us having different hair color.” He pointed out that Ziggy’s children have the same lighter pattern, including white dots inside their brown patches.
How tall is Ziggy? How much does she weigh?
These are estimates, because it is challenging to weigh a giraffe or measure her height. Taylor estimates her weight as between 1,800 and 2,000 pounds, closer to the latter figure, and her height as 12 feet. She’s a little stouter and a little shorter than typical, he said.
Where does Ziggy live at the zoo?
She lives in the Zoo’s Giraffe Building in the Adventure Africa habitat.
What other animals does Ziggy live with? How does she get along with them?
Ziggy lives in the Giraffe Building with female giraffes Marlee and Maya and male giraffe Kendi, who came to Milwaukee in late 2023. During daytime hours, when weather cooperates, the four giraffes spend much of their day together outside. At night, zookeepers separate Kendi from the females, in part because the zoo wants to monitor breeding, not just let it happen.
When it comes to getting along with others, “Ziggy is not a giraffe’s giraffe,” Taylor said. She lives with them, she tolerates them, but often prefers to be by herself, he said. She’s also a sentinel who pays attention to what’s going on outside. She watches the public. She’s not a fan of noisy wheels, he said.
What does Ziggy eat?
Ziggy gets about four kilograms of wild herbivore grain each day that includes the vitamins and minerals she needs, plus some alfalfa. Some food is placed in feeder balls so that eating it becomes an enrichment activity. There is also browse — hanging branches with leaves and bark for giraffes to nosh on.
The giraffes are also fed greens, including kale, romaine and endive lettuce. Treats used for training can include carrots, sweet potatoes, apples and bananas.
Who are Ziggy’s children?
So far, she has given birth to four male giraffes. “Ziggy can get pregnant if you breathe on her, because it’s happened,” Taylor said. A few years ago, she was inadvertently left unmonitored with a male giraffe at the zoo, and that one encounter left her pregnant, he said.
She made headlines in 2022 when she gave birth to male giraffe Asante outdoors in front of visitors, the first outdoor giraffe birth at Milwaukee County Zoo since the 1990s, keepers said then. Asante now lives at another zoo as part of an international species survival plan.
The animal care team wants breeding but not accidental breeding. So as part of managing this, female giraffes may be given a daily dose of liquid birth control to keep them from cycling into estrus during certain time periods.
How is Ziggy’s health? What care and medical treatment does Ziggy receive?
“The vets would say she’s a little on the bigger side,” Taylor said. Apart from that, she’s in good health with no chronic conditions. All the giraffes receive joint supplements as a precaution, because the zoo’s two previous older giraffes got arthritis pretty bad, Taylor said.
What training is Ziggy working on?
Zookeepers are training Ziggy and the other giraffes to walk on and off the scale, and to cooperate with blood draws and injections. They also train the giraffes to present their hooves on a block so staff can clean and clip them.
Ziggy, Taylor noted, is very good at her hoof and blood draw training.
What happened to Ziggy’s tail?
Visitors may notice that Ziggy is missing the hairy end segment of her tail known as the tail tuft. Some years ago, she got her tail stuck in the hinge of a door, Taylor said. Ziggy yanked it out, breaking the bone. It healed and she’s doing fine, he said, but she can’t grow new follicles, so she no longer has the hairy tuft to swish away insects.
What’s the best time to see Ziggy and other giraffes?
Weather, construction and other circumstances permitting, Milwaukee County Zoo offers giraffe feeding experiences daily from Memorial Day weekend through Labor Day weekend, and on weekends the rest of September. These take place from 10:30 a.m.-12:30 p.m. and 2-3:30 p.m. Human participants, who pay $5, can look giraffes in the eye as they offer a snack. More details: milwaukeezoo.org/experience/activities. The zoo says a portion of proceeds supports conversation efforts.
This article originally appeared on Milwaukee Journal Sentinel: Meet Milwaukee’s Animals: Ziggy is matriarch of Milwaukee County Zoo’s giraffes
Reporting by Jim Higgins, Milwaukee Journal Sentinel / Milwaukee Journal Sentinel
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