Baby Meerkats have stuffed toy for mother

This story is so sad but so beautiful too. The mother of these little meerkats died shortly after they were born, so they've been given a stuffed toy and a hot water bottle to snuggle up to in place of their mother.

www.dailymail.co.uk...

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'The babies are a month old now and they lost their mum just two days after they were born,' said Mr Rowlands.
'We bought the toy to try and lessen the trauma for them and try and make things as natural as possible. We put it in with them and they just snuggled up to it like it was their mother.
'To recreate the warmth that Anika would have given off we also found a small hot water bottle and got the right temperature. They now assume that the toy is their mum and they are acting completely normally around it'.

[edit on 27-11-2009 by berenike]

The AAWWWW factor is off the charts on this story.

I'm glad that someone came up with this idea as it seems to be working..

What a great story Berenike!! love the pics too. They should maybe try using it as a hand puppet to teach them.