Friday, November 27 2009, 14:41 GMTBy Mayer Nissim, Entertainment Reporter
The owner of five baby meerkats whose mother died in childbirth has given the animals a cuddly toy as a replacement.
Steve Rowlands, 28, has used the ten-inch figure and a hot water bottle to help the meerkats at Tropical Inc in Oldbury, West Midlands, The Daily Telegraph reports.
Rowlands said: "The babies are a month old now and they lost their mum just two days after they were born.
"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 we got the right temperature."
He added: "They now assume that the toy is their mum and they acting completely normally around it. Of course every hour we have to feed them milk ourselves, but use miniature little bottles which recreate how they would get it from mum.
"We even give it to them near the toy so they can't tell the difference between it and their mother - it's a really good result.
"At around six weeks old we are going to wean them away from their cuddly mum, as they would be in real life. That's when we can hopefully put them back in with their dad."
http://www.digitalspy.co.uk/odd/news/a188877/owner-gives-meerkats-toy-mother.html
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