Woman breastfeeds tiger cubs

Woman breastfeeds tiger cubs



YANGON (Reuters) - Hla Htay has three hungry infants to feed these days -- a seven-month old baby boy and two Bengal tiger cubs.

Three times a day, the Myanmar housewife goes to the Yangon Zoo where she breastfeeds the hungry black-striped, orange-brown cubs rejected by their natural mother.

"The cubs are just like my babies," Hla Htay told Fuji TV as one of the baby big cats suckled her breast.

"It's not scary at all," she said of the 45-minute feeds. "I needed to do something for the cubs because I felt really sorry for them".

Three cubs were born at the zoo in mid-March, but their mother killed one and refused to nurse the others. Veterinarians rescued the other two but had little success bottle feeding them.

"They had some difficulties sucking the nipple on the bottle. When we tried to get the cubs to suck a lady's breast, it was alright," said a veterinarian.

The zoo says the breastfeeding will stop by the end of April or when the cubs start teething -- whichever comes first.

I'm sure she'll soon find out when the cubs start teething. Ouch!!

Oh how lovely I bet they are all warm and furry..
I would like to do that!!

There was a similar story to this but the woman was feeding a dog, her reasoning for this was so the dog bonded with the child and would protect it. many said this was not a good thing to do as the pup may in fact treat the child as a litter mate, and challenge it at a later date for top position, personally I think its very sick.

Mo

cant be wrose than the storys from America about women breast feeding theyre teenage kids! i wonder what reason they gave 4 breast feeding theyre 13yr old son???

Was this origionally published on the 1st of the month? Could Reuters have been taken in by an April Fool? - it does seem a bit far-fetched

Well, if it IS true, let's hope it's over soon - I may be male, but even I can imagine that it could HURT!

Snorri

I agree thats going to hurt in a couple of weeks! l

I don't find it strange or sick I would feed one if it would keep it alive I bet the cubs are happier and healthier than bottle fed ones. It is not a lot different to the old 'wetnurse' concept
But then again just my view and I am known for being 'a bit strange' anyway

I find it wrong, totally wrong.