Fiona The Hippo Update: Cincinnati Zoo's Premature Baby Animal Is Healthy, Off Oxygen

The Cincinnati Zoo’s famous baby hippo Fiona was faring well a few weeks after being born prematurely, the zoo reported Thursday. Fiona, now a little more than six weeks old, had her first taste of vegetation in the form of hay.

The zoo released a video of Fiona making her way through a pile of hay that had already been pre-chewed by her mother, Bibi. Fiona still lacks molars and was unable to chew the food on her own.

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The addition of her mother’s saliva also aids Fiona’s digestion because it exposes her gut to good bacteria, Cincinnati’s local WCPO reported Thursday.

Fiona, now over 80 pounds, was born six weeks premature to her parents, Bibi and Henry. The baby hippo was only 29 pounds at birth, which makes her the smallest hippo ever recorded.

“She has shown consistent forward progress for the last couple of weeks and seems to be growing stronger every day,” the zoo said in a blog post last week.

The baby hippo was taken off oxygen Monday for the first time. Fiona was given O2 to aid her breathing since she was 8 days old. Her underdeveloped lungs posed a problem, because hippos spend at least two-thirds of their lives in water.

“Along with her steady weight gains and increased strength and stamina, her little lungs finally seem to have caught up developmentally,” the zoo said.

Zookeepers said they were teaching Fiona how to hold her breath underwater in a pool so that she would eventually be able to stay submerged with her parents. Video released Wednesday by the zoo showed Fiona drinking water from a hose for the first time. The zoo said it paid careful attention to the temperature of the water because Fiona was not yet able to regulate her own.