At the Manor, visitors are allowed to feed the giraffes. Their long, wet tongues beg for crumbs of food. A raised platform puts us at eye-level with the animals, who are incredibly tall when viewed up close. The giraffe is the tallest land animal, often reaching a height of five meters.
The Giraffe Manor, built in 1932 by Sir David Duncan, is situated on 120 acres of land just a few miles from the centre of Nairobi, Kenya's capital city.
In 1974 Jock Leslie Melville, grandson of a Scottish earl, and his wife Betty, who also founded the African Fund for Endangered Wildlife (AFEW), bought the Manor. They then moved five babies of the highly endangered Rothschild giraffe to their property where they have been successfully reared and now have their own babies.
In the wild, a giraffe can live for up to 26 years. They mainly feed by browsing in the tree canopy of wooded grasslands. Drinking is hard for the giraffe, who has to kneel to reach the water. That's why they only drink every two or three days.