HEARD the one about the Kidlington dairy, 100 pints of milk and the Irish giraffe?

Well you have now!

Workers at the Unigate Dairy in Kidlington have stuck their necks out to save Aoife, the very thirsty baby giraffe at Belfast Zoo.

Ten-day-old Aoife - who has been hand-reared on special dairy-rich milk since birth - guzzled through all available stocks in Northern Ireland within a few days.

Her keepers were in a race against time and feared the worst when they discovered that the only supplier of the high-fat milk is the Kidlington dairy, in Langford Lane.

But staff proved their bottle by flying out a special consignment of 100 pints of the milk from Oxford airport within hours of the order coming in.

Oxford-based air taxi firm Air Med supplied an aircraft and Unigate's Bernie Palmer flew to Belfast with the milk. He helped give ten-day-old Aoife a much-needed meal courtesy of Oxfordshire cows yesterday.

Mr Palmer, customer service manager at the dairy, said: "This has got to be the most unusual home delivery we have ever made. We thought it was a tall story at first but we have certainly decided to milk it!"

Aoife, one of six giraffes at Belfast, became the first to be hand-reared after her mother rejected her at birth.

Keepers chose to feed Aoife on Breakfast Milk because it is high-fat and similar to a giraffe mother's milk. It differs from ordinary high-fat milk because it can be frozen.

John Stronge, manager of Belfast Zoo, said: "We were getting milk from local supermarkets but Aoife was getting through 14 pints a day.

Aoife, who is already 7ft tall, was today said to be "thriving".

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