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Many baby elephants die within hours of being orphaned some from pure heartache and despair, others are left helpless and vulnerable to attacks by predators, and some will starve within just a few days. For an elephant, family is all important; a calf's very existence depends upon its mother's milk for the first two years of life. It took Daphne Sheldrick nearly 30 years of trial and error to perfect the milk formula and complex husbandry necessary to rear an orphaned infant African elephant. Once rescued the keepers and orphans return to the nursery and the long process of healing both mental and physical wounds begins. During the time it is dependent upon milk a team of trained caretakers who represent the lost elephant family are there for the elephants 24 hours a day spending three to four days and nights with the little ones (even sleeping with them) before switching out for another keeper. This schedule allows the keepers to have human families of their own while this schedule also ensures that the orphaned elephants do not become wholly dependent and attached to just one person - who they likely will see as a mother figure in these early years. Orphans are bottle fed, socialized with other orphans and when they are a bit older taken out into the wild to associate and learn from wild elephants. The orphans are kept until such time as it is comfortable amongst the wild herds and chooses to become independent. The time involved depends entirely upon the personality of each individual and also upon how well the elephant can recall its elephant family, but all the orphans reared by The David Sheldrick Wildlife Trust are "elephants" again and integrated into the wild community by the age of