As Bei Bei recovers from surgery, his diet is slowly returning to normal but he still needs to wait until he can eat bamboo. However, he continues to gain weight, and has crossed the 100-pound (45 kilos) mark. While Bei Bei continues his recovery, we have adjusted Mei Xiang’s schedule to ensure that she still gets an adequate amount of bamboo each day. During the day, Bei Bei happily eats and rests inside while Mei Xiang is fed outside in the yard.

Prior to Bei Bei's surgery, our normal panda routine was to do a large bamboo feeding at the end of the day to see them through the night. Now, with Bei Bei’s diet restrictions we can’t put any bamboo in the indoor enclosures, and overnight is too long to leave Mei Xiang without bamboo. The solution is to feed Mei Xiang her bamboo outdoors only, and to lengthen her day, so she is only without access to bamboo for a few hours.

Originally, keepers were staying round the clock, both to monitor Bei Bei and to provide bamboo feedings for Mei Xiang. As the days passed and Bei Bei no longer required round the clock care, we realized that Mei Xiang really wasn’t interested in eating much bamboo overnight anyway. So, we gradually began increasing the time between the last feeding of the evening and the first of the morning until we arrived at the current schedule, which seems to be working well for everyone. We provide Mei Xiang at least five outdoor bamboo feedings each day while Bei Bei rests indoors.

This is the time in Bei Bei’s development where he continues to spend more and more time apart from his mom, so both are unfazed by this schedule. This is also the time of year where the temperatures drop, but the pandas are loving it!  This is panda weather, and they are well equipped to deal with the cooler temperatures.

Both Bao Bao and Tian Tian are paying little attention to the schedule changes going on around them.  They continue to be on their own eating, sleeping and playing schedules.