The first giraffe officially arrived at the Lincoln Children’s Zoo

The first giraffe to be at the Lincoln Children’s Zoo made it’s first debut. After it’s nearly 400 mile trip from a zoo in Minnesota, it stepped into an 8,600 foot enclosure with a 34 foot ceiling.

"This is the state of the art facility, it’s going to be the only one of two or three in the country where people can come in on a year round basis and feed the giraffes and it’s going to have the most cubic and square feet per animal, per giraffe in the entire country right here," said Lincoln Children’s Zoo president and CEO, John Chapo.

Another feature of the enclosure is a freezer to preserve the leafy mulberry and maple branches. These were provided by the Lincoln Electric System tree crews.

"We can actually freeze it during the summer and then provide it to them during the winter months when normally there would only be sticks and other sorts of shrubs about," said director of medicine and conservation projects, Trenton Shrader.

The branches can be moved up and down as the giraffes grow taller over time. Two other giraffes, Allie and Joey will be arriving soon. The Lincoln’s first graders have the name covered with a contest. It will be announced on the week of September 24th.

The public will get to meet all three of the giraffes when the expansion opens in May.

"Thanks a lot Lincoln for loving your zoo because of you, you love your zoo.. we got giraffes," said Chapo.

We were told all three giraffes will be in the new enclosure by the end of next week.