Not only can you see spring in bloom at Florida’s Green Swamp, you can hear it. In the middle of Polk County, cows and pigs can be heard among the cypress trees.

"Come on, baby,” said Emily Jaffee, guiding a baby horse from her barn to a green pasture.

Emily’s morning routine at Safari Wilderness is busier in the spring.

"She knows the routine, that's for sure," Emily said while walking Lina, an Austrian Haflinger foal to a field.

The four-week-old is ready to eat.

"She is already slurping it down," Emily joked while holding an oversized bottle the shape of a carton of milk.

"Unfortunately, her mom had some post-pregnancy problems.  So we had to pull Lina at four days old, to raise her on a bottle,” Emily said.

Adding in the beginning, she spent nights camping at the ranch, so she could feed Lina every two hours.

Lina is not alone. The blonde baby, with a Mohawk for a mane, joins several babies at Safari Wilderness in Lakeland.

The best way to see Safari Wilderness’ collection of new babies is by truck. The former school bus bounces over the terrain of the Green Swamp, past Lemur Island, where friendly lemurs await breakfast.

From this vantage point, the animals on the horizon may convince you this isn’t Florida, rather Africa.

"The ones all standing around the troughs are the waterbuck, and the one walking up are the Red Lechwe,” Emily said.

"The moms will plop them down in the same patch of tall grass while they go out to graze."

A nearby baby Scimitar-horned Oryx is pretty lucky.

"We have more Scimitar-horned Oryx here in Polk County, than they do in the wilds of Africa,” Emily said.  The Oryx was over hunted in the 1980s..

"It was really exciting we had one born here,” she said of the small Oryx able to run as fast as her parents.

Also in the distance are additional Austrian Haflinger horses, born  just this week.

"One was born this Monday, one was born the following day on Tuesday,” Emily said, as the baby stands and begins to nurse.

"They ‘body block.’  So, they try and put mom between themselves and anything new or scary,” Emily shared about the baby girl born 48 hours before our visit.  "It's important the baby has a chance to latch on to mom."

After a quick hand-out to a llama, we're back at the ranch, where Lina's hungry again and feeding time begins all over again.

NOTE: While Safari Wilderness is open to the public, safaris rides, lemur feedings and kayak rides require an advanced reservation. Find out more with this link.

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