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Giant Pandas live alone most of their lives. Only when they need to breed do they seek out a mate. The male Giant Panda makes a special odor for the female Giant Panda. When the female panda smells the odor she sniffs where the odor is coming from and follows the scent to find the male panda. The pandas call to each other. Female pandas are ready to have babies once a year, in the Spring. There are so few that it makes it harder for them to mate. So, females have babies about every other year. They raise 5 to 8 cubs in a lifetime.
It takes 95 to 160 days for a female to give birth after mating. The female digs a den in the ground to give birth. This is where she gives birth to her 1 or 2 babies. The mother can only care for one baby, so the other baby usually does not survive by caring for itself.
Giant Panda babies are called cubs. The cubs are born helpless and weigh less than an apple. They are born small, pinky-white, blind and furless. They need their mother to do everything for them. It takes about a month for the babies to begin to change their coloring and open their eyes at 6 to 7 weeks. They will be able to follow their mom around at about 3 months old, start to eat bamboo at 6 months and are ready care for themselves at about 9 months.
Panda cubs stay with their mothers for about 1 to 2 years before they are ready to go out on their own. They become full grown pandas between 2 and 4 years old and can live for about 30 years. We do not know how long Giant Pandas in the wild live. Giant Pandas in the zoo live into their late 20`s or sometimes their late 30`s. The oldest living panda is Chang Chang. Chang Chang is a male panda. He lives in the Jinan Zoo in China, he is 34 years old.
*breed: When animals breed, they mate and produce young *den: The home of a wild animal.
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