Information on Baby Tigers

Roaming through Asian forests are a small number of baby tigers and their parents. Female tigers give birth to as many as seven cubs at a time, who are totally dependent on their mothers for a week after birth until they open their eyes. Females will leave their mothers after about eight months while it takes males almost a year to leave their mothers.

  1. Habitat

    • Baby tigers follow their mothers for the first three months of life to learn necessary life skills. Until they are eight months to a year they will follow their mothers.

    Maturity

    • Baby tigers reach maturity after leaving their mother. At 3 years old, a female cub is able to reproduce and looks for a mate. A male cub reaches maturity at age 4 and also then looks for a mate. The female always approaches the male first to reproduce with.

    Food

    • Baby tigers eat meat. Deer, wild pigs, monkeys, bears, cattle and leopards are common food for tigers. Mother tigers hunt for the cubs until they are three months old. By the time the cub turns three months old, it has learned skills to hunt small mammals and rodents to eat.

    Types

    • There are six species of tigers. Amur, Bengal, Indochinese, Malay, South China and Sumatran are the main types of tigers. White tigers are a rare species in the Bengal family. All tigers can have a litter of up to seven cubs every two years. However, the mother can only hunt for two or three cubs, so she only allows two or three to survive.

    Appearance

    • Baby tigers are orange-brown or dark yellow with brown, gray and black stripes. Baby tigers also have white bellies. Their stripes help camouflage them for hunting. Over time their stripes will become darker and their size will increase. Most adult tigers are nearly 12 feet long, including their tail.