Milking a rhinoceros by hand sounds scary but that's what Hamilton Zoo staff did when a baby rhino was born almost blind a few weeks back.

Blood sores in the white rhino calf's eyes intended that he had problem finding his mother Kito's tits to suckle milk from them.

Hamilton Zoo Acting Director, Samantha Kudeweh said that she had not heard of anyone having milked a rhino in Australasia.

Rhinos are usually docile animals and milking one was a thrilling experience, but obviously with an element of risk.

Mrs. Kudeweh said, "If they get a fright they flick round and they can't see particularly well so they rush towards something if they don't know what it is".

But sitting under a mother rhino and hand-milking her had not been a frightening experience. She said that they do a lot of conditioning with their rhinos on a daily basis so they're happy to stand in their defensive chute.

"Every day they get a big rub down, we check their feet and we can even take blood samples from their ears - they're actually very tactile animals", she added.

Kito, who weighs around 1500 kilograms, was milked thrice a day for five days, producing three liters a day.

Kito's milk supply was not quite adequate to meet the calf's requirements and he was replenished with commercial foal formula.

The baby rhino now weighs 76kg and, with his eyesight constantly improving, is effectively suckling from his mother.