Giraffes are beautiful, unique animals, and they have a certain kind of grace... one that seems limited to flat, dry, solid ground. Seriously, I've worked at zoos that won't let their giraffes out after a light rain until the ground has had a chance to firm up and dry off. Those long, spindly legs, while capable of delivering a kick that can kill a lion, at times seem to have minds of their own and incapable of cooperating for the basic task of keeping the damn animal upright. A giraffe with a broken leg is quite a major medical problem.
And that's just dealing with the broken leg. If you want to do anything that involves anesthesia, you could be looking at quite the problem. The long neck with the seeming miles of blood vessels makes giraffes some of the more challenging animals to manage medically. Medicate them? Easier said than done. Your best hope is to make sure that your animal stays healthy enough that you never need to put it under any chemical restraint - or at least as little as possible. This is a species where an ounce of prevention isn't worth a pound of cure. It's more like a ton.
Image Credit: Denver Post
The zoo solution to this problem has been the giraffe restraint device. It's essentially a metal adjustable chute which encloses the animal, fitting it snuggly, and allowing keepers to draw blood, give hoof trims, whatever needs to be done, without the risk of the animal flailing around and hurting itself, or needing chemical immobilization.
All you need to do is convince the animal to go into the device... but that's an entirely separate set of habituation challenges.
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