Baby Fae body began generating isohaemagglutinins, but a suitable donor could not be found in time. Prior to the procedure, no infant heart transplant—even with human hearts—had been successfully performed due to a lack of infant human hearts. To address this issue, Bailey had become a pioneer in the research of cross-species heart transplants, which had included "more than 150 transplants in sheep, goats, and baboons". Multiple surgeons had previously experimented with baboon heart implants, leading some to speculate even that baboons could be farmed in the future for such purposes. When asked why he had picked a baboon over a primate
Olive baboon is usually classified as savannah-dwelling, living in the wide plains of the grasslands. The grasslands, especially those near open woodland, do make up a large part of its habitat, but the baboon also inhabits rainforests and deserts. Uganda and the Democratic Republic of the Congo, for instance, both support olive baboon populations in dense tropical forests. The olive baboon lives in groups of 15 to 150, made up of a few males, many females, and their young. Each baboon has a social ranking somewhere in the group, depending on its dominance. Female dominance is hereditary, with daughters having nearly the