Elephants Elephants - Wildpro - Twycross Zoo

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elephant can clamber out of a moat if necessary. They MUST be replaced and
interim plans made for getting out any animals that fall or are pushed in 1.
Whatever the form of elephant containment, there MUST be methods so
keepers have access to escape .
Fig 7b. Elephant reaching over unsuitable moat
3.4 Feeding and Nutrition
3.4.1 Background
Nutritionally sound food, comprising of good quality forage (hay and
browse), concentrates and produce (optional), MUST be provided in sufficient
quantities to maintain animal health and appropriate weight. Nutritional
requirements of elephants have not been measured, but instead largely
inferred from field studies of their food plants and extrapolation of data from
the horse. Due to similarities in digestive tract morphology the domestic
horse probably represents the best nutritional model for elephants (Dierenfeld
1994). In this paper Dierenfeld provides estimated guidelines of captive
elephant nutrition, most notably: animals with body mass ranging from 2500 –
4000kg consume between 32.5 and 52 kg of feed (on a dry matter basis) daily.
Animals housed in temperate UK collections will likely have slightly higher
energy requirements than those living in a warm dry climate, and this will be
reflected in an elevated dry matter intake.
Browse allows animals to exhibit normal behaviour and increases foraging
time and has additional nutritional benefits. Two listings of browse
commonly used in UK collections are available (see Appendix 6, 7.6.3.), which
also give details of poisonous forms (Frost 1992) (Plowman and Turner 2001).
However there is currently no data compiled on the nutrient composition of
browse in the UK. Details on use of food as enrichment is given in a later
section (3.5), but generally it is important to increase time spent feeding as
much as possible.
1 Section on moats has been clarified