Elephants Elephants - Wildpro - Twycross Zoo

Most facilities in the British Isles and Ireland use hay (meadow, timothy or
other) as the bulk diet, complemented with concentrates designed for equids
and other food items such as fruit and vegetables. Some also use vitamin and
mineral supplements, e.g. Equivite and Ele-Vit-E. It is important that the hay
is of good quality, properly dried and cured (Oftedal and Allen 1996). That is
to say, purchased hay should be green and leafy, have fine, pliable stems and
be free of weeds, insects, mould, twine, wire or any other foreign objects. Hay
should be visually inspected before a delivery is accepted and rejected if
found to be substandard (mouldy, excessively dry and dusty, poor
colour/leaf). While there is a general relationship between physical
appearance and chemical composition, it is difficult to predict protein content
and digestibility of grass hays. Thus palatability will be a further indication of
hay quality and ideally hay should also be regularly analysed for nutritional
content, a process that entails collecting ‘core’ samples from 15-20 bales;
handfuls of material pulled from the outside of bales will not provide an
adequate or accurate representation of the hay’s nutritional value.
Representative samples should then be assayed for dry matter, % crude
protein and fibre values. Forage testing laboratories will also be able to
provide an estimate of the energy value of the hay, a useful aspect in
managing elephants’ weight given the substantial contribution hay generally
comprises in any captive diet. Mineral data may also be useful, specifically
calcium and phosphorous.
Elephants should be fed repeatedly throughout the day and in the evening if
staffing permits (and see Section 3.5 on enrichment for details of a device
which will deliver food overnight). Staff should monitor diet consumption
and report variations. It is recommended that elephants be fed grain in tubs
or on a clean floor to reduce dirt/sand intake. It is important to ensure that
each elephant receives adequate quantities of concentrates/nutrient base.
Bran has been thought to significantly reduce the risk of colic and can be
provided on a weekly or biweekly basis. However there are not data available
to substantiate this claim. It has been suggested (Ullrey et al 1997) that the use
of bran and whole grains simply provide additional fibre, which would be
better provided by the use of good quality hay.
A recent survey (Ange et al 2001) suggested that most institutions do not feed
a nutritionally adequate diet and that many animals (especially Asian females
and see Section 3.6 on captive breeding) are significantly overweight (Ange et
al 2001). Therefore elephants must be regularly weighed and measured (using
a weigh-bridge) and then calculate ideal weight using one of the body ratios
described in Section 2.2).
Various surveys have been carried out on the diets of captive elephants (Ange
et al 2001) (de Regt et al 1998) (Nijboer and Casteleijn 2001) (Frost ), both in the
USA and Europe over the past decade. It is apparent that considerably more
research on the nutritional requirements of elephants needs to be conducted.
As a start to this project the International Zoo Veterinary Group carried out a
survey in 2001 on the diets of elephants in British and Irish collections. Details
of this are given in the next section (3.4.2).
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