Elephants Elephants - Wildpro - Twycross Zoo

elephant can clamber out of a moat if necessary. They MUST be replaced andinterim plans made for getting out any animals that fall or are pushed in 1 .Whatever the form of elephant containment, there MUST be methods sokeepers have access to escape .Fig 7b. Elephant reaching over unsuitable moat3.4 Feeding and Nutrition3.4.1 BackgroundNutritionally sound food, comprising of good quality forage (hay andbrowse), concentrates and produce (optional), MUST be provided in sufficientquantities to maintain animal health and appropriate weight. Nutritionalrequirements of elephants have not been measured, but instead largelyinferred from field studies of their food plants and extrapolation of data fromthe horse. Due to similarities in digestive tract morphology the domestichorse probably represents the best nutritional model for elephants (Dierenfeld1994). In this paper Dierenfeld provides estimated guidelines of captiveelephant 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 higherenergy requirements than those living in a warm dry climate, and this will bereflected in an elevated dry matter intake.Browse allows animals to exhibit normal behaviour and increases foragingtime and has additional nutritional benefits. Two listings of browsecommonly used in UK collections are available (see Appendix 6, 7.6.3.), whichalso give details of poisonous forms (Frost 1992) (Plowman and Turner 2001).However there is currently no data compiled on the nutrient composition ofbrowse in the UK. Details on use of food as enrichment is given in a latersection (3.5), but generally it is important to increase time spent feeding asmuch as possible.1 Section on moats has been clarified46