What is elephants favorite food

Each elephant eats about 10 pounds of pellets per day. Every day, each animal eats about 15 pounds of produce.

Common foods include carrots, apples, and bananas; less-common ones are melons, pineapples, pears, celery, parsley, lettuce, cabbage, kale, tomatoes, potatoes, onions, and beets. These plants duplicate the fiber and other nutrients found in the woody trees and bark eaten by wild elephants. That means they need to eat large quantities of food to gain all of the necessary nutrients.

At the Zoo, we provide extra salt for our elephants to consume as needed. In fact, we provide extra mineral salt for all of our herbivores, since most of the plants they consume are low in sodium.

Many animals are browsers or grazers. Elephants are both , taking food from the ground and the trees. Across Africa you will find forest trails that appear to have been created by bulldozers. Decimated trees lie on their side, their trunks snapped in two. The green has gone and trees have been uprooted. Elephants love to eat tree bark and use their curved tusks to carve into the tree and tear off strips to feed on. It looks pretty dry to us but it is one of their favourite food sources.

Tree bark helps their digestion as it contains calcium and roughage. This enables the clear passage of fruits and plants in their vegetarian-based diet. The trunk is phenomenally powerful, yet delicate. African elephants have two finger-like tips at the end of their trunks to grab small objects and help get food into their mouths. The tips are so dainty they are also used to wipe their eyes. Elephants also use their trunks to help push and pull trees out from the ground.

These trunks can lift up to a whopping kg! A human body has muscles. Elephants use their trunk to eat by ripping grass from the ground, pulling branches from trees, and transferring food to their mouths. Elephants drink water of course! On average, an elephant drinks up to litres of water per day. However, an elephant does not require this amount of water to survive on the savannah.

Only half of their daily consumption is required for survival. Like other African animals they can store the extra for those days they must go without. They use their trunk to suck up 14 litres at any one time. Instead, they only suck it halfway then squirt it into their mouths. They use it to smell and identify food as well. Evidence proves elephants do cry real tears of emotion and show feelings of sorrow and delight. This is down to their emotional instincts.

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It is also very important to provide the elephants with fresh browse, or vegetation like twigs or young shoots, as much as possible. Their favorites include sugar maple and willow branches. There are some trees that are toxic to elephants, so our staff is well trained on identifying the local trees so those toxic species are never fed to the elephants by mistake. Bagels and breads, although they can only be given under special circumstances, are also a huge favorite!