Elephant Diets

Each elephant here at the Phoenix Zoo consumes approximately 120 lbs of food every day. While this diet consists of several types of fruits and vegetables, the majority of their diet consists of hay. We normally have two types of hay to give the elephants, Bermuda and Timothy. The keepers have a few options on how to offer the hay to the elephants each day. While it would be easy to just place the hay in big piles on the ground, the keepers have found key elephant behaviors that are not consistent with the foraging behaviors of wild elephants. Wild elephants have to search all day for their food they need to live on. This foraging activity can take up most of their day, walking up to twenty miles a day finding grasses and browses that they need to sustain a herd. By putting hay in one pile provides no activity. The elephants would get no exercise and end up consuming their entire daily meal in less than two hours. This speedy meal leaves the elephant with nothing to do for the rest of the day, does not promote naturalistic behaviors, and creates boredom.

Instead, the Phoenix Zoo elephant keepers have created other means of dispersing their food by presenting them with similar situations that they may encounter in the wild.
They use cargo nets attached to elevated feeders with hay inside through various areas of the Elephant Sanctuary for elephants to roam and reach for their hay up high. A little bit more challenging, but in the long run will keep them healthier and happier.