Hi guys, Welcome to the Advanced Video Search Engine, and you are watching How much do elephants eat?. That video is uploaded by How much do elephants weigh? at 2016-11-09T10:14:29-08:00. We are promoting this video only for entertainment and educational purpose only. So, I hope you like & enjoy it. [GT2i-7C5DDc]
| Name | How much do elephants eat? |
| Video Uploader | Video From How much do elephants weigh? |
| Upload Date | This Video Uploaded At 09-11-2016 18:14:29 |
| Video Discription | How much do elephants eat?: is one of the videos from the series created by https://howmuchdoesanelephantweigh.com, elephant charity shop, where you can purchase cool elephant themed items while donating to an elephant rescue organization if you want to help elephants. How much do elephants weigh? Are elephants endangered? Where do elephants come from? And what do they eat? Those are just some of the questions we will be covering here, because ELEPHANTS ARE AWESOME! Subscribe for our weekly videos if you are feeling the same way about this amazing animals and want to know more about them. This video covers some facts related to a topic âHow much do elephants eat?â: Elephants are herbivorous and will almost eat anything vegetarian ranging from leaves, bark, twigs, shrubs and bushes, fruits, roots and flowers. As large animals it is understandable that they need large quantities of food. Elephants use their muscular trunks, a very versatile appendage, for digging roots and uprooting plants, plucking leaves and breaking branches off the trees. Not surprisingly, elephants eat massive amounts of food â in the case of the African elephant, as much as 660 pounds (~300 kg) in a single day. Human adult only eats about four pounds of food a day. But letâs go into deeper details. How much do elephants eat? Basics of Elephants eating Elephants can be described as either food terminators or poo manufacturers, depending on their activity at the time. Elephants may feed for up to 16 hours a day. Elephants eat roughly 10 percent of their bodyweight in food every day, so in the wild one animal can consume as much as 600 pounds of food in a single day, although 250 â 300 pounds is a more typical amount. Of course, female elephants eat even more when they're pregnant â and they are pregnant for a long, long time â longer than any other terrestrial animal. The Indian elephant gestation period usually lasts a little over 21 months (~646 days), while African elephant gestation usually lasts even longer â around 22 months (Nowak 1999), nearly two years. That's a lot of time for extra snacks! Elephants do not chew cud, ruminate or belch as ruminant animals (e.g. cattle, bison, goats, deer) do. Instead they produce a lot of methane gas - in fact a car could travel 20 miles on the amount of methane produced by one elephant in a single day. Elephants digest their food with less than 50% efficiency. That makes the quantity of food they require even larger. The massive amount eaten coupled with an inefficient digestive system means lots of manure. An elephant defecates from 12 to 15 times a day, a daily quantity of 220 â 250 pounds. This adds up to a yearly quantity of over 85,000 pounds of manure, more than 40 tons, per adult elephant. How much do elephants eat? African VS Asian The African elephant is much larger that the Asian elephant and consequently eats a lot more than the latter. While an average African elephant will need 250 kilograms of food and drink 60 liters of water the Asian elephant will eat 150 kilograms and drink 40 liters of water. Both species will feed mostly in the early morning and in the late evenings. The African elephant is found in all types of habitats ranging from the savannahs to marshes and deserts and even in mountains above the snow line. Because of the terrain they live in and because of their higher reach they are browsers. They eat leaves, soft shoots, woody plants, shrubs and fruits of high growing trees. They will often rip bark off trees. They will often uproot trees, a habit which can change savannah into grasslands. The Asian elephant lives in the thorn-scrub forests of Sri Lanka, Southern India and Thailand and in the evergreen forests and grazers. They will generally feed on grasses, low woody plants and trees. As bamboo is abundant in these regions the Asian elephant is very fond of them. The Indian elephant (Subspecies of Asian one) loves sugar cane and other crops so much that it has become an agricultural pest, raiding and ruining gardens and rice paddies. How much do elephants eat? Wild VS Captivity Elephants in the wild consume bamboo, leaves, grasses, tree bark, etc, with a high percentage of water, and may eat up to 300 kgs/day. What do elephants eat in captivity? Their keepers (such as the mahout shown at right, feeding his elephant) may give them cabbage, lettuce, sugar cane, apples, and bananas, as well as other fruits and vegetables. But hay is the mainstay of a captive elephant's diet. And on a daily basis, elephants eat much less than the maximum amounts mentioned above. For example, according to the website of the National Zoo in Washington, Indian elephants eat only "125 pounds of hay, ten pounds of herbivore pellets, ten pounds of vegetables and fruits, and a few leafy branches." GT2i-7C5DDc |
| Category | Pets & Animals |
| Tags | How much do elephants eat? | facts about elephants | save the elephants |
