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Twenty tons of fish, 100 tons of grain, six tons of oranges, three tons of bananas, and 175 tons of hay. It’s not the gross exports of a small nation but a small part of the annual diet of the animals at the N.C. Zoo.
Each day the zoo commissary staff of six prepares and delivers meals for nearly 1,200 animals – from 8,000-pound elephants, to hummingbirds that weigh no more than a penny. Everything from crickets to corn flakes to cow’s blood is prepared for the 250 different species at the zoo.
Proper nutrition for the animals is one of the primary goals at the zoo and allows the animals to maintain good health and growth.
Diets are continually analyzed by a group of zoo nutritionists who know the requirements for each species. Commissary staff members adjust diets as they receive new scientific and nutritional information from the group responsible for the species. Diets are also affected by the animal’s age, general health and activity level and by simply watching the animal to see what it does and does not eat.
Each day an elephant eats 25 pounds of grain and 70 to 80 pounds of hay. The zoo’s primates and other omnivores eat a ton of produce per week. Birds, reptiles and amphibians are fed more than 250 dead mice and rats a week, and small reptiles and birds eat 320,000 live crickets a year.
One back storage room at the commissary looks like a feed and seed store, with pallet after pallet of bagged dry food. There seems to be a dry chow for every animal, from monkey biscuits and trout chow to ostrich pellets and feline "zupreme."
Article by Tom Gillespie
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N.C. Zoo is a member institution of AZA and an agency of the N.C. Department of Environment and Natural Resources, William G. Ross Jr. Secretary; Michael F. Easley, Governor. A part of the North Carolina Government portal.
The Zoo is closed Christmas day and during severe weather. Call our information line at: 1-800-488-0444.
