The Morris County chronicle. [volume] (Morristown, N.J.) 1877-1915, 1880-04-16
FEEDING WILD ANIMALS.

Nearly Two Hundred Pounds of Horse
fiesh Consumed Every Week by the
Lions, Tigers and Panthersat the Phii-
adeiphia Zoo-The Diet Of the Other
Animals.
Visitors to the Geological Garden
have noticed down in the lower end OF
the grounds. little to the right of the
place where the polar bears are kept, a
line of low, rambling buildings built
against the fence which separates the
grounds from long strip of land lying
between the gardens and the New York
branch of the Pennsylvania railroad.
The last of these buildings is q good
deal better than the rest, ing atall,
close, frame shanty of pine boards and
having door it. The others, smaller,
more uneven and without any doors,
are nothing moro than mere sheds or
stalls. Always in front of them will be
seen pile of clover hay, with half
a dozen, more or less, sorry looking
horses, the sole occupants of the sheds,
feeding thereon. An inspection of these
animals will usually show a plethora of
defects IN the way of damaged eyes or
spawned joints or broken wind, all in
the majority of instances, being the reg
ular accomplishments of old age and
being but another way of describing a
horse broken down by weight of years
and past his stage of usefulness. Occa-
sionally younger animals may be seen
in the stalls but these are also suffering
from some affiiction of body or limb and
stand on the same footing as the rest.
These horses, once they got under the
above described sheds, have all one
common destiny they are to be killed
and dressed as food for the animals of
the Geological Garden. The amount Of
food consumed daily by the animals.
large and small, is no little. The chief
meat-eating animals are the lions, I'll
gers, leopards, pumas and hyenas. Al
together they consume about IT'S pounds
of horse meat q day. Four horses a
week is the usual average in keeping up
the supply of these animals alone. Next
in point of heavy feeding come the ele-
plants. Their chief food is hay, of
which it takes about four times as much
to keep an elephant as it does to keep a
horse, the elephant eating about 100
pounds of hay every twenty-four hours,
And in order to keep up his appetite the
hay must be the best going, being invar-
iably timothy of the best grade. Other
animals that eat hay are the giraffes, the
camcls, the deer. zebra and different
animals of the cattle species. Most all
these are fed on what is known as mixed
hay, timothy and clover, which is about
twenty per cent. cheaper than the tim
otby alone. Two wagon loads of each
per week is the amount used. Each
wagon load Is supposed to contain 3d.
600 weight, or q ton anG half. The
price for timothy is about twenty dol
lars per ton, which makes the three
tons per week equal to sixty dollars.
The mixed hay costs in the neigh bor-
hood of eighJeen dollars ton, thus
making the weekly cost of that necessary
supply fifty -four dollars, which, added to
thesixty dollars, gives the weekly cost of
hay alone in the sum of one hundred
and fourteen dollars.
The cost OF feeding the lions, tigers,
leopards and pumas is about twenty dol
lars week. Add to this the one hun
dred and fourteen dollars, cost OF feed
ing the larger animals, elephants, giraffes
and others, and the cost is one hun
dred and thirty -four dol ars. This does
not nearly represent all the animals fed
in the garden nor does it come near be-
ing the chief item of cast. There are a
hundred and one other creatures reouir.
ing, in many cases, much more delicate
and costly food. The sea- lions have TO
be fed on fish, usually fresh and salt
macBerel, each animal taking twelve or
fifteen to each meal twice a day, and
consuming altogether 100 pounds Of fish
daily. Next in point of delicate liyers
come the polar bears, whose regular diet
is bread soaked in milk, with fish now
and then for change. The black bears
are also given bread, 100 pounds being
used daily. Vegetables of almost every
sort are fed literally to the different
animals eabbage, potatoes, carrots.
onions and turnips. The elephants are
great cabbage eaters, in addition to their
standard diet, hay. The giraffes.
singularIy enough. are great onion
eaters, while the deer and the
goats and animals of the COW
species eat carrots and turnips and pota-
toes. Bran and oats and corn are also
literally distributed-mostly once or
twice week-amoBg the NAVIGATING
animals. The most delicate and expen-
sive feeder in the place perhaps is the
ouranS- outang, which gets beef, pota-
toes, breed and honey. As there is only
one in lie collection at present, the cost
of keeping this grinning satire on the
human species is not multiplied. An
other delicaoy which must not be omit
ted in the diet of the polar bears is fish
oil. Of which they get several supplies
week. After the hay the oats is per-
haps the next chief source of expense in
the way of animal food. AS fer the
fowls, the larger ones are fed O a corn,
while the small birds are fed on canary
seed, and all of them now and then get
q small chunk of meat. The cost of
feeding the animals alone foots up to
about 800 day. All the horses. that
20 to supply the meat-eating animals
are killed on the ground. in the small
Slaughter house that stands at the lower
end of the row Of eheds in the lower
part of the garden. - PHILADELPHIA Times.