The San Saba news. [volume] (San Saba, Tex.) 1873-1966, 1890-03-21
MENAGERIE FOOD.
TT COSTS CONSIDERABLE TO
FEED WILD ANIMALS
Worn Out Old Horses Make sumptu-
ous Meals for lions, Tigers and
Other Carnfvorae-Eiephants'
and Monkeys Diet.


erie, y said DR.. oonkln, the superin-
tendent, to a New York Nei7s reporter,
and he had the figures to prove it. These
are few of them:
Hay, 100, 455 pounds, s1257; corn,
554 bushels, 1858, oats, $50 bags, of rs
pounds each, s1sS; fish, 1850 pounds,
S247; milk, 2942 quarts, sos; bread,
81, SIS psuads, S691; bird seed, IS
bushels, S54; apples, 81 barrels, SS62;
carrots, "a barrels, $50; cabbage, 1900,
$105, and miscellaneous food, 1882.
Besides this, s72 were paid for medi-
cine; S16O for 10 tons of peat moss for
bedding and $3.50 for 156 horses. This
last item of expense viii probably seem
to the reader to be the strangest one of
the entire list. Horses that cost less than
81 each cannot be very valuable. And
yet for such purposes as DR.. Conlllin
buys horses, they are as valuable as any
he could find. OF these 1856 horses that
only cost $3.50, IA were slaughtered,
carved into pieces of suitable size, and
eaten by the lions, tigers, panthers, Loop
osities in the big stone-foored lion house
AT ESQ every week day afternoon
for the meat-eating Central Park animals
reverse the human order Of things and
fast on Sunday man rolls an iron
wheelbarrow into the lion house, loaded
down with raw meat. Long before he
reaches the building the inmates of the
cages scent his approach and as he crosses
the threshold, q scene of savage greed
and passion ensues chat makes some
women grow white and some children
cry.
I The lazy lion, Jack, bounds from one
end of his cage to the other, coming
against the bars with force that makes
the building almost tremble. The tigers
follow suit, and even the black leopards
leave their shelves in the back of their
cages and join In the general uproar.
Five minutes after the attendants APP
pearance, five minutes after the great
pieces Of meat are tossed into the cages,
the lion house would pass for a geological
nursery.
The lions and tigers are the slowest
eaters. They play with their food as
cat does with mouse. They lap the
meat with their rough, red tongues.
They nibble at it and make faint efforts
to tear It. After they have satisfied
themselves with this sport they go about
their dinners in a business-like way, and
IN few minutes al the meat Is gone
and even the bones. But the bones can
not be digested by the cat animals.
Ten or twelve hours after the bones are
swallowed the stomach rejects them.
p Not so with the stomach of the hyena.
Like the goat, he can eat ANYTHING.
There IS no false modesty either about
the hyena. As soon as the meat reaches
his cage he begins to eat. He fastens
his powerful jaws In one corner of his
portips nd putting his paw on the other
oorneft tears the meat into shreds. He
gulps It down as though he had never
eaten before, and then proceeds to grind
the bone into pulp.
DR.. Conklin estimates than the horse
meat cnsts the Park Department II cents
pound He gives each lion, tiger and
hyena fifteen pounds day, which would
make the maintenance Of these animals
reach the tremendous figure of twenty
five cents day, not including water and
lodging. Before horse meat was substi-
tuted for beef the expense was much
greater, and the quality Of meat was
not so good as It IS now.
The 1000 tons Of hay ara ezten BY the
herbiferous animals in the antelope hoase'
BY the cattle n the paddocks, the camels.
buffalo and sheep. The elephants also
are fed upon it. There are now four
elephants IN the park, only one of which /
belongs to the department. Tip, the
bad elephant, Is a gift to the city from
Forepaush. The other three-Tom,
Lizzie and Jimmy--sre owned by the
circus maa and are kept in the park as an
additional attraction. The cost of feed
ing the elephants IS $3.50 each per dav. (
They are fed early in the morning and
they are still eating when the lights are
put out at night.
The corn Is consumed by the deer.
antelope, cranes and swans. For the
after It serves only as a summer diet and
I put II boxes along the lake every day.
Juring the winter months the swans are ,
ed on cabbages. These are cut up and
catered over such parts Of the lake as
re n5t frozen The bran and oats are
sten by the deer, hippopotamus and {
hiEoceros- The $1,000 baby sshippo.n S
be late lamented Mr.. AIeGinty.a had a
OF reached the bran period at the time e
/ ms death. The first day of his ex- a
tenee he ate nothing. During the next n
Fo days be drank ninety-six cents 4
orth1 q milk and the sole expense of b
lie fourth day consisted Of the charges Is
ade by the taxedirmlst who preDared m
IS hieless body for exhibition. o
The Two tons and a half Of fish we're cate, F.
7 the pehcans and the watsr-fowls and Of
e ssa-Ions. The milk was drank by the &C
vet cats and other small animals and nv tie
Ie nonkeysi the iatterals ate the eighty l.
ur barrels Of apples used in the park last
ar Tie carrots went for the birds.
ID the s2S3 worth Of miscellaneous
Cd consisted Of auts and fruits for the m
isermonkeysan and the great Miss Kitty, the C.
nowned chimpanzee. It costs seventy &c
c cents per day to feed Miss Kitty. Il
y appetite is capricious. Sometimes It d
an orange that she wants. Again she h
ayes banana or perhaps al apple. tW
zen hermilk bill IS prodigious, and she an
sies that drink with an occasional Y
INK Of whisky or q dose Of cod-liver vi
or cup Of hot beef-tea. Her feed hu
9 hours more nearly approach those Of ca
human beng than those OF any other 1t
imal IN the menagerie. She has three It
eais aay-at morning, noon and night. as
Inc Dir'is are fed once a day and that 60
at SIX in the morning. The hippouo- in
mi, Caliph and Mss Murphy. ret their in.
ed of bran crushed oats and dozen re-
ayes of bread every afternoon at q Re IN
les that they MUNICH hay from mornino, as
til night. The rhinoeeros is fed an wa
most similar meal at Q in the mornino- ari
about the same hour the condoTs no
giles and vultures are fed a pound ~ W
rse meat each. rat
The antelopes and deer get tbei- ha
rtions Of hay and oats at eve e morn l7,. au
:. At about the same time the camels en-,
tive and South African buffa,o fbs
try bull and sacred huinp-bacl,ed kine
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