Elephant Feeding

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Watching baby elephants trot along with floppy trunks and ears as they get fed, it’s like watching a playground full of kids, chasing each other, tearing, arguing, and even standing or just sulking.

This is a must do in Nairobi and experience the feeling of being close to one of the big five. The elephant orphanage is on the edge of Nairobi national park in Langata.(West of Nairobi)

The baby elephants are fed with a combination of milk powder designed for premature human babies, coconut, vegetable oils and cereals. It has proved to be instrumental in the survival of Kenya’s vulnerable milk dependent calves, as a calf under two years old will die within 24 hours of becoming orphaned without milk.

Visitors can watch feeding and bath time each morning in the orphanage at Daphne’s house. It’s not easy to hand-rear an elephant; they are complex feeders and it’s difficult to duplicate a natural mother’s nurturing and support in captivity. Elephants need to be taught, and it takes endless patience from the orphanage’s trained keepers to teach a baby to suckle (the very young ones need to suckle every 12 minutes), use their trunks and ears, roll in the dust, and bathe. The keepers become the elephants' substitute mothers and bottle-feed on demand, providing a back or arm for the baby to rest its trunk on while feeding. They give them shade and the odd slathering of suntan cream; in the wild a calf will stand under its mother’s belly in intense sun.

After this you will believe the fact that, it’s true that an elephant never forgets.