The Asian elephant is the second largest terrestrial animal, which causes genuine respect to it. Female live in small groups, consisting of a maximum of ten adult individuals with children of different ages. The leader is the oldest female, caring about the safety of her entire herd.
Females tend to help each other. For example, when one of them begins to give birth, everyone else gets around her and does not leave until the baby appears and gets to her feet. In such a simple way, they protect mother and baby from encroachment by predators. Newborn sloths usually keep close to their mother, but they can safely eat and another female, having milk.
The female gives birth to only one calf weighing up to one hundred kilograms. Pregnancy takes 22 months. Babies are born with small tusks, which they fall out in the second year of life.
Having reached the age of ten-sixteen years, males forever leave their mother, but females remain in the herd. In some ways, the way of life of these animals is similar to the human. By the age of 12-16, elephants are able to reproduce, but adults only become twenty.
Asian (African) elephants, living in captivity, feed mainly on hay and grass. Animals love sweets. Preference is given to apples, bananas, beets, carrots. Also, elephants like flour products, especially cookies and bread. In the zoo, they eat up to thirty kilograms of hay per day, plus another fifteen kilograms of fruits, vegetables, ten kilograms of flour products. They can also supplement the animals with cereals, for example, giving up to ten kilograms of grain. Necessarily in the diet of elephants include vitamins and salt.
