Daily Times, Rawlings, Wyoming
July 13, 2007
Drew Foster, Times Editor

Original Article (this is a scanned PDF of the original article and is a bit over 6 Megs.)

Don't call them picky, these elephants know good Carbon County hay when they see it.

It was a family affair as the Richardson gang loaded bales of hay from their Elk Mountain ranch into a truck bound for the Elephant Sanctuary in Tennessee. From the left, grandson Rylie manned the forklift, while father Lyle stood watch as grandfather Shorty loaded the truck.

Longtime Elk Mountain rancher Shorty Richardson recently sent 21 tons of locally grown Timothy hay to the Elephant Sanctuary in Hohenwald, Tenn., and the elephants are devouring it.

Elephant Sanctuary Operations Director and co-founder Scott Blais said he couldn't be happier with the hay he gets from western states.

"This hay couldn't be better," Blais said, "Keep growing it!"

Both Richardson and Blais told the same story of an elephant from the Pacific northwest on its way to the Elephant Sanctuary. Along the route the elephant was under stress, hardly ate and drank little water. Then it got to Elk Mountain between 2 and 3 a.m.

"We drove through The Middle of Nowhere, Wyoming," Blais said. "I don't know where we were, but it was around 2 a.m. and we were told to get off the highway at a certain exit and behind a building there would be some hay."

"The first thing we knew was that there was a sick elephant coming from Washington," Richardson said. "We took it hay at about 3 in the morning."

"We put the bales in front of her and she immediately started eating," Blais said as he continued the story. "It turned her behavior around immediately."

"That elephant ate one bale then started eating after that," Richardson said with a laugh.

Although Richardson, who's been an Elk Mountain hay grower from about 60 years, has never seen an elephant outside of a carnival setting, the rancher appreciates that elephants can distinguish between finely grown Wyoming hay and a lesser-quality product from beyond the West.

"It's just a deal that I'm kind of proud of," the rancher said. "An elephant liked my hay. That's a first."

And that they do.

"You put (the hay) in front of them and it's gone almost immediately," Blais said.

The elephants aren't light eaters either. The Asian and African species put away between 150 to 200 pounds of hay each day in addition to the suppliments, grains and produce they receive during their three meals a day.

Blais said Elephant Sanctuary employees tried feeding the elephants locally-grown, east coast hay, but the massive animals often refused to eat. Blais said eastern-grown hay has higher moisture levels, which means the hay doesn't keep as well and has a tendency to grow mold.

"The western crop is cured out a lot more," Blais said. "It's much more heartier growth and just a cleaner product. It's almost a night and day difference. I think the elephants recognize quality when they see it."

And quality is important when dealing with old, sick and needy elephants, which are the types of animals that live at the Elephant Sanctuary. Blais said the sanctuary currently has 19 elephants that have come to the organization from zoos, circuses or private owners in North America. In captivity, Blais said an elephant's life expectancy is 35 years, while the creatures often live to be 60 to 70 in the wild. An elephant's diet is an important part of ensuring a long life.

"They're always searching for the best tasting grass to eat," Blais said.

During certain months, Blais said wild vegetations comprises about 60 percent of an elephant's diet, with the rest being made up of hay, produce, grains and supplements.

So although the elephants prefer western grown Timothy hay to almost any other type put in front of them, they still like to graze living grasses, which they can do on the Elephant Sanctuary's 2,700 acres.

"You can't compare eating at McDonald's to eating at a health food store," Blais said.

But you can comparre eating a $1 fast-food burger to your mother's charbroiled, backyard barbecue, marinated-meat, home-cooked specialty steak sandwich. And that's the category Richardson's Carbon County-grown Timothy hay falls into.