Bai Yun analyzes her nutritious bamboo.
It has been a number of years since bamboo has been analyzed for the giant pandas. Joyce Nickley, a former keeper at the San Diego Zoo Safari Park, completed her masters of science research by looking at the nutrient content of bamboo, with the results published in her thesis as well as in a chapter in Giant Pandas: Biology, Veterinary Medicine, and Management (2006, edited by D.E. Wildt, et al.). Additional browse plant analysis has been completed on multiple primate browse species, four of the many species of eucalyptus grown for koalas, four species of acacia browse, and pennisetum used for the elephants. Every load of hay (Bermuda grass, Sudan grass, and alfalfa) is sampled for nutrient analysis, and our custom feeds, commercial feeds, and prey items (insects, fish, rodents) are routinely analyzed.
Our typical analysis includes moisture, protein, fiber (neutral detergent fiber, acid detergent fiber), and minerals (calcium, phosphorus, magnesium, potassium, sodium, iron, zinc, copper, manganese, molybdenum, sulfur chloride, and cobalt). In addition to these basic analyses, we often have lignin, sugar, starch, and fat analyzed. Due to the increased cost, we only analyze vitamins (A, D, E, C, and B vitamins), fatty acids, amino acids, selenium, and iodine for specific projects or clinical cases.
Routine nutrient analysis of the feeds we use at the Zoo and Park has allowed us to build a database of feed nutrient profiles that help us formulate diets for all of our animals, including our popular pandas, to keep them healthy and satisfied.
Michael Schlegel is the director of nutritional services for San Diego Zoo Global.
We knew you took great care of our friends! This definitely proves and underscores the quality of the steps you take to make sure our friends are healthy. Thank you, SDZ.
Do other zoos have the opportunitiy to use your expertise to choose the right feed for their charges?
Moderator’s Note: We do have the fortunate opportunity to share with and learn from other AZA-accredited zoos.
I was happy to see the amount of study that goes into the diets of the animals besides the Pandas. Keeps them healthy and happy. From other studies we learned that they live a longer life with a proper diet for their species. I was overjoyed to learn that GaoGao, our darling ,eats applesuce. An ideal way to get the vitamins we all need from apples. It is said that the bears in Atlanta love pears. Do we feed our bears pears? And in the wild they eat berries. Do we feed berries of any kind.?In season of course.Also, what is the white concoction made of that Gao Goo loves -his anti worming medicine,. he surely does eat it up.
Panda Team responds: Their diet consists of apples, yams, carrots, and folivore biscuits (the red biscuits). When we provide yearly medications like dewormer, we add the powder to applesauce or honey so they will consume it easier.
Thanks for the reply
clever of Bai Yun!
All around her were parchment paper in various shades of the rainbow. And as she wrote, she spritzed some fragrance onto each sheet. And she was humming, ‘I will always love yooooooooou!’ When she had a handful, she crafted them into various shapes which she lobbed into the next enclosure.
Yunnie walked in to have a chat with his Mama. He watched her curious behaviour. Women! Will I ever understand them this young man wondered. Bai Yun spots him and blushes.
‘Come, help Mama!’
‘What are you doing?’
‘Telling Papa how much I love him.’
‘I thought he knows that.’
‘One must always remind and show one’s love.’
‘And you are doing so how?’
‘I have scent marked each sheet of paper with my particular scent L’eau du BY and of course each sheet tells your Papa how special he is. Now help me throw them into his enclosure.’
‘Why don’t you just call him? Or email?’
‘MY DEAR SON, have you learnt nothing from me after all this time? The old ways are the best when it comes to love. Where is the fun if I call or email? Now he has to find each letter and he knows how much I have worked to show him my love.’
‘And what does Papa do in return?’
‘Well, you know how he hates climbing trees? Well, if you turn very slowly to three o’clock, you will see him in that tree and he is scent marking it for ME! Wheeeee! ‘I will always love yooooooooou! Hee Hee Hee!’
‘So this is what love is?’
‘Son, it is of course much more than this. But this is part of the fun.’
Bai Yun starts singing as sh climbs up to wave at GG, ‘I am 20 going on 21, I know I am not naive, Gao Gao need not tell me I’m sweet and willingly I believe. Totally unprepared am I to face the world of bears, I need some one strong and steady who will take care of me….’
He blows a kiss over and Bai Yun blushes. At the sight of his parents behaving like teenagers in love, Yun Zi looks gobsmacked. He grins and picks up some letters and decides to toss them in his Papa’s direction. GG gives him the 2 thumbs up.
‘That’s my boy!’ the mature swain was heard to mutter unger his breath.
Michael Schlegel, thank you very much for this very interesting blog about the analysis of bamboo and other foods at the San Diego Zoo and other laboratories around the country.
I am sure that all the animals at the Zoo, including the pandas, are very grateful for the excellent care that the nutritional services and the Zoo as a whole provided for them. And we are very grateful too!
You always give us such wonderful and informative information on our Pandas, and I know how “picky” they can be, can you make a few comments on WHY you THINK they are so picky. What it it they smell, or eye that WE are not seeing?? Some times they will eat one type and then the next day they will turn their cute little noses up at it and want another type. Animals are all so “sensitive”, much more than I think we are. Look at the animals that know there will be bad weather coming and hide or go up to higher ground!? I am sure it must be hard when it comes time to get them their food, thank goodness they are so cute and you keepers love them so much!!