Caring is Sharing (yes, Am, we're talking to you)
Posted by John Roberts at Tue, 22 Sep 2009 07:49:00 GMT 
Categories: Thailand Elephants,Scientific Research in Camp
Tags: Determination Calcium Concentration Captive Asian Elephant Milk During Lactation Bua Tong Raimon Am
Categories: Thailand Elephants,Scientific Research in Camp
Tags: Determination Calcium Concentration Captive Asian Elephant Milk During Lactation Bua Tong Raimon Am
Being genetically hungry beasts it is not always apparent that elephant vocabulary contains a rumble or a squeak for the word share when it comes to food - yes, we've seen elephants steal food from another's mouth with apparent acceptance from their friend, it is not uncommon for the babies to lob a bit of dry sugar cane or a particularly thorny piece of pineapple tree at us - but more in expectation of a return with interest (we never see them flinging at other eles), I feel, than borne of a feeling that we might like a quick chew.
Sometimes, however, we two legged beasts see the bigger picture, or at least flatter ourselves that we do, and feel the need to intervene which is why when Dr Cherry bounced into the office one day to introduce two friends Miss Sirinart Chaichanathong and Miss Warangkhana Langkaphin who wanted to deprive Nong Am (Raimon) of some of Bua Tong's milk we didn't immediately throw them from the top of the office steps (something that happens to unwanted interlopers on a regular basis - whereupon they are generally tickled to delirium by Pumpui).
Nong Bonus and Nong Fai (as they are otherwise known), it was explained, are sixth year veterinary students at the Faculty of Veterinary Medicine at Chiang Mai University and they, along with their co-advisor, our very own Dr. Cherry, were proposing to collect milk from different sets of elephants to analyse the calcium and other contents at different times during the lactation and, as an aside, at different locations with different diets.
One other reason they weren't thrown to Pumpui's tickling trunk was that, had the research been done earlier, Pumpui (or given that we use human milk replacement to bottle feed her, more likely our coffers) may well have benefited from this research officially entitled Determination of Calcium Concentration in Captive Asian Elephant Milk During Lactation.
We jumped at the opportunity to take part, one of the hotel's suppliers of fine meats, funny seafoods and odd sausages, Horeca, volunteered use of their refrigerated truck and off we went to the easy bit, milking an elephant...
...he, he, he - good luck ladies!
Sometimes, however, we two legged beasts see the bigger picture, or at least flatter ourselves that we do, and feel the need to intervene which is why when Dr Cherry bounced into the office one day to introduce two friends Miss Sirinart Chaichanathong and Miss Warangkhana Langkaphin who wanted to deprive Nong Am (Raimon) of some of Bua Tong's milk we didn't immediately throw them from the top of the office steps (something that happens to unwanted interlopers on a regular basis - whereupon they are generally tickled to delirium by Pumpui).
Nong Bonus and Nong Fai (as they are otherwise known), it was explained, are sixth year veterinary students at the Faculty of Veterinary Medicine at Chiang Mai University and they, along with their co-advisor, our very own Dr. Cherry, were proposing to collect milk from different sets of elephants to analyse the calcium and other contents at different times during the lactation and, as an aside, at different locations with different diets.
One other reason they weren't thrown to Pumpui's tickling trunk was that, had the research been done earlier, Pumpui (or given that we use human milk replacement to bottle feed her, more likely our coffers) may well have benefited from this research officially entitled Determination of Calcium Concentration in Captive Asian Elephant Milk During Lactation.
We jumped at the opportunity to take part, one of the hotel's suppliers of fine meats, funny seafoods and odd sausages, Horeca, volunteered use of their refrigerated truck and off we went to the easy bit, milking an elephant...
...he, he, he - good luck ladies!
I was lucky enough to capture the elephant-milking via webcam that day! Nong Am was her charming self, leaning playfully into the vet-girls during the collection. Thanks for the update, John. I LOVE the webcam
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...the ladies have published the result of their studies.
The Results read:
"Sixteen milk samples were obtained from 4 captive Asian elephants. The average calcium concentration of all milk samples were 184.34+/-32.45 mg/100g, and the average varied from cow to cow but with no significant difference between cows. The trend of calcium concentration was increased with time in milk and the average milk calcium concentration of group 1, 2 and 3 divded by days in milk were: 160+/-46.37, 190+/-12.25, and 220+/-14.14 mg/100g respectively and showed no significant difference between groups, (p<0.05)."
Which I think means that the level of calcium in elephant milk increased with the length of lactation but did not appear to change with other factors, such as age of mother or number of previous pregnancies.
In the discussion the ladies point out that this being the first study they could find it should could serve as baseline data and further studies ought to be done on a greater number of elephants and to study the effect of nutrition and feeding regimes in the mother on lactation milk.
Fun fact of the day: The calcium levels found in the milk of Asian elephants was higher than that found in other studies in African elephants. Higher than cow, horse, human and goat but lower than pigs and sheep.
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much needed for covervation of this magnificient animal to the future genration wish to share the findings
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