Whether the zoo animals should be fasted?

Hey, they should have a chance to join the fun, too. A problem shared is a problem halved.

 

About as much as insinuating that certain peoples are mentally "cold" because of the local weather...Your sudden mood and topic swings as well as the escapist scenarios you draw based on bits of information of varying quality do not foster the self-image you try to convey. Don't get me wrong-you appear to be a nice, enthusiastic fellow. Just try to think your argumentation through and don't dash forward with pies in the sky.

Not everyone shares your inclination to bare it all to the public. In the past, there have been cases of zoo staff (or zoo aficionados like yourself) openly participating in ZC, and getting into trouble due to that. Other readers might be more interested in the topic at hand than in personal presentations. So please feel free to use the PM option as a more personal way of communication.

I'd advise you to get off this high horse of yours asap. Neither do you, as you have confirmed again and again yourself, have actual professional experience in many of the topics you bring up, nor does the knowledge you have brought to the table so far justify any academic conceit. I've met too many people of academic, professional and educational background very different from mine who nevertheless impress with exceptional actual expertise, and academics whose abysmal ignorance and inexperience has baffled me again and again. So maybe you should learn not to judge a book just by its cover.

 

Well I must say Thank you. For the last qute - I just want to learn more for those with whom I communicate here, that doesn't mean that I will not communicate, if they don't have related proffesion. After all, as you wrote, I do not have experience, I have just researched on net, and studied something about zoo animals. That is all. And yes, visited in live just four zoos (including Skopje, Belgrade, Bitola and Tierpark Hellabrunn-Munich).

 

I work in the zoo industry, and I will say that what people have said here, especially about ungulates, is definitely true. Ungulates (in general) need constant access to roughage to keep their guts healthy. Fasting them even for a day can make them very sick, and I would say it's animal abuse.

 

Mean ingesta retention time for ruminant ungulates is about 48 hours, for non-ruminant, about 30 hours.
Fasting of ungulates, yes maybe seen as abuse, but one-day fast would not be so detrimental, plus if we just partialy fast them (50% reduced feed).
After all, obese (fat) ungulates, like hippos especially, should constantly be on partial fasting (eg. 30% reduced feed intake of that should be normal), to lose weight - and to improve their welfare (also making animals (very) fat (like I saw especially some hippos, elephants, big cats, apes), can be seen as abuse, is in it? )

 

From personal experience I have always found the more you feed a Lesser Fijian Troll,the more they come back from more,so now I would always recommend not feeding them at all and the problem will normally sort its self out!!

 

Ungulate digestion systems, overall, are designed to be constantly digesting. Whatever their mean ingesta retention time, they need almost constant access to hay or browse.

Also, offering a reduced diet is not the same thing as fasting.

 

Actually in the original few mine post, I considered that reducing of the feed intake by some percent than normal, eg for 50%, would also be fasting because animal don't get the needed daily callories.

Also with humans, for example doesn't mean that if an adult man ate just 100 grames of bread and nothing else that day, that would not be fasted.?! Yes it will be fasted because he don't get the enough food.