Active Users:1189 Time:22/11/2024 10:44:31 PM
Okay, let me take a look at the numbers. LadyLorraine Send a noteboard - 19/03/2012 01:13:09 AM
According to some quick research, the "Woolly Mammoth" (Mammuthus primigenius), is just about the size of an adult elephant. Elephants apparently eat about 300-400 lbs of vegetation/day. Let's just run with 400 to account for any increased requirements a Woolly Mammoth would have from living in an arctic environment.

The price of middling-quality hay in Kansas (where hay is relatively plentiful) is about $110/T. so it'll last you about 3 days for one adult mammoth. So you're going to need about 10 tons of hay/month, 120 tons for a year...

That's about $13,200 dollars/year for feed alone for maintinance. It wouldn't suprise me if you actually needed to feed it more, due to higher requirements and/or boredom. When herbivoires are bored, they eat, as they're designed to be eating all damned day anyway. $13,200 is a good starting point, but I definitely feel like it's the low end of our estimate. If you have to add concentrate on top of that, or any supplements (PS. you probably will), it'll become MORE expensive.

And that's the adult. The young is probably going to cost MORE, really, because it's going to have to consume milk (and god knows if whatever milk we can give it will be an appropriate formula!) at a high volume.

I do think that carnivore diets end up being more expensive than this per year, BUT, a mammoth is probably going to be ill all the gorram time because it's not adapted to any microbial habitat a zoo can possibly recreate, and cloned animals generally aren't quite as healthy as naturally produced animals. Then there's the specialized caretaking, cost of the size of the habitat, etc...etc....

Anyway. So yah. I don't think it's at all economically efficient to keep a mammoth in a zoo. At least we know how to take care of elephants...
Still Empress of the Poofy Purple Pillow Pile Palace!!
Continued Love of my Aussie <3
This message last edited by LadyLorraine on 19/03/2012 at 01:17:12 AM
Reply to message
Scientists to bring extinct woolly mammoth back to life with the help of elephants - 14/03/2012 04:18:52 AM 842 Views
My mammoth army will ride to VICTORY! - 14/03/2012 04:58:08 AM 544 Views
I bring the scientist, you bring the rock star *NM* - 14/03/2012 05:14:02 AM 317 Views
There is so much space out there in the Siberian plains - 14/03/2012 08:43:35 AM 478 Views
ugh. - 14/03/2012 04:10:14 PM 573 Views
Our zoos hardly suffer from a shortage of food. *NM* - 15/03/2012 07:19:36 AM 197 Views
First of all, yes, some zoos do. Secondly, woolly mammoths eat a LOT - 15/03/2012 12:06:47 PM 578 Views
They are still herbivores, they can't be that expensive to feed - 18/03/2012 10:16:22 PM 536 Views
Okay, let me take a look at the numbers. - 19/03/2012 01:13:09 AM 490 Views
Pragmatically then, the food bill itself is effectively minimal - 19/03/2012 01:50:11 AM 501 Views
heh. you're probably right. - 19/03/2012 02:21:14 AM 471 Views
Remember this moment in history.... - 14/03/2012 10:21:02 PM 496 Views
There's a big hole in their plan - 14/03/2012 10:31:21 PM 622 Views
I accidentally just f-bombed right in front of my mother. - 15/03/2012 02:39:06 AM 497 Views
Yes! All I need now is to miniaturize them. - 23/03/2012 06:23:04 PM 583 Views

Reply to Message