Maia and Her Beloved Grazing

Maia has settled into the area across the creek in Yard 5. As you can see in our recent photos, we are at the point in the rainy season where all the grass here is stunning, tall, and lush. Despite most captive elephants not having access to grazing for decades, they seem to instantly develop preferences and strong opinions on grazing. Lady and Maia seem to strongly agree that the area across the creek in Yard 5 has the absolute best grass. Unlike Lady, Maia will occasionally leave the area to make her rounds. Maia likes to periodically “check-in” at the barn to see if she’s missing anything exciting or to look for her next meal if she perceives it to be late. She will, of course, promptly return to graze some more.

After a few days in Yard 5, we opened up Yard 1 for Maia for a few hours so the team could clean Yard 5 safely. Lady was nearby, in Yards 2 and 3, but they seemed to not pay much attention to each other. Maia seems to enjoy her short visits to Yard 1; she played in the mud wallow and took a very muddy nap. Once the caregivers finished cleaning Yard 5 and we reopened the gate, Maia was happy to beeline back to her favorite grazing across the creek.

Photo of Maia, surrounded by her favorite grazing.

Comments(9)

Kelejan says
January 27, 2021 at 12:18 pm
I love your comments, they take me right there with you all.
Jillyp says
January 27, 2021 at 12:28 pm
That lush long grass must smell glorious when it’s been raining ?????
What a lovely time they are having ?⭐️ in their five star ⭐️ sanctuary ??
Melinda says
January 27, 2021 at 12:46 pm
Dear beloved Maia, enjoy your awesome grass. You deserve it all!
Nancy J Shaw says
January 27, 2021 at 12:52 pm
This made me smile !
Tammy says
January 27, 2021 at 1:04 pm
It’s so heartwarming to hear about all the amazing choices these lil ladies have to satisfy their cravings something they were deprived of for far too long and now they’ve got a brazilian buffet of yummy foods to choose from! Thank you to everyone at the Sanctuary who work so hard caring for these gorgeous girls thank you to everyone around the world who help with donations thank you to those local farmers who donate goodies to keep our girls happy and healthy! What an awesome amazing family to be part of love and hugs to all from Minnesota ☃️ ? ?
Laura says
January 27, 2021 at 3:21 pm
It never occurred to me that you have to clean up the yard like any responsible dog owner.
- REPLY
  Kat Blais says
  January 27, 2021 at 6:27 pm
  Yes, although we don’t find every dung ball. There are certain areas they frequent more than others, so we check on those. And we always clean up the yards closest to the barn, to make sure everything stays as clean as possible for Lady’s feet.
JoAnn Merriman Eaton says
January 28, 2021 at 1:24 am
I had a smile thinking of Maia frequently going up to the barn to make sure she is not missing something…..then abruptly going back to grazing in her favorite place. I really never thought of having to clean up the girls yards. Makes perfect sense though . Love these posts, but especially the videos. Speaking of videos, I noticed Bambi’s lady parts have something going on. Is everything ok with that?
- REPLY
  Kat Blais says
  January 28, 2021 at 1:21 pm
  Bambi’s ‘lady parts’ are fine. She is a little more dropped down in general, but she also just urinated (which you can see at one point) so they will seem extra low.

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