How Myakka Elephant Ranch keeps their elephants warm

MANATEE COUNTY, Fla. — Elephants may be built for the wild, but colder weather still means extra care.

So animal handlers at the Myakka Animal Ranch in Manatee County are taking extra steps to keep their animals safe.

“This is so cool,” Finley Martin said while watching the animals in their environment. “You are so cute.”

Petting the elephants brings the experience to a whole new level at Myakka Elephant Ranch.

“The skin feels weirder than I thought it would be,” said Martin, who said the experience was everything he and his family had been waiting for.

“I have been waiting for it for several months. It was everything I hoped it would be,” Jennifer Martin said.

There are a total of six elephants at the ranch. Founder Lou Barreda said their response to cooler temperatures depends on where the elephants are from and what their bodies are used to. But he said they’d rather be warm.

“Yeah, we just kind of burn through a lot of diesel during the cold time for heaters for them, and we try to keep their inside temperature around 50 degrees or so, and they really enjoy that,” Barreda said.

Elephants’ body temperatures are actually similar to ours, but they have a different way to regulate their bodies to keep warm.

“A lot of people think that the African elephant is not good with cold weather. But if you look at Africa, the continent is huge, so it can be different climates, and especially at night it can get real, real cold,” Barreda said. “So what they do is, during the day, they absorb that heat and regulate it so it lasts throughout the night,” he said.

So no matter the weather, the team is prepared — and so are the elephants — to meet and greet new faces.