Abstract
Foot health is a common concern of captive Asian elephants (Elephas maximus). Besides offering adequate husbandry conditions to improve foot health, foot care is implemented to treat and prevent pathological lesions. Foot care management varies for example in contact type, frequency and equipment. By interviewing elephant keepers, recording video footage of a routine foot care procedure and taking photographs of the elephants’ feet, data was collected of 243 Asian elephants in 69 European institutions, obtaining a general overview of applied foot care methods. Additionally, the influence of different approaches on the foot health status was analyzed. Nearly all institutions (97.0%) performed regular foot care, but only 16.7% did so under a prophylactic (as opposed to reactive) regime. Whereas the contact type had no significant influence on the foot health (p = 0.056), a higher frequency was linked to better foot health conditions (p = 0.009). Elephant staff showed a strong theoretical knowledge base of principle pedicure steps (75.8% named four of four steps). However, a complete practical treatment was only carried out in 29.4% of the cases with necessity. Most common tools were hoof knives, rasps and electric grinders. The usage of grinders was linked to more/more severe foot problems (p = 0.031) compared to the usage of manual tools: it was associated with a higher frequency of solar horn defects (p = 0.049) and a higher frequency of too-narrow interdigital spaces (p = 0.015). This leads to the recommendation to rather use hoof knives and rasps instead of grinders.
Wendler, Paulin