I had one of the most magical experience of my life at the Patara Elephant Farm. I have to start this post with a disclaimer. So many elephant experience all around the world mistreat their animals. It is SO important that you do your research and only support elephant activities that are ethical and sustainable.
The Patara Elephant Farm is Thailand's only elephant breeding farm and they rescue elephants from all across Thailand. Each elephant is given their own health and recovery management package.
Also see: 10 Day Wellness Itinerary in Thailand
At this camp that you have successfully made blood + plasma transfusions for elephants which is a definite milestone. Here at this camp they are managing elephant recovery with knowledge and technology. Tourism visitors fully fund this sanctuary, they are not funded by donations or by the government.
Elephant Babies
The best part about Patara Elephant Farm is the babies!! There are babies running around everywhere. Elephants only generally breed when they are happy and at Patara Elephant farm, a baby elephant is born every four months.
Upon entering I met these two sweet little elephant babies
The babies are so boisterous and playful and they really wanted to eat my dress! They'll play with you by running into you and charging into you, its the cutest thing ever! They are strong little fellows.
Here are some cool stats at The Patara Elephant Farm:
Elephant conservation is so important because just 45 years ago there were 6000 elephants and now there are only 3200
Elephant Owner For a Day Program
When visiting, I recommend signing up for the elephant owner for a day program. You could do a full day 6-hour activity or a half day 3-hour, which is what I did. During this program, you get paired with your very own elephant and are taught how to feed him properly, clean him, and check for signs of health. Here's what I learned!
5 Signs of a Healthy Elephant
1. That they have gently flapping ears and tails
2. That they are tearing from their tear ducts evenly
3. Their toes are sweating (it's the only place that elephants sweat!)
4. That they have dirt on one side of the body in the morning. This is because if they slept standing up, it means that they are not well.
5. Their poop is and dry and solid but slightly moist.
Not sure why there's a photo of me smelling elephant poop
Natural Elephant Sweat
Here I am with my elephant Lotus
One super amazing feature of this experience is that there is an in-house photographer shooting the entire experience. As you can see, they got some truly magical shots!
During the elephant caring experience, we start off by feeding the elephants. I got paired with my elephant lotus and her kid, I believe that he was a 5 month old baby, much bigger than the babies pictured in the beginning of my blog post.
The baby was so greedy, he kept trying to steal the bananas from my basket instead of waiting for me to feed him! When you place the food inside the elephants mouths, their mouths are incredibly soft.
Greedy Baby!
After feeding the elephants, we set to work cleaning them. To keep cool, the elephants toss dirt onto their backs. We help clean them off by brushing their backs off of as much dirt as possible.
After that, its a short walk over to the pond! During this short walk, we are allowed to ride on the elephant's back. It was explained to us by Patara Elephant Farm owner Theerapat “Pat” Trungprakan that for us to get on elephant's back, it would be equivalent to one of us carrying a cat on our back, for example. We are only 3% of an elephant's body weight. What's not allowed at Patara Elephant Farm is for elephants to spend all day long with patrons riding on their back, back the short walk to the lake is totally acceptable and not at all harmful to the elephant.
The elephants love frolicking in the lake.
After that, its time to get muddy and wet! During the dusting portion of the elephant cleaning process it's recommended to dust of as much of the dirt as possible, otherwise it all turns into mud on the elephant's back when you get into the lake and is much harder to clean!
Isn't Lotus's coloring so gorgeous!
Visiting the Patara Elephant Farm was truly one of the most magical experiences of my life!
Thank you to Thailand Insider and Patara Elephant Farm for hosting us! As always, all opinions are my own.
