Berlin elephants enjoy late festive snack: Christmas trees

[Omaha Steve]

Two elephants feed a Christmas trees at the zoo Tierpark in Berlin, Germany, Thursday, Jan. 7, 2016. Every year discarded Christmas trees are offered to the animals as a snack. (AP Photo/Markus Schreiber)

http://bigstory.ap.org/article/8d35ae0cb49d413a94f9d9d48f05bca4/berlin-elephants-enjoy-late-festive-snack-christmas-trees

BERLIN (AP) — Zoo elephants in Berlin have enjoyed a light festive snack: a late delivery of Christmas trees.

The New Year feeding of unsold pine trees has become an annual event. Zookeeper Mario Hammerschmidt says the trees are certified as pesticide-free.

Hammerschmidt said Thursday that the trees are "a good supplement to the food the elephants get during winter time."

The elephants also used the greenery to scratch themselves after keepers put them in the enclosure. But with snow on the ground and temperatures below freezing at the Tierpark, one of two zoos in the German capital, the feast didn't last long.

[TwilightGardener]

1. Never would have thought they ate fir/pine trees! The scratching part, I get.

[joeybee12]

2. Same here

knr

[Yavin4]

3. Don't eat too much

They have to watch their weight.

[Blue Owl]

4. The got chunks of that tannenbaum in their stool

n/t

[KamaAina]

5. S.F. goats no longer pining to eat discarded Christmas trees

http://www.sfgate.com/bayarea/article/S-F-goats-don-t-want-to-eat-your-garbage-6743456.php

A herd of 80 hungry goats, tasked with eating a city’s worth of discarded Christmas trees, have had their fill of your ancient holiday foliage and want no more of it, their keepers say.

City Grazing, a goat-based San Francisco landscaping company, partnered with the Fire Department to help dispose of the ghosts of Christmas trees past, which have previously ended up on fire at Ocean Beach or on the street....

But apparently a goat’s love for evergreen is not evergreen, and, after an “overwhelming” response of roughly 200 trees, or 2½ trees per goat, the animals have tired of the taste of tree, said Genevieve Church of City Grazing.

“They’ve eaten many, many trees and have reached the end of their appetite for the sticky deliciousness of spruce and fir,” Church said in an e-mail. “They are still quite interested in eating ivy, blackberry, fennel, scotch broom, and all manner of weeds.”