{"id":442412,"date":"2026-02-01T07:45:11","date_gmt":"2026-02-01T07:45:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/442412\/"},"modified":"2026-02-01T07:45:11","modified_gmt":"2026-02-01T07:45:11","slug":"how-myakka-elephant-ranch-keeps-their-elephants-warm","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/442412\/","title":{"rendered":"How Myakka Elephant Ranch keeps their elephants warm"},"content":{"rendered":"

MYAKKA CITY, Fla. \u2014 Elephants may be built for the wild, but colder weather still means extra care.<\/p>\n

So animal handlers at the Myakka Animal Ranch in Manatee County are taking extra steps to keep their animals safe.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis is so cool,\u201d Finley Martin said while watching the animals in their environment. \u201cYou are so cute.”<\/p>\n

What You Need To Know<\/p>\n

Myakka Animal Ranch takes extra steps to keep elephants warm during colder weather
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Handlers maintain indoor temperatures around 50 degrees Fahrenheit for the elephants
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There are a total of six elephants at the ranch<\/p>\n

Petting the elephants brings the experience to a whole new level at Myakka Elephant Ranch.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe skin feels weirder than I thought it would be,\u201d said Martin, who said the experience was everything he and his family had been waiting for.<\/p>\n

\u201cI have been waiting for it for several months. It was everything I hoped it would be,\u201d Jennifer Martin said.<\/p>\n

\"Finley<\/p>\n

Finley Martin pets an elephant at the Myakka Elephant Rescue. (Julia Hazel\/Spectrum News)<\/p>\n

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\u2019d rather be warm.<\/p>\n

\u201cYeah, 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,\u201d Barreda said.<\/p>\n

Elephants\u2019 body temperatures are actually similar to ours, but they have a different way to regulate their bodies to keep warm.<\/p>\n

\u201cA 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,\u201d Barreda said. \u201cSo what they do is, during the day, they absorb that heat and regulate it so it lasts throughout the night,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

So no matter the weather, the team is prepared \u2014 and so are the elephants \u2014 to meet and greet new faces.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"MYAKKA CITY, Fla. \u2014 Elephants may be built for the wild, but colder weather still means extra care.…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":442413,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[51],"tags":[208300,2722,208301,14533,3,79,624,452,13309,201],"class_list":["post-442412","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-wildlife","tag-app-good-news","tag-app-top-stories","tag-julia-hazel","tag-manatee-county","tag-news","tag-science","tag-tampa","tag-top-stories","tag-vod","tag-wildlife"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/442412","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=442412"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/442412\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/442413"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=442412"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=442412"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=442412"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}