[1]The youngest and the newest member in the family of captive elephants of the Guruvayur temple gave officials and elephant lovers a scare. Ayyappankutty, the little tusker, stopped taking food and water a couple of weeks ago.
Veterinary doctors saw this as a case of constipation which is common among middle-aged elephants. What perplexed them was that the tusker is just a 13 year old. Doctors tried several medicines.
Consultations were also held with allopathy and ayurveda doctors as the little tusker’s condition worsened. It was only a few days ago that livestock supervisor Suresh had doubts that the elephant might have eaten soil. It is not unusual for elephants to eat soil after the first summer shower. A few purgatives later, the tusker is back to health, eating, drinking and frolicking, say officials at the temple.
Ayyappankutty was donated to the temple in November last by K. Gopinathan of Kalladikode in Palakkad. He brought it from Assam when it was just two years old. Unlike other captive tuskers, Ayyappankutty never had a taste of life outside the compound and was never taken for carrying timber.
This explains why it initially was a ‘troublesome’ tusker that could not go along with the host of elephants in the Punnathur aanakotta of the temple.
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[1] http://archive.asianage.com/elephant1jpgcropdisplayjpg-254