Panda Breeding Center

We finally made a trip to the Panda breeding research center.

We were told that we needed to be there at 9 am in the morning at the reservation, when the Pandas would be fed. At that time, the pandas are most active and after breakfast, they tend to take naps or go back to a building where all the air conditionings are on if it's hot.

So, Jay and his brother woke up early and we arrived before the pandas’ breakfast time.

Do you know what pandas eat?

Bamboo or bamboo shoots are 99% of the diet of giant pandas. So, this place has a lot of bamboo. But I learned that they eat 20-40 kg of bamboo or 50 kg of bamboo shoots every day so the research base buys bamboo from a nearby bamboo farm and the bamboo in the research base is just to supplement if they need more. The pandas in this research center also eat apples, and steamed panda bread (which include a lot of vitamins)

The digestive tract of giant panda is very short; food doesn't stay in the digestive tract for a long time. Therefore their absorbed nutrition is low. Most herbivorous animals can digest 80% of their food while the giant pandas digests less than 17% of their food.

Wild pandas spend 16 hours per day looking for, and eat bamboo, captive pandas spend generally 10-12 hours (50 % of each day) to eat.

We could see pandas being very active, playing with each other and eat bamboo with both hands.

This is panda poop! Depending on the kind of bamboo they eat, the color is different. This is one of kinds. Each adult giant panda produces 10-20 kg every day. The research center turns "the waste" into wealth such as paper and art and crafts by recycling these poops!

There are red pandas as well. Jay saw 22 pandas that day!