On their first day out of the palace premises after checking in on Wednesday, the first batch of 9 elephants were subjected to a weight check to ascertain their general health condition on Thursday.
Elephant Arjuna weighed the heaviest of the them all and was a good 5,725 kg followed by Gopalswamy who weighed 5,240 kg. The elephants were weighed on a weigh bridge meant to measure load carried by heavy vehicles and Dhananjaya scaled 4,800 kg. The weight of the elephant tends to match with their overall size though Abhimanyu who is among the strongest and takes part in all tiger combing operations was less ’obese’ and seemed more ’muscular’ at 4,770 kg. The other male elephants in the order of their weight were Mahindra (4,260 kg) and Bheema (3,950 kg).
The female elephants were relatively ’slim’ compared to their male couterparts and while Kaveri weighed 3,110 kg, Chaitra was 3,080 kg and Lakshmi was a ‘’light weight’’ compared to other elephants in the team and measured 2,920 kg.
Deputy Conservator of Forests V.Karikalan said the elephants will be on special diet during their sojourn in the city for Dasara and are expected to gain upto 300 kg t0 500 kg in weight. The objective is to ensure that they are healthy and fit to complete the procession.
The elephants walked about 1.5 km on Friday.The the full-fledged rehearsal that entails them marching along the 5-km procession route and return to the palace, will commence from August 14. The second batch of elephants will also join Abhimanyu and team sometime in September.
