Picking up a potential food item with the trunk, and placing it in the mouth and possibly chewing it begins around the age or one to two months. This form of sampling starts well before actual ingestion. In addition to such sampling, infants and young calves may also sample what adults are eating by placing their trunk in the mouths the mouths of older elephants and pulling out food items. Such "stealing" of food is usually from their mother and allomothers. Calves may also eat the fresh dung of other elephants in order to get essential digestive bacteria and to extend food sampling through the smell in dung (see Coprophagia). Elephants have many food sources, and through such food sampling calves learn a wide range of these seasonally and geographically varying species.
Though only a couple of days old the infant is already beginning to to to manipulate browse. (Maasai Mara, Kenya)
