FOOD FOR THOUGHT PREPARING CUSTOM MEALS EACH DAY FOR 1,200 ANIMALS WOULD CHALLENGE THE VERY BEST CHEFS, BUT THE L.A. ZOO RUNS AN ANIMAL GOURMET KITCHEN.

Byline: Story by DANA BARTHOLOMEW and CORTNEY FIELDING, Photos by DAVID SPRAGUE -- Daily News

GRIFFITH PARK - The Cape Griffon vultures spread their wings, craned their necks and groaned before a tumbling cascade of ground meat and dead rats.

For Africa's largest vulture, breakfast at the Los Angeles Zoo was a full-on banquet.

``Vulture restaurant,'' declared Chandra David, head condor keeper, as nine of nature's largest garbage collectors jostled for the juiciest carrion.

``I'm very excited with these guys ... I never get tired of watching them eat.''

Welcome to mealtime at the Los Angeles Zoo.

Where 3,000 pounds of produce gets polished off daily, requiring two truckloads a week to keep the kitchen stocked.

Where the meal tab, sans tip, reaches $63,000 a month for nothing but the finest fruits, veggies and exotic meats.

Preparing custom meals each day for 1,200 animals from around the world would challenge the very best chefs.

Yet behind the scenes, the Los Angeles Zoo runs an animal gourmet kitchen.

``Restaurant L.A. Zoo, the safari grill at the L.A. Zoo,'' said Michael Maxcy, principal animal keeper in charge of meals. ``It's a smorgasbord.

``It's all restaurant-quality food, Grade A produce, the same stuff you'd be be able to find at the downtown Hilton.''

Same stuff, maybe, but on different-size plates. And served at far greater risk by the restaurant staff.

Consider the zoo's two hippopotamuses, whose giant maws inhale a dozen apples and eight heads of lettuce -- just for starters.

Each day, hippos Maggie and Otis devour 25 pounds of carrots, 30 heads of lettuce, more than three dozen apples and an entire bale of hay -- in addition to prepackaged dry food to supplement their diets.

Or consider the needs of Slim, a 5-foot-5, 120-pound cassowary, the most dangerous bird in the world. Its dagger-like claws have mauled, or killed, many a keeper at other zoos.

Serving Slim a meal of bananas, apples, cooked yams and a side of frozen crickets requires a delicate touch.

``You only get in with a cassowary once,'' said keeper Robin Parker, using a rope-and-pulley system to serve Slim's meal.

Twenty years ago, zoo officials say animals were fed the bottom of the barrel of human leftovers -- veggies gone south, bread gone stale, meat not tailored to each animal species.

Not anymore.

``Now, it's all specialized,'' said Maxcy, who began his zoo career sorting carrots in the commissary two decades ago.

``Whereas you have Ensure and Gatorade for humans, we have dozens of products manufactured for individual species -- we even have kangaroo-wallaby mixes.

``You want their coats to shine, their eyes to glow. You want to see them active.''

Maxcy and a five-member staff prepare 75 percent of the meals for the animals -- from a 5-ounce pygmy marmoset to an 11,000-pound Asian bull elephant.

The L.A. Zoo commissary, tucked in a health building behind an ostrich exhibit, contains cold-storage refrigerators around a food-sorting floor.

It was there that Kari Scaletta and Eric Morris recently divvied up mountains of produce and meat according to specially formulated menus.

There were tamarind pods, a favorite of marmosets. Papayas, a favorite of chimps. Bok choy, a favorite of giant tortoises. And whole furry rabbits, a favorite of tigers.

From the commissary flew salad fixins from jicama to eggplant, kale to dandelion greens, cucumbers to bananas. There was low-carb bread. And sugar-free candy.

Not to forget the dietary array of hard-boiled eggs, herring and horse meat.

``It's nice to know I'm helping out,'' said Scaletta, surrounded by enough bananas, carrots, parsnips, tomatoes, grapes and cooked yams to supply an army of vegans.

``At home, I'm not a veggie eater,'' she joked. ``I don't even like cooking them.''

Feeding at the L.A. Zoo begins before dawn, when the commissary delivers grub to 50 zookeepers who prepare each animal meal.

Bird keeper Andrea Alpharo chops up white feeder mice to reward ravens and hawks that perform in the ``World of Birds'' show.

Zookeeper Robin Parker introduces eucalyptus boughs cut for koalas Bazz, Jane and Georgie.

The tree limbs, from the zoo's own botanical forest, add to the mulberries, acacia and ficus limbs fed to animals from giraffes to giant elands.

Nursery supervisor Kelley Greene bottle-feeds the newest gerenuk, a 10-day-old baby antelope, with a midafternoon snack of goat milk.

``I love what I do,'' said Greene, an art school graduate who had planned a career in animation but chose the zoo after a volunteer stint. ``I found a connection here.''

The gerenuk lies down, but Greene wants him to practice standing. Legs quivering, he cooperates. Within seconds, his bottle is sucked dry.

Not all zoo diners are so well-behaved.

The chimpanzees turn snacks of carrots and papayas into a food fight. Before a growing crowd of spectators, ape keeper Valantina Renzetti pinpoints the source of the dispute.

Nan, a younger chimp, has stolen an elder's carrot.

``This is when chaos ensues,'' Renzetti said, eyeing the simian jujitsu as the older chimp sneaks off to grab the controversial root.

At the Cape Gibbon vulture exhibit, David and keepers Jenny Schmidt and Colleen Rae watch the yellow-eyed vultures covet each others' morsels.

Zoo keepers once tried to feed the vultures calf carcasses, David said, ``but they weren't too hip on that.

``It took two of our keepers to pretend we were going to eat it -- pulling on a leg, pulling on different parts of the calf carcass, pretending it was good.''

Only then, she said, did the vultures express an interest in the beef.

dana.bartholomew(at)dailynews.com

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12 photos

Photo:

(1 -- 4 -- color) Every animal at the Los Angeles Zoo gets something different at feeding time. Clockwise from top left: An Island Hornbill snacks on a grape; carrots and papayas await the chimpanzees; a baby gerenuk is bottle-fed goat's milk; and animal keeper Lindsay Kocincki tosses apples to one hippo while another munches on a head of romaine lettuce.

(5 -- color) A Cape Griffon vulture family tears apart some horse meat for a young chick born at the zoo. It takes a variety of food daily to feed the facility's 1,200 animals.

(6 -- color) Yellow-footed wallabies chow down on carrots, kale and yams at the zoo, where the variety of food ranges from fresh fruits and vegetables to dead animals to dried food.

(7 -- 8 -- color) A young chimp contemplates a carrot at mealtime, above. At left, a koala sits on a eucalyptus branch. The tree provides the marsupial's only food, about 50 percent water. L.A. Zoo animals get the best and freshest food, a change from times past, when animals got cast-off and stale food.

(9 -- color) Zoo worker Eric Morris weighs out broccoli for animals who need a variety of fresh fruits and vegetables in their diets. For more photos, go to dailynews.com.

(10 -- color) Different birds of prey get different diets, including mice, chicks, rats and other red meats. Even within species, diets vary with medical condition and the need for variety.

(11 -- color) Apple chunks, bananas, dried food and crickets are good eats to the double- wattled cassowary.

(12 -- color) Animal keeper Laura Whittemore prepares a meal for the parrots that perform in a bird show. Every zoo animal gets something different from the well-stocked kitchen.

Photos by David Sprague/Daily News Staff Photographer