Udawalawe Elephant Transit Home: Feeding Times & Ticket Prices

The Elephant Transit Home in Udawalawe town, often called the Udawalawe elephant orphanage, raises orphaned wild elephant calves until they're old enough to go back to the wild. Three times a day, usually at about 10:30, 14:30 and 18:00, you can watch dozens of calves come in for their milk from a covered stand. It costs a few dollars, takes about an hour and fits neatly around a safari in the park, 15 minutes up the road.

A quick word on who we are. Wild Ceylon is a private safari company: we don't run the Transit Home or sell its tickets. It's run by Sri Lanka's Department of Wildlife Conservation, and its own number, on its main Google Maps listing, is 047 223 2147 (+94 47 223 2147 from abroad). How its Google listings came to link to our site is explained at the end of this guide. We can take you there on a safari day. The times and prices below were checked in October 2026 against a recent photo of its entrance sign and visitors' reports, and the times again with a call to the Transit Home.

Feeding times, and which feed to choose

Three feeds are open to visitors, usually at about 10:30, 14:30 and 18:00. A few visitors put the last one at 18:30, so allow for that. Many websites still give the four-feed timetable that ran until around 2020. There's usually no early-morning or midday feed for visitors now, so don't plan around one, and check the times on the day.

It's open every day, Poya days included, but you can only get in around the feeds. The ticket counter opens about 15 to 30 minutes before each one, and between feeds there's nothing to see. Each feed lasts about half an hour, sometimes a little longer.

Which one to pick:

• 10:30 is the natural choice after a morning safari.
• 14:30 is the hottest, but the stand is roofed. It suits anyone staying nearby, or arriving from the coast at lunchtime.
• 18:00 is cooler, in softer light, with mosquitoes for company. It clashes with an afternoon safari, which ends at the park gate at 18:00.

Weekends, Poya (full-moon) holidays and Sri Lankan school holidays bring crowds of local visitors, so a weekday feed is usually calmer.

Tickets and what to bring

Foreign visitors pay about US$5 plus 18% VAT an adult, charged in rupees: about LKR 2,000, or roughly US$6. Children aged 6 to 12 pay about US$3 plus VAT, and Sri Lankans pay much less. These are the prices visitors reported up to October 2026; they change from time to time, so treat them as a guide.

• Buy at the entrance. Tickets are sold only at the Transit Home's own counter. It isn't in the wildlife department's online permit system, and there's nothing to book.
• No park ticket needed. Its entrance is in town, not behind the park gate.
• Bring cash in rupees (there's no ATM on site), and some small notes if you'd like to leave a donation.
• Bring water, a hat, insect repellent for the evening feed, and a zoom lens or binoculars. The calves are about 15 to 20 metres from the stand.

If you're on a safari day with us, our estimate already includes your national park tickets, but not the Transit Home's: you pay that at its counter.

Where it is and how to get there

The Transit Home is in Udawalawe town, about 300 metres up C.P. De Silva Road from the town junction on the Udawalawe–Thanamalwila road (B427), beside the reservoir on the western edge of the national park. Its Sinhala name is ඇත් අතුරු සෙවණ (Ath Athuru Sevana). There's a car park by the entrance, and directions in Google Maps.

• From the park's main gate it's 9 km, about 15 minutes by car.
• Heading to the south coast (Mirissa, Tangalle, Galle), it's on your way and adds only a couple of minutes.
• Heading to Ella, it's a detour of about half an hour, back the way you came.
• From Tissamaharama or Yala, it's about an hour and a half by road, so it pairs best with an Udawalawe safari rather than a Yala one.
• Staying in Udawalawe town, it's a short walk or tuk-tuk ride from most guesthouses.

On the road from the park gate you may see wild elephants waiting at the park's fence for food. Feeding them is illegal: watch from the car and drive on.

Fitting it into a safari day

The easy way is a morning safari, then the 10:30 feed. On a day with the feed, your drive ends at 09:30, half an hour earlier than a usual morning drive. By the time you're back in the car and in town, it'll be about 10:00, half an hour before the feed starts. Seats aren't reserved, so being early helps, especially with small children. Lunch comes after the feed.

Here's a typical day from Ella to the beach, with the feed:

Without the feed, you'd reach Mirissa about an hour earlier. Heading the other way, to Ella, the feed adds up to an hour and a half, because the Transit Home is a detour, as it is towards Arugam Bay or Tissamaharama.

An afternoon safari is harder to pair. The 14:30 feed falls during the drive. The 18:00 feed comes at its end, as you leave the park. You can catch the 10:30 feed first, then have lunch in town and reach the gate by 13:45. From Ella or the coast, that means leaving three to four hours earlier, with a long wait in town. Ask us if you'd like to, and we'll plan it with you; a morning drive, or a night in Udawalawe town, is easier.

After a long morning in the park, until 12:00, the 10:30 feed is over. The 14:30 one fits after lunch in town: ask us, and we'll plan it with you.

Staying near the park makes it easy. From a hotel in Udawalawe town, the Transit Home is a short walk or tuk-tuk ride away, so you can catch the 14:30 or 18:00 feed on your own. After a morning drive from the town, ask to be dropped at the Transit Home instead of your hotel. With a night there, you can also take an afternoon drive when you arrive and a morning drive the next day, then the 10:30 feed before you move on: we plan two drives like that on request.

To add the 10:30 feed to a morning safari day, tick it under "Day & group" in our planner (rather than adding Udawalawe town as a stop), or ask us on WhatsApp. Your plan then shows the drive ending at 09:30, the feed, lunch after it and when you'll really arrive. Your driver waits for it at no extra charge: you pay only the Transit Home's ticket, in rupees at its counter. For a feed with any other drive, ask us. Feeding times can change at short notice, so it's worth checking them on the day.

Plan Ella to Udawalawe to Mirissa with the feed

Ask us on WhatsApp to plan a day with a feed or Email us about a feed at the Elephant Transit Home

Not doing a safari? We can simply drive you between Ella and the coast, with a stop in Udawalawe town for the 10:30 feed. The stop is in the planner's price, and you pay only the Transit Home's ticket at its counter. Starting from somewhere else? Change your pickup in the planner, and we'll check the time still fits the feed.

• Ella to Udawalawe town to Mirissa Pickup 07:30 · in Udawalawe town 10:00–11:00 · Mirissa about 12:45
• Mirissa to Udawalawe town to Ella Pickup 08:30 · in Udawalawe town 10:15–11:15 · Ella about 13:45

For the safari itself, from morning or afternoon drives to what you're likely to see, read our Udawalawe National Park guide and the Udawalawe safari page.

What a visit is like

Arrive early and find a place on the stand, a few rows of covered concrete steps behind a barrier. There are no reserved seats, and small children can struggle to see over the adults in front, so the earlier you come, the better. The stand is stepped, so wheelchair access is limited.

Then the gates open, and the calves come in a few at a time, trotting straight for the keepers, who give them milk through a tube and funnel. Each one gulps its share in seconds and wanders off to browse on leafy branches or push its neighbours around, while the next ones barge in. With 40 to 60 calves coming through, expect chaos, and a lot of charm.

Before or after a feed, look into the Elephant Knowledge Walk, the information centre and small museum by the entrance, reopened in 2024 with displays in Sinhala, Tamil and English. It's good on how elephants live and why calves end up here. Some exhibits are skeletons and preserved remains, which you may want to know about if you have small children. There's a souvenir shop too, and cafés by the entrance.

Photos are allowed from the stand. Please don't use a flash, and don't bring a drone.

How the calves get here, and what happens to them

Most calves are orphaned by the conflict between people and elephants. Their mothers are killed, or herds are chased off crops and the calves are left behind. Others fall into wells, pits or canals, get caught in snares or are found injured or starving. About two-thirds arrive before their first birthday, many of them weak, and sadly a lot of the youngest don't survive their first weeks.

The rest are raised on milk formula, fed several times a day and once at night. Contact with people is kept to feeding and veterinary care, on purpose: the aim is a wild elephant that keeps away from people, not a tame one. Between feeds the calves roam the Transit Home's grounds and the edge of the park, where wild elephants sometimes visit.

At about five to seven years old, they're released in small groups that have grown up together, mostly into Udawalawe National Park, and sometimes into other parks. About a third wear a radio or GPS collar for their first years, and the Transit Home's staff follow them closely at first. By August 2025, 186 had been released; the 26th group went out in July 2025. A 2025 study found that about one in ten died within two years of release, and at least 18 released females have since had calves in the wild.

So a few of the elephants you meet on a safari in Udawalawe may well have grown up here.

Is it ethical?

It's the kinder way to see young elephants in Sri Lanka. There are no rides, no bathing and no touching, contact with people is kept to a minimum, and the whole point is to put the calves back in the wild. That sets it well apart from places that keep elephants for rides, shows or bathing.

It isn't perfect, though, and we'd rather you heard it from us. The feeds can be crowded and noisy: about 240,000 people visited in 2024. Keepers carry sticks to keep order around the milk, and for years some visitors have reported calves being hit with them; since 2024 a few have also reported electric prods. Others saw only light taps, or nothing at all. We can't verify these reports, but there are enough of them to mention.

If you see something that worries you, tell the staff there, report it on the environment ministry's 24-hour wildlife hotline, 1995, and say what you saw in an honest review. Tell us at Wild Ceylon too: we'd like to know. Watching quietly, without shouting to the calves or pushing to the barrier, helps the keepers as well.

Elephant Transit Home or Pinnawala?

Both get called "the elephant orphanage", which causes a lot of confusion.

• Pinnawala, near Kegalle between Colombo and Kandy, opened as an orphanage in 1975 but hasn't taken in wild orphans for more than a decade. It's now a captive herd of about 65 elephants, many born there, walked to the river twice a day, with paid sessions to join them in the water.
• The Elephant Transit Home takes in orphaned calves from around the country to release them.

We'd choose the Transit Home every time. Our guide to where to see wild elephants has more on Pinnawala, rides and bathing, and on the best parks for wild herds in each month.

Supporting the Transit Home

You can leave a donation on site. We couldn't find a fostering or sponsorship scheme open to visitors today: companies such as Dilmah sponsor calves, but an older scheme for individuals no longer seems to run. If you'd like to help more, ask at the counter. We know of no volunteering programme either, which is as it should be for elephants meant to stay wild.