This is one of my favorite enrichment items for lemurs. We hang these small bags on the branches and put just a few pieces of dried fruit in each one. It’s quite cute to watch them go through the bag. I tried to get a picture of each of our 6 lemurs using their enrichment. Read more
Posts filed in: Enrichment & Training
Lemur Training Update
The red ruffed lemurs have been off exhibit since December. We have just a couple of weeks left until it is warm enough for the ring tailed lemurs to be outside during the day and the red ruffed lemurs to move upstairs, on exhibit. Here is where we were last time I updated about training- click here. While our focus was going to be crate training we also added the behavior of station. Station is a way to 1)Read more
It’s the Little Things
Our Jersey steer, Max, is a picky eater. Unlike most bovine, which will eat anything you hand them, Max really only eats his hay and steer chow (breakfast cereal for cattle). Keepers Kent and Jill and I have been working extra hard since last summer to sneak extra pieces of training foods into his giant mouth, just to get him to try something new. For training reasons, it’s a good idea for Max to learn to eat foods that are moreRead more
Bribe?
The type of training we do at the museum has a few different names. Depending on who you ask, they might call it Clicker Training, or Food Training, or Operant Conditioning, or Positive Reinforcement Training (PRT). All of those are correct labels for our reinforcement-based, contingency-focused style of behavior management for exotic and companion animals. I’m always happy to answer questions or talk about the training I do at all the institutions with which I work. And usually, people ask really interestingRead more