EnrichBits: A monthly look at animal enrichment Enrichment is all about providing opportunities to our animals that help them to exhibit their natural behaviors. Opossums wouldn’t find many recycle bins to snooze in out in the wild ( well, at least not many bins they’d be welcome in!) but they would find a similar shaped place, like a hollow tree stump, that was a sheltered and hidden nook. Bears wouldn’t be flipping over traffic cones looking for bear chow inRead more
Posts filed in: Enrichment & Training
It’s Time for Leafy Treats
Now that spring is here, our animals are able to have special treats (which double as enrichment) that they can’t get all year round. With everything in bloom, it’s a perfect time to give them branches of leaves and new buds, also known as browse. There are only certain types of things we can give them, which have been approved by our veterinarians, because many plants are toxic to animals. Our goats, donkey, sheep and steer receive Russian-olive browse which,Read more
See it, smell it!
EnrichBits: A monthly look at animal enrichment So I’ve tried to explain a lot of the categories of a full enrichment program (if you click the EnrichBits link on the side bar, you can read them), but we haven’t talked about olfactory or visual enrichment yet. Our animals need interesting things to look at and unusual scents that may encourage exploration! For interesting visual stuff, we use windsocks, shimmering wind twirly things (yes, that’s their official name), and other objectsRead more
Max’s Red Bucket Training
I recently posted an update about our new Jersey steer, Max. Along with being taught how to walk on a leash, we have also been training him to associate a red bucket with his food. Why would we do this, you might ask? That’s a great question! Since he first arrived at the museum, Max has always been very motivated by food. He was quite eager to receive his bottles of formula when he was a calf, and still showsRead more
EnrichBits: Novel Item enrichment
EnrichBits: A monthly look at animal enrichment Do you ever feel the need to rearrange the furniture at home? Or maybe, you just have to get out of town for the weekend, to be in a different place. Perhaps you always grab a different type of cereal at the grocery store, so you aren’t eating the same thing every morning, or maybe you splurge for this spring’s latest fashion, just because…it’s new. Novelty is very much part of human lifeRead more
A New Outdoor Area For Inside Animals
Spring is here and we are trying to finish work on an outdoor playpen for some of our inside animals. The enclosure used to be indoors and housed an iguana, so it needs some modifications for it to be usable outdoors. Some of these modifications include extra locks for security and replacing plastic wiring with metal so that animals cannot chew through it. It will also need some material put on it to provide shade. Once we finish that, weRead more