I think I love making enrichment for the animals more than they like to receive it sometimes! I especially like to do things that are themed or are just really fun to make! Keeper Jill, Interns Jana and Carrie and I colored eggs and made colorful paper mache for the animals! We had A LOT of fun: Now here are a few pictures of the animals enjoying their enrichment: Read more
Posts tagged: #paper mache
QuikPost: Just a little newspaper and flour…
Throughout the year, the animal department has groups of people from different places that want to come volunteer their time with us for a few hours… kind of like community service. Often times these groups (usually anywhere from 6 to 20 people) are from various schools or colleges in the area. The group projects may consist of doing anything from mulching the farmyard to cleaning enrichment toys at the bear house. Our most recent group project was based around makingRead more
EnrichBits: Paper mache
EnrichBits: A monthly look at animal enrichment Often our youth volunteers will help us do enrichment projects for the animals, and paper mache-ing balloons is a project I usually offer up to them, thinking it’s a good break from all the cleaning we ask of them. After the balloon dries we pop it and use the paper shell as a non toxic and ok-if-a-little-is-ingested toy that can hold hidden treats. This is use of both tactile and feeding/foraging enrichment.To myRead more
Young Volunteers Get Hands-On Experience
For some of our young volunteers, working with the Animal Department is a great way to get experience for the future. That’s because some of our kids come to us with great enthusiasm and love for animals and hope to one day be a Veterinarian or maybe even an Animal Keeper like us. One of our volunteers, Sarah (pictured above), enjoys weighing our smaller animals and reptiles to get experience in the field of veterinary care… and we are happyRead more