"Critter Christmas" 2011

Here at the Peoria Zoo the education staff does a fantastic job of creating items, or gifts, for our animals for Christmas.  Here are some pictures from last year's "Critter Christmas."

The stockings were hung by the chimney with care.  

There were grapes in the stockings. 

Meerkats!

Here are pictures of some of the enrichment items used for Meerkats at the Indianapolis Zoo:

Termite mounds can be filled with crickets or meal worms.  One of the mounds has a timer and releases insects based on the timer while the other has open tubes and the insects make their way out on their own.     

Grasses and other exhibit furniture can be changed out for  new scenery and smells.

The meerkats enjoy eating hibiscus flowers

Carboard boxes can be filled with shredded paper, wood shavings or cedar dust.  Food can be added for extra entertainment.  Cut holes in the boxes for the meerkats to reach through and pull out goodies, or leave them completely sealed up for challenge.  

Shredded paper used as filling in boxes, bags or a hard plastic kiddie pool.

Treats or scents can be hidden in between the pages of phone books.  Meerkats have to flip through the pages to find the treats!

Various hide-out toys/furniture 

Plastic Easter egg with holes in it, Kong toy, and plastic container with holes cut in it.  Food placed inside and the meerkats have to manipulate the objects to get the food out.  

Straw used for filling in bags or boxes, or as a substrate in a kiddie pool.

Aspen shavings for filling or substrate

Cedar dust has a strong scent

Various perfumes/colognes are great for olfactory enrichment. 

Various toys for playing..  I think the yellow one made sound as it was rolled around. 

Remote controlled dinosaur.  Simply awesome. Not suggested to use with direct contact to meerkats

Ostrich egg with holes cut in it.  Can be filled with food items, or covered in scents. 

Domestic Hoofstock Enrichment

The Indianapolis Zoo recently renovated their "Encounters" area with three walk through aviaries.  When I was an Enrichment Intern there however, that area was full of ponies, cows, pigs, rabbits and goats.  During the summer ice treats were a big hit with these animals.

We made sure that there was at least one ice treat for every animal in the enclosure to cut-down on aggression.

Ice treats had water, mollasses and various produce (typicaly  carrote and apple) 

We used two liter soda bottles with the tops cut off to form the treats.  These containers could be cleaned and re-used (eco-friendly!) 

 The pigs were possibly my favorite animal in the Encounters area to enrich.  The younger pig (its been so long I can't remember his name!) loved to tear open empty grain bags (the ones WITHOUT the plastic liner) and root through hay/straw to find hidden gems (treats).  The older pig (I can't remember her name either) enjoyed fishing grapes out of her water tub.  

Other enrichment items used in this area include boomer balls of various sizes, large barrels and logs.  

Is this how you do it?

The donkeys enjoyed stripping the bark off of logs. 

Spider Monkey enrichment

I am now an animal keeper at the Peoria Zoo (formerly Glen Oak Zoo) in Peoria, IL.  I have been here for about 10 months now.  We have recently initiated enrichment schedules (before enrichment was up to whoever was working that day).  Now the head keeper makes a monthly schedule with appropriate amounts of enrichment days for each species.  Since I am working primarily with primates (spider monkeys, lemurs, mandrill, tamarin) we do some sort of enrichment each day.

A couple of days ago the enrichment was "mechanical".  After some debating I decided to fill a small plastic kiddie pool with water, and put ball pit balls (like the ball pits at McDonald's playgrounds...) on top of the water.  While I never saw any of the monkeys playing with the balls, there were several that had been moved out of the pool.

I have been thinking of variations for this idea for a few days now.  Some ideas include:

• Filling the pool with ICE and mixing balls and/or diet pieces in with the ice (good idea for really hot summer days)
• Using fewer balls (I used all of the balls we had, so it filled up the entire top of the pool) and mixing food pieces in
• Putting frisbies in the water
• Putting larger balls, or balls of varying sizes in the water

Pinatas

As part of my internship, I work with the Encounters department to make enrichment for their animals (parrots, coati, rats, hedgehog, guinea pigs, pot bellied pigs, goats, ponies, chickens, rabbits ect). One of the things we have found most of the animals like is pinatas.

To make a pinata we blow up a balloon and dip strips (about an inch in width) of news paper into a flour and water mixture (a 50/50 mixture) and wrap the strips on the balloon. It takes at least two layers of paper strips (though I like to do 3 0r 4 depending on how much time I have) to make a sturdy pinata. Once the pinata is dry we simply pop the balloon and it easily comes out without sticking to the pinata.

The pinata can now be filled with treats, hay, or just left empty. The lorikeets and rats like to build nests in their pinatas. Hamilton, the pot bellied pig, enjoys his pinata with treats, that he can then get out by either pushing the pinata around his enclosure, or by smashing his pinata. Zoro, the coati, enjoys a pinata that has been sprayed with cologne for him to sniff around and rub on.

First Post

I will be using this blog to record enrichment ideas I have tried and/or heard of. I will also post pictures when available of the enrichment items and the consequences of them. Enjoy. :-)