Buchanan, K. 2020. DIY: Enrichment items. Laboratory Animal Science Professional 8(1) (January/February), 38.
This article with photos describes how to make a cat ball toy using empty toilet paper and paper towel rolls.
Includes structural, behavioral, food, and auditory enrichment.
This article with photos describes how to make a cat ball toy using empty toilet paper and paper towel rolls.
The relationship between inadequate foraging opportunities and the expression of oral repetitive behaviors has been well documented in many production animal species. However, this relationship has been less-well examined in zoo-housed animals, particularly avian species...
The white-crowned pigeon, Patagioenas leucocephala, is a species of bird not often used in research. This may be related to its anxiety during normal human interactions, such as with cage changing. Our institution acquired a...
Environmental enrichment is an integral part of animal care practices. Enrichment generally refers to items we provide to the animals to support their behavioral needs. It provides a way to functionally simulate the natural environment...
Giving captive animals the opportunity to interact with objects in a “playful” manner is often considered a method of environmental enrichment. However, the occurrence of play in nonavian reptiles is controversial and poorly documented. Similarly...
Feather pecking (FP) is a multifactorial problem in all housing systems. Using a case-control design we wanted to determine a set of variables which may be decisive for a flock to become case or control...
Excessive weight gain and obesity is becoming a more frequent problem affecting captive lemurs. Animals have evolved to survive in specific environments, causing them to perform species-specific behaviours which animals are highly motivated to perform...
At Colchester Zoo we have a well established but evolving enrichment program, using many different ideas and techniques for our many different species. One form of enrichment we use is the presence of our domestic...
The modern zoo has brought about two major advances in the behavioral welfare of their exhibited animals: (a) The use of environmental enrichment to promote naturalistic behaviors and (b) the use of training to improve...
Population-level analyses suggest that habitat complexity, but not necessarily space availability, has important welfare outcomes for elephants in human care. At the Dallas Zoo, the opening of a new exhibit complex allowed us to measure...