The first time I heard about animal enrichment was when I worked at Stichting AAP, a monkey rescue centre in The Netherlands. After then, I started to do it everywhere I
went. I would think about how to improve the design of animal enclosures and how to make new and exciting enrichment. My creative and technical mind started to wake up and I discovered that I really liked this part of my job.
Now, at the zoo, I give our animals enrichment every day and try to come up with new ways to entertain them.
A few months ago my colleagues and I started to design a new enrichment for our female racoon Kwaxi. We first talked about racoon behaviour and then we decided to make food enrichment, so that she had to work harder to get it.
What is animal enrichment?
Don’t worry if you don’t know the answer to this question. I didn´t know either a few years ago.
Enrichment is everything that stimulates the natural behaviour of animals. Enrichment is meant for animals that are in captivity. They are at a place far from their natural habitat, where they don’t have predators, they don’t need to look for food and they don’t have to fight to survive. They are not stimulated to act in a natural way and can easily get stressed or bored and start to show abnormal behaviour that will cause physical and psychological damage.
For example, marmosets in the wild lick tree sap. If you want to stimulate this behaviour, you can make them “ice cream cubes” they can lick.
Or when you design an enclosure for an animal you try to make it as similar as possible to their natural habitat. Animal that lives in the rainforest or animals from the dessert obviously don’t have the same needs, which means that you won´t build them the same enclosures.
For our racoon Kwaxi, we wanted to make her a nice home and to be healthy and avoid any abnormal behaviour due to stress or boredom.
Types of animal enrichment
When you observe an animal, investigate about its natural behaviour and you know what kind
of materials you can use, you can decide what type of enrichment you want to make.
At our zoo we chose food enrichment for Kwaxi. In the wild they spend much time looking for food and they are very skilled if they have to get it out of small places. Parting from that, we had some ideas to entertain her.
There are also other types of enrichment:
- Environmental: this involves the enclosure of an animal. Any change to stimulate natural behaviour of exploration is enrichment. For example, a few months ago we also gave our racoon a new swimming pool so that she could swim and fish.
- Social: when you introduce animals from the same species in a group you have to make sure this goes well. Also, when you put together different animal species in one enclosure to interact, you have to be sure of what you are doing. For example, if you would put together a lino and a zebra, it may be a positive enrichment for the lion, but the zebra will get stressed and you know how this story ends!
- Sensorial: this enrichment stimulates the senses and natural behaviour of an animal like exploring, scent marking, liking, rolling, etc.
Enrichment rules
Once we had the idea and the first sketches of the new food enrichment, we went through some details to make sure we would do it properly.
- An enrichment item must be safe for the animal and the keeper. Before I give something new to an animal I always ask to myself: can an animal get trapped in it?, can it be used as a weapon?, can an animal choke on it?, can an animal get injured?, is any part toxic?, can it destroy the enclosure with it?
- It is important to respect the hierarchy of the animal group and avoid fights, so I always give one or two extra items of enrichment, especially when it is a difficult group.
- If you are using an enrichment several times, you have to clean it properly every time.
- When you are making new enrichment, it is important that you know the behaviour and background of the animal. If an animal, for example, has been seen eating paper you would not use carton boxes, paper rolls, etc. Also, you have to be aware that some enrichment is too easy for one animal and too complicated for another animal.
- Use things they like. With food enrichment, I tend to use the things they like most. In that way they are more motivated to look for it and find the answer to the enrichment.
For our Kwaxi, we got through the check list and after building the food enrichment objects, we made sure that there were no sharp edges. Finally it was ready for its first try! We filled the objects with her favourite snacks and tried it out. After a few minutes she got the food out of the objects and went back to sleep, which meant that the enrichment was too easy for her. But we didn’t give up and made some changes. The second time it took her much longer. We had learned from our mistakes and now she has an appropriate enrichment item.
Some enrichment ideas for different animals
What kind of enrichment do you make?
Do you also make enrichment for your animals? It doesn’t have to be zoo animals; you can also make enrichment for your pets. I even made enrichment for my parents chickens. Share your enrichment in the comments!