This is one of my favorite enrichment items for lemurs. We hang these small bags on the branches and put just a few pieces of dried fruit in each one. It’s quite cute to watch them go through the bag. I tried to get a picture of each of our 6 lemurs using their enrichment.
Lycus
Satyrus
Cassandra
Cynthia
Iris
Here’s my favorite, Iris photo-bombing Jethys picture
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“Hello, Watson? Come here; I need you!”
I can hear the ocean.
Bummer….Kimberly’s frozen fruit popsicle treat is all gone!!
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The red ruffed lemurs have been off exhibit since December. We have just a couple of weeks left until it is warm enough for the ring tailed lemurs to be outside during the day and the red ruffed lemurs to move upstairs, on exhibit. Here is where we were last time I updated about training- click here.
While our focus was going to be crate training we also added the behavior of station. Station is a way to 1) separate the lemurs if necessary 2) keep a lemur in one spot while working with the others. The red ruffed have access to three stalls. In each stall we have a shelf attached to the door. These shelves are where we would like the lemurs to ‘station’. But how do they know which one of them should station on which shelf? Great questions- we hang up symbols on the doors, above the shelves. Each lemur has their own specific symbol. Stationing is going great!
Crate training is also going well. The door has been shut on Cynthia and we’re very close to shutting the door on Jethys and Iris.
The ring tailed lemurs are still doing great with their crate training. Dr English will visit in the next few months and our oldest lemurs Lycus (almost 28) and Cynthia (almost 32) will have to be crated and brought to the building to get their eyes checked out.
Jethys symbol for station is a star
Iris’ symbol for station is a moon
Cynthia symbol for station is a diamond
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Our Jersey steer, Max, is a picky eater. Unlike most bovine, which will eat anything you hand them, Max really only eats his hay and steer chow (breakfast cereal for cattle). Keepers Kent and Jill and I have been working extra hard since last summer to sneak extra pieces of training foods into his giant mouth, just to get him to try something new.
For training reasons, it’s a good idea for Max to learn to eat foods that are more portable than an armload of hay. We’ve been the most successful thus far with dried fruits, but only if Max is in the mood. Usually, Max takes a tiny nibble of the new treat and turns his nose up at it, if he tries it at all. The rest of the farmyard animals (pigs and Ducky, included!) are happy to much down a “cookie” that’s specially made for farm animals, while Max fires them back out of his mouth covered in steer spit without even tasting them.
Until recently, anyway. Here’s a short, shaky cell phone video of Max FINALLY trying (and liking) a farmyard cookie…or three.
Please don’t feed the animals anything! Even if it seems harmless, like loose hay off the ground or grass or leaves, could potentially make them very ill. Leave feeding the animals to us keepers, it’s the one part of our job that doesn’t involve cleaning poop!
If you want to see what our animals eat up close, become a Museum of Life and Science member and sign up for a Bears Up Close or a Behind the Scenes Tour, they’re wicked awesome!
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The type of training we do at the museum has a few different names. Depending on who you ask, they might call it Clicker Training, or Food Training, or Operant Conditioning, or Positive Reinforcement Training (PRT). All of those are correct labels for our reinforcement-based, contingency-focused style of behavior management for exotic and companion animals. I’m always happy to answer questions or talk about the training I do at all the institutions with which I work. And usually, people ask really interesting and thoughtful questions about how we are working to improve the welfare of zoo animals.
Sometimes, though, I run into someone who doesn’t have a very favorable impression of what we do. Someone might watch me train, either a dog or a steer or a giraffe, and say, “Well, all you did was bribe them! You just bribed them to do what you wanted them to do!” This confusion between training and bribing is one I hear often. So what’s the difference? Are we just bribing these animals?
No, I don’t think we are. There are a few important differences between our style of training and a bribe. First, a bribe is generally something you get for doing something you know you shouldn’t. Like, think of bribing a police officer for letting you off after you’ve been pulled over for speeding (not that anyone would ever do that!). Or, bribing a football player to lose a game on purpose. The police officer and the football player are being asked to break an ethical standard for money. That’s a bribe.
We’re not asking our animals to break any ethical standard! We’re asking them to do behaviors that will help in their care. We’re asking them to step on a scale so we can weigh them, or get in a crate so they can take a trip to the vet’s office. Nothing illegal. Nothing unethical. Not tricks for our entertainment. Just everyday husbandry and veterinary behaviors that can improve the animal’s care immensely.
A second difference between a bribe and our training style: a bribe usually comes BEFORE the unethical behavior. It’s something given in advance. You give the police officer the money, and THEN he lets you off. You give the football player the money, and THEN he throws the game. Bribes are an advance payment for bad behavior that’s coming in the future. Our training is more like the paycheck you receive for your job. You get paid at the end of every week (or every two weeks, or every month) for the time you spent at work the preceding week (or two weeks, or month). The reinforcer comes AFTER the behavior. For the most part, if you don’t go to work, you don’t get paid. That’s more like the arrangement we have with the animals. Max’s payment for getting on the scale comes right AFTER he gets on the scale. Cassandra’s payment for getting in the crate comes just AFTER she’s gotten in the crate. And, we can’t pay them in money. (Or, we could, I guess, but it wouldn’t be very effective!) Instead, we pay them a reinforcer that’s valuable to them – food, treats, pets, praise.
I don’t think our training is bribing, at all. We’re asking the animals to do everyday behaviors and we’re paying them after they’ve done those behaviors. It’s a great way to build a repertoire of behaviors in both exotic and companion animals, and it builds a relationship between the trainer and the animal based on trust. So train on!
Do you have any training questions you’d like me to address? Let me know in the comments section!
Which one of our animals has been the most challenging to train? Which ones have been the most receptive to training?
Shawntel,
The bears are very receptive to training! I think the red ruffed lemurs are pretty challenging, because they are very laid back, whereas the ring tailed lemurs are always ready to train. Maybe the farm yard keepers can answer the same question about their animals.
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I was going through old blogs and found one I hadn’t posted yet which was a video of Yona playing with a box.
I have some boxes I need to flatten and recycle here at the house. I think she could be a big help!!
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In the fall we receive A LOT of donated pumpkins that are used in the animal department. Some animals eat them, some animals play with them, and some animals don’t really do anything with them.
Our muskrats really like to eat pumpkin, so we give it to them sometimes as enrichment or as a substitute for another vegetable in their daily diet. In an effort to use some of the many pumpkins that we had, I decided to do both.
We usually only give the muskrats pieces of pumpkin at a time, so I had to substitute several of their vegetables for one day in order to give them an entire pumpkin. I decided to clean it out and put their daily food inside.
I thought it would be best to only put half their food inside the pumpkin so that they wouldn’t fight over the pumpkin once they realized their food was inside.
So I placed the pumpkin, lid on, in the exhibit and scattered the remaining food for them to find (we do that daily.)
I thought they would probably go directly to the pumpkin to check it out, but they actually seemed a bit apprehensive about it.
After several minutes of keeping their distance from the pumpkin and eating the scattered food around the exhibit, they started to creep up to it to check it out but would then run away.
I finally decided to take the lid off the pumpkin in an effort to help them realize that this big round orange thing was something good and yummy. At that point I had to go clean the rest of the exhibits, so I left them to continue checking it out. When I came back about 30 minutes later, I found this…
Yep, that’s right, the muskrats had dragged the pumpkin into their pool. It was floating upside down, waterlogged but surprisingly with most of the original food still in it. I drained out the water and placed it back on the floor of the exhibit with the rest of their diet still in it.
When I came back later I found the pumpkin moved back to the water’s edge, but this time there was a big chunk eaten from it.
Then I looked over at their den area and saw that they had taken the top of the pumpkin and put it at the window for everyone to see, along with some of their other veggies. They do this with their diet a lot, and it makes it pretty convenient for the visitors to get a look at all their food. I enjoyed putting this enrichment togther for them, and it was neat to see what they did with it throughout the day!
….think this could be part of the 2013 New Year’s Resolution list….the Museum’s awesome keepers will help you overcome your fears of unusual veggies.
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If you give a Whistle Pig a pancake…
He’ll chase you down the hallway until you give him another.
It wasn’t quite like the book
oh he loves him some pancakes!
This just goes to show that we love all the “staff” here at the museum!
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I recently mentioned we’re now working on crate training the red ruffed lemurs. It’s been quite awhile since they have worked on this behavior. The last couple days have been very successful. All three lemurs have gone all the way into their crates. 
This is just the beginning so check back soon for updates.
Keeper Marilyn and I training the three red ruffed lemurs
Iris going into the crate
Iris is going into the top crate at the same time that Jethys is going into the bottom crate.
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I like the Cynthia no hands approach.
Cynthia’s going head deep LOL