{"id":61,"date":"2020-01-16T17:25:53","date_gmt":"2020-01-16T16:25:53","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/zoosnippets.com\/?p=61"},"modified":"2021-04-23T23:12:35","modified_gmt":"2021-04-23T22:12:35","slug":"make-feeding-of-animals-enriching","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/zoosnippets.com\/post\/make-feeding-of-animals-enriching","title":{"rendered":"Make Feeding Of Animals Enriching"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Often animals are hand-fed, without any form of enrichment or effort to obtain their food. I caught myself last time doing the same while feeding the otters. So the next day I used the food, normally chopped fish but this time as a whole, and inserted it in a sandwich feed board<\/a>. The otters, normally done with eating within max 15 minutes, were now busy for 2 hours obtaining all the fish. And most striking was that the time I spend on it was not much more than I usually do. Off course the otters spend some time doing other stuff in between as well, but I achieved an increase in appetitive behaviours of more than 400%. So why don’t we make every feeding opportunity enriching?<\/p>\n\n\n\t\t\t\t

\n\t\t\t\t
\n\t\t\t\t\t
\n\t\t\t\t\t\t
\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\tTable Of Contents\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/path><\/svg>\n\t\t\t<\/span>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t
\n\t\t\t\t\t\t
  1. Foraging behaviour compared: wild versus captivity<\/a>
  2. No more free lunches – contrafreeloading<\/a>
  3. Should food be chopped?<\/a>
  4. Food used in behavioural enrichment<\/a><\/ol>\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\n\n\n
    <\/div>\n\n\n\n
    \"\"<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

    Foraging behaviour compared: wild versus captivity<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

    When we enrich animals, we want to stimulate species-specific wild behaviours<\/a>, preferably in the same degree as is shown in the wild. When we compare captive animals with wild conspecifics, research studies shows that there is 20% – 75% less foraging behaviour observed in captive animals. With other words, they spent not near as much time on food-related behaviours as their wild conspecifics do. So when an animal is not busy performing appetitive and consummatory behaviours, it will be replaced with other behaviours. And when an animal is bored and not challenged or stimulated enough, it can be replaced with adverse abnormal behaviours and stereotypes<\/a>. So animals must spend their species-typical time budget on forage behaviours. Not only the total time spent is significant, but the natural feeding times and forage frequency should be considered as well. When animals naturally feed with pre-dawn hours may also need to be fed in pre-dawn hours in captivity, to encourage species-typical diet consumption and promote natural behaviours correspondingly. The same with feeding frequency. It is not logical, for example, to feed a lion four times a day when naturally it hunts once a day (and often less). In the same way, an otter shouldn’t be fed once when its conspecifics hunt and collect food multiple times a day. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

    \n