St. Patrick’s Day has become a full weekend of fun and activities. After all, they say everyone is Irish on St. Patrick’s Day!

There are parades, pub crawls, parties, and a variety of green-themed events to choose from. Many zoos, animal parks, and other animal care facilities have joined in the holiday and created their own festivities.

The Elmwood Park Zoo throws a weekend St. Patrick’s Day event with personalized animal greets and live Celtic music and dancing. There is something for everyone from adults to children.

At the Smithsonian National Zoo everyone gets into the holiday spirit: animal care staff and aides gift enrichment items to the animals. Visitors really connect with the animals through enrichment feeders like the Bingo Ball Feeder. Everyone enjoys seeing primates like tamarins, capuchins, marmosets, macaques, and langurs figure out how to solve a puzzle and get a treat.

The San Francisco Zoo keeps it simple. Wear anything with a shamrock on St. Patrick’s Day weekend and get $1 off admission. Visitors can enjoy a green beer all weekend long as they stroll the park grounds.

How could we not check in with the Dublin Zoo and see what they have planned for St. Patrick’s Day?

Keeping with the “green theme”, reptiles will take center stage. Keeper talks will run throughout the day in the Zoorassic World. Many reptiles spend their day basking. Visitors like to see activity and feeding time is a great interaction experience. Our Exotic Nutrition canned insects make it easy to provide a variety of nutritious insects to your reptiles.

The Maryland Zoo turns St. Patrick’s Day into an enrichment event. Animal keepers give their animals enrichment items and treats. During the events, staff explain the importance of customized environmental enrichment in the lives of the zoo’s lions, otters, bobcats, polar bears, farm animals, and chimps.

Even animal shelters are creating fun St. Patrick’s Day celebrations.

Fredericksburg Virginia SPCA promises” puppy kisses, puppy breath, and puppy cuddles” for those attending the St. Patrick’s Day Puppy Yoga event. This is the perfect time to have visitors interact with the rescue animals. Use enrichment toys to help the animals and potential adoptees connect. Dogs love the Kong chewable toys. Cats are especially fond of stalking, pouncing, and chewing on feline enrichment toys. Don’t forget small animals like mice, rats, guinea pigs, ferrets, and birds. They all need engaging environmental enrichment for physical and cognitive stimulation.

Treat activities are popular with zoo visitors and create a connection between animals and humans.

Whether your animal facility simply offers a St. Patrick’s Day discount, like the Palm Beach Zoo, or goes all out with food, beer, and dancing, the “green holiday” is the perfect time to bring the visitors closer to your important work with the animals. The Philadelphia Zoo has a new exhibit where visitors feed the giraffes. You don’t have to make a complicated program to use treats in your exhibits and demonstrations. Foraging and treat-based enrichment products give you complete control over the diet, provide the animals with fun stimulation, and give visitors and supporters an engaging experience that brings them back again and again. Why not try it this St. Patrick’s Day?

Spring is Forage Time!

With Spring just around the corner, many animals (and zoo facilities)  will emerge from their winter hibernation. Your zoo or animal park, like the Maryland Zoo, will be returning to regular visitor hours. Most facilities make this a yearly celebration. Lincoln Park Zoo will be hosting the Coming Out of Hibernation event. The Philadelphia Zoo is hosting its annual Zoo-A-Thon fundraiser for enrichment products. Speaking of enrichment products, animals rising from winter rest will want to explore their environment and forage for food. Otto Environmental offers a wide variety of enrichment products designed to provide cognitive, visual, olfactory, and taste stimulation for just about any animal.

Small animals need to forage

Rats, mice, and gerbils have a strong foraging instinct. The IAABC Foundation notes that providing enrichment for small animals sometimes gets overlooked by shelters, zoos, and laboratories. Small animal enrichment can be easy with the right products. The hanging Exotic Nutrition Forage Tower is a hanging interactive forage device that holds food and provides an interesting challenge to small animals including rabbits and ferrets.

Ann Gutowski, the keeper at Smithsonian’s National Zoo’s Small Mammal House, notes “To provide the best enrichment for each animal, we need to understand what each animal engages with most or how to encourage a particular behavior best.” The Bead Forager is a stainless-steel channel with beaded chains, nuts, and washers. These provide tactile and audible enrichment as animals like ferrets, mice, rats, gerbils, jerboas, and other foragers search for treats inside the channel.

Birds and forage enrichment

The Association of Avian Veterinarians notes that birds, like lorikeets, spend up to 70% of the day foraging for food. It makes sense to provide your parrots, cockatoos, cockatiels, macaws, and other foraging birds with a feeding challenge. The Acrylic Forage Wheel is the ideal avian enrichment device. The clear housing allows the birds to see the treats as they manipulate the colorful paddlewheel, to dispense a treat. The Hornbil Forager provides a different experience. Hornbills, woodpeckers, sapsuckers, nuthatches, and large parrots like African grays forage much of their day in the wild, but very little in captivity due to lack of enrichment. To stimulate your birds, load the firehose pleats with peanut butter, waxworms, and seeds and watch your birds engage in much-needed foraging activity.

Primate foraging

It is no secret that non-human primates (NHP) have complex enrichment needs. Monkeys and apes, including tamarins, capuchins, marmosets, macaques, langurs, orangutans, gibbons, and chimpanzees have a strong desire to touch, smell, and taste objects in their environment. Without adequate enrichment, NHPs become depressed and stressed. Enrichment is also a key component of IACUC standards for laboratories and research projects. The Texas Biomedical Research Institute uses food-based enrichment along with tactile and audible sensory stimulation in its primate research. The Acrylic Tray Forager has an AstroTurf mat that can be smeared with peanut butter, jelly, and other treats. NHPs explore the rough surface and find a sticky treat reward. It is important to provide primates with several types of enrichment challenges. The Otto Bullet Feeder is designed to present a fruit and vegetable forage challenge to smaller primates. Just load the Bullet and hang it where primates can reach the dispensing holes.

All animals forage

No matter what type of animals you are caring for, they all like to forage in their own way. As the season warms and days lengthen, give your animals the fun and stimulation they need through forage-based enrichment products and activities.

Orangutans and other large primates have unique enclosure and caging needs.

In the wild orangutans are arboreal, moving about the tree canopy. Their long arms and hand-like feet make them strong climbers, an activity they need in captivity. Orangutans are somewhat solitary, yet they are inquisitive and very interested in their surroundings. This provides several clues as to what orangutans prefer in their enclosure. One tip to keep in mind with all primates is that their enclosure is their home, not a “workspace.” It is critical to provide the enrichment they need to thrive.

Orangutan enclosures must provide opportunities to climb and live on the floor space.

The Association of Zoos and Aquariums notes that when orangutans cannot climb, lethargy sets in along with health issues. The primates often begin playing with feces if the living space does not provide proper environmental enrichment. We designed our Closed Weave Hammock to make it easy to create elevated lounging areas for orangutans and other large primates like baboons, gibbons, mandrills, chimpanzees, and gorillas. The ability of the hammock to swing is considered the ideal type of elevated environment for climbing primates.

Rosemary Markham of Perth Zoo documents the benefits of manipulable enrichment products in their long-term care and successful breeding program.

Treat feeders, like the Spin A Snack are particularly interesting to orangutans and other primates. The rotating dispenser acts as a puzzle with a treat reward. Primates also enjoy being able to push, throw and carry objects. The Kong Wobbler satisfies this desire and can take rough play. Smithsonian’s National Zoo Primates Curator Meredith Bastian, in her studies of nesting orangutans, found that enrichment devices are often carried into the nest. They are probably comforting to the primates.

Angela Hatke, from the Cincinnati Zoo, stresses that orangutans are problem solvers and benefit from challenging enrichment devices. The Phoenix Zoo emphasizes cognitive enrichment as an important component of orangutan care. Otto Environmental’s Honeycomb can be loaded with yam, corn, oranges, bananas, berries, and pears. Primates can carry and manipulate the Honeycomb for a treat.

Orangutan Foundation International has recommended hanging tire swings for orangutan enrichment.

The swing provides exercise, a perch to observe visitors and other primates, and a place to interact with another orangutan when desired. The Tirezan Primate Swing is a popular enrichment device for baboons, gibbons, mandrills, chimpanzees, gorillas, and orangutans. All you need to do is hang it. No DIY drilling, cutting, and fabricating!

Keep in mind each orangutan has his/her own preference for enrichment activities.

Emily Bricker, primate keeper at the National Zoo, works with a variety of primates, including siamangs, lemurs, gorillas, and orangutans. “To work with orangutans, it helps to have a lot of patience and the ability to think five steps ahead. Orangutans are wild animals and aren’t always gentle. Because orangutans are so smart, strong, and curious, keepers have to be very thoughtful about the types of enrichment we give them.” Otto Environmental has developed a wide range of enrichment products that are sure to keep your primates engaged and happy.

Orangutans are one of the most popular primates in zoos and wildlife parks. Their distinctive red fur and expressive face always draw a crowd.

Did you know that the Malay word orangutan means “man of the forest”? These apes spend most of their time living in the trees. They build nests made of leaves for sleeping at night and lounging during the day. Unfortunately, orangutans are endangered. The International Union for the Conservation of Nature (IUCN) classifies the Bornean sub-species of orangutan as Endangered and the Sumatran sub-species as Critically Endangered.

Found only in Borneo and Sumatra, wild orangutan populations are under tremendous pressure from habitat loss and poaching. The main threats are:

• Deforestation and loss of habitat

• Illegal hunting

• Expansion of palm oil plantations

• Selling baby orangutans as pets

Orangutans live up to 50 years, but because females reproduce once every 5-10 years maintaining the population is difficult. Loss of habitat is especially tough on conservation projects. Despite all this, conservation efforts continue to succeed. The Borneo Orangutan Survival (BOS) project has released 500 orangutans back into the wild. BOS researchers just celebrated the successful birth of a baby in the Kehje Sewen Forest, by a rehabilitated orangutan named Lesan.

As you can imagine, research and conservation efforts are critical for the survival of the orangutan as well as other apes. Otto Environmental is dedicated to supporting these efforts by providing the tools you need to accomplish this important conservation work.

One of the most important factors in working with these highly intelligent and strong apes is having a safe and secure enclosure. Captive orangutans have a long history of finding ways to escape enclosures by figuring out how to defeat latches and claps, even using objects as tools. Large primates like orangutans, gorillas, chimpanzees, gibbons, and other species often require a large cage or enclosure. Off-the-shelf enclosures may not meet the needs of the animal or the facility. We are often called upon to help design and manufacture unique caging solutions for zoos, animal parks, exotic veterinary clinics, universities, and research centers. Our animal enclosures can be customized to meet your requirements. Whether it is a veterinary restraint cage or a rolling animal transport cart, we can build it.

All of our enclosures, doors, and transport carts are made of 304 stainless steel. All hardware including hinges, wheels, and latches are of the highest quality for years of trouble-free service.

The fit and finish are truly exceptional. We do not cut corners! At Otto Environmental we never stop working on ways to make your important conservation and research projects easier and even more successful. If you have questions about enclosures or need help with a project, please contact us and we’ll help you find the right solution!