Schimmel, A., Hlavka, R. 2014. Enhancing environmental enrichment without breaking the bank. American Association for Laboratory Animal Science [AALAS] Meeting Official Program, 562-563 (Abstract #P51).

Although our enrichment program meets all USDA, AAALAC, and IACUC standards, we wanted to do more for the animals. Due to a limited budget, we were faced with the challenge of enhancing our program without increasing spending. We began by forming an environmental enrichment committee to develop and implement new ideas, discuss the outcomes, and make changes as needed. Enhancements made to our program include creating monthly species-specific treat menus, holiday enrichment parties for all USDA-covered species, positive reinforcement training for dogs, open-area and play cage time for rabbits and primates, and increased social housing and toy rotations. We found that using monthly species-specific treat menus enables greater variation while decreasing food waste. For holiday enrichment parties, staff members donate boxes and paper rolls and are invited to help assemble the “gifts,” which are filled with various toys and treats tailored to the specific species. This provides an alternative enrichment experience from the standard daily treats and toys and occurs around every major holiday. Positive reinforcement training for the dogs was initiated to provide more human contact in addition to the time spent during daily husbandry duties, health evaluations, and exercise time. Training tasks include leash walking, sitting, and playing fetch. The training sessions result in calm, attentive dogs that enjoy the tasks and human interaction. The rabbits and primates actively make use of the play areas and have displayed decreased stereotypic behaviors. Throughout the revamping of our program, we recruited various staff members that were not previously involved with enrichment duties. The additions to our program provide enhanced enrichment for the animals, brought department-wide awareness to the importance of environmental enrichment, provide a fun team-building activity for staff apart from the normal work day, and require little cost for equipment and supplies by using donated and repurposed materials, and regulating the amount of food treats purchased.