Join us as we explore some summer animal hacks and facts that help keep our zoo animals nice and cool during the hot summer months. Maybe some of them can help your critters at home as well!
Buy your tickets now to come to see our animals before the end of our summer shows!
Keeping it Cool: Zoo Animal Enrichment Ideas
Let’s start by taking a look at some zoo animal enrichment ideas that we have used to keep our animals cooled down during our hot Texas summers.
Ice Ice Baby!
Giant ice cubes may sound a bit simple, but we can assure you that our animals find them anything but boring. Not only are these slippery treats fun to slide around an enclosure, but they are also great at keeping our animals cool. By licking and rolling all over their new toys, our animals can cool down and feel fully refreshed. What a great way to keep summer fun and safe for our animal friends here at the Zoo! Our keepers are super experienced with creating all sorts of enrichment activities for our animals. Catch our zookeepers at one of our summer animal shows to ask them all about it!
Water Features!
Another great way to keep our animals cool is by incorporating water features that they can swim in right inside their habitats. From waterfalls to pools we have it all! Our Jaguars and hyenas are very often seen by our visitors lounging in their water pools. It is just as adorable as it sounds!
The Meaning of Enrichment
Just in case we got ahead of ourselves, let’s talk a moment to define the meaning of enrichment. The definition we use is that animal enrichment is an animal husbandry principle that seeks to enhance the quality of life for the animals it is provided for. Enrichment is basically a fancy word for toys, or some form of stimulus, to engage the animal and change up their day to day behaviors and activities. Even the simplest of things can be exciting and engaging to our animals. One of our favorite enrichment activities is hiding unique smells and treats in our animal’s habitats that they can find! What enriches your day?
Now that we have that definition out of the way, let’s go back to our giant ice cubes and water features! Let’s take a look at some captured summer animal pictures of our residents interacting with these exciting enrichment elements. Our favorite is the green ice cake that we gave one of our lions!
Do you have any other zoo animal enrichment ideas that you would want to share with us? Message us on Facebook with ways you enrich the lives of the animals in your life. Have you seen any other zoo animal enrichment activities when you have come out to visit us or gone to other zoos? We love to hear from all our followers and visitors!
The Big Freeze: Animals Playing in the Snow!
It is hard to discuss animals trying to cool off without mentioning how our animals enjoyed our big snow we got several seasons ago. We captured lots of photos of our animals playing in the snow and exploring their new surroundings. This was a very immersive form of enrichment! If we could call a snow storm in whenever we wanted, that would really be the number one summer animal hack! Based on the meaning of enrichment this weather element still qualifies as enrichment to us! Check out the linked blog to see some other zoo animal enrichment activities we have done in the past. Let’s check out those snowy photos!
We hope you learned something in our blog today, or at least got to enjoy some adorable animals! What was your favorite enrichment fact that you learned? Anything you want to try with your animals at home? Make sure to let us know, and tag us in any pictures of your animals interacting with their at home enrichment. We always love to repost our followers’ exciting animal content!
Follow us on Instagram for more exciting animal enrichment videos and photographs!