What is Enrichment?

• Enrichment aims to improve welfare in captive animals
• It is a type of Refinement that involves identifying and providing stimuli that enhance the state of well-being of marmosets and other animals
• Enrichment is important for both physical and psychological health
• There are several key concepts relating to enrichment including: encouraging natural behaviour, increasing complexity and choice whilst allowing control, novelty and movement
• It is essential to ensure that any enrichment is safe – see Evaluation and Safety

Encourage Natural Behaviour

• The captive environment should allow marmosets to express the full range of natural behaviour shown in the wild, including:
  • All positive locomotory behaviours and postures: leaping, running, climbing, clinging, hanging upside-down etc.
  • All social activities with other common marmosets: grooming one another, resting, playing and huddling etc.
  • Food-finding behaviour: capturing insects, gnawing trees for gum and working hard to get at and into fruits and other foods
  • The opportunity to explore novel items and environments
  • A safe, comfortable place to sleep and hide

Introduce Complexity

• Complexity provides choice
• Choice allows a degree of control and reduces the likelihood of boredom
• Marmosets can only choose if they have a range of options presented to them. Complexity can be introduced through ‘enrichment’ in a variety of complementary ways
  • Enabling an active but harmonious social life
  • Changing their physical environment
  • Providing an appropriate variety of food in ways that present a challenge to reach it
  • Activities that challenge their minds and stimulate their senses
• Movement of objects, structures or live animals can be enriching
• Movement attracts attention and introduces unpredictability, for example:
  • swings to move and play on, loose objects like feathers to play with, live insects to chase, views through windows of live birds and humans etc.
• Novelty and change reduce boredom. Marmosets quickly lose interest in some items
• Frequent changes made to the enrichment can sustain attention and interaction
• A rotation ‘timetable’ can be arranged so that different options are made available in turn, cycling through enrichment items then becomes easy and automatic for caregivers

Control

• Keep in mind, however, that excessive and swift change can be overwhelming (i.e. negative for welfare)
• It is important that marmosets have as much control as possible
• Control is linked to predictability and so reduces stress
• Whilst having the opportunity to explore a variety of objects and situations, marmosets should always have the option of removing themselves from the stimuli

Evaluation and Safety

• It is necessary to evaluate whether or not enrichment has improved welfare
• Before introducing any enrichment it is essential to assess safety
• Always watch the marmosets interacting with newly introduced enrichment to ensure it is safe
• Some enrichment options will work better than others, some will not be effective at all, and some may have unexpected negative effects
• Safety is an important consideration when adding architecture or objects to an enclosure; the Shape of Enrichment website includes a searchable safety database with anonymously posted information