Enriching Lives: Animal and Human

Internship Overview:

After working on an educational farm in Connecticut throughout highschool, I fell in love with connecting humans and animals. As a junior at UVM this past semester, I partnered with Cat Parrish to design an internship around this love, officially titled: Animal Enrichment and Other Methodology to Increase the Mutual Value of Animal-Assisted Education. I’ll be honest, I pumped all three years of my college education into that title, but it boiled down to this: I wanted to explore how introducing additional enrichment opportunities affected the welfare of our education animals and in turn how this impacted their interactions with people. It grew into so much more.   

Part 1: A Life Enriched

We all get bored; it’s human nature. But we’re not alone. Research into animal care practices show that other animals desire challenges, new experiences, and novel sensations, too. In the first part of my internship, I explored enrichment activities with the animals in the Children’s Farmyard, activities that can be divided into four main categories: Cognitive, Sensory, Environmental, and Social.

In the quiet winter months, when visitors are limited, and the goats, sheep, rabbits, and chickens snuggle up under the eves of the Farm Barn to await the return of lush summer pastures, I donned my flannel barn coat and began with the chickens.

As some of you know, much of the Northeast has been hit hard by the Avian Flu the past few years. It’s so highly pathogenic that the Farmyard chickens have been in quarantine for almost two years. Since we’ve all recently experienced pandemic quarantines ourselves, you maybe can relate to some of the stressors the chickens have faced. To combat that stress, I introduced poultry video games as a form of cognitive enrichment. Ok, technically, it was a cat video game, but the chickens didn’t mind. They seemed to enjoy pecking at the ants crawling across the screen of my iPad. It was a start. 

Responding to their natural behaviors, I came up with more activities to introduce to them. I cut holes in a cardboard tube and filled it with treats–like a log. The chickens had the cognitive and physical challenge of rolling and pecking the tube to get their treats. I also tried out my green thumb: I made a DIY Chia Pet, fresh out of the 80s, by placing a piece of damp felt in a shallow plastic container, adding chia seeds, and covering it with plastic wrap. The chickens loved it! They scratched at the forage and completely destroyed my hard work within an hour, much to my delight.

I also focused on our rabbit, Freddy, as he was likely to interact most with children when I moved on to offsite programming (internship, phase 3!). I noted that he enjoyed pulling and tearing things, so I stuck hay, toys, and treats in a block of cardboard. He played with it for days! Upon seeing how clever he was, I set a goal to work with him on some training techniques in the future. 

It was a time of trial and error, but seeing what the animals were interested in spurred me on and I realized I could make a difference for these animals and the people who learn from them.

The inspiration kept me going, because working on the farm in the depths of winter isn’t easy. One day when I answered a FaceTime call from my Mom, I saw that my eyelashes had become frosted and my scarf was frozen into a mask of my face! But this was also the day that I hoisted a small donated fir tree above my head, and threw it over the fence and into the pen for the goats to enjoy. Magpie, Raisin, Honeybee, and Yaya thoroughly inspected, dissected, and savored it. Even through my frozen lashes, I could see how pleased they were. Had it not been -35 degrees, I might have shed a tear.

My passion for working with animals, especially those in the Children’s Farmyard, stems from their intrinsic value. Their presence alone can calm someone; they can connect students to what they’re learning in the classroom; and they provide us with valuable resources that we must strive to procure ethically and sustainability. That’s why I’ve set out to improve their lives as they have improved mine. This internship was a culmination of the woman I have grown into and the passions I have discovered. I look forward to sharing more with you in the future.

For now stay curious,

Catherine Ziac