I grew up with an advent calendar every year. Mine were of the chocolate variety but the countdown to the jolly man was the most exciting part!

Why not share the excitement with our critters and all the while-organizing our enrichment program for the month of December, yes?

Rather than filling the days in the enrichment calendar with items to be used: toys, scents, feeders-let’s fill our days with behaviors to be increased instead!

Start with an ethogram.

For each species you work with make a list of behaviors that are specific to the individuals in your care.

From there-we find a way to increase that behavior! Maybe we are looking to increase the frequency of flying in parrots housed in aviaries or how about increasing the duration spent interacting with a pellet feeder for a zebra?

Fold them (or do them up as cute Holiday decorations) mix them up and pull the at random. One a day for a new spin on an enrichment calendar.