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Husbandry Training
Husbandry behaviors like crate, target, shifting, station or recall help on the
day-to-day management of our animals. Animals cooperating with their caretakers will make their daily routine easier.
We will train the animals and we will teach the staff how to start this training, how to maintain it and how to solve any problem that can arise.
STATION - SUN CONURES
Animals learn in each interaction we have with them. Many times they are learning and we are not realising it.In this case, these sun conures learned to come to the main door every time someone approached it. The staff was not aware that the sun conures were getting reinforced by them every time they were entering the enclosure (with attention, food, etc.). At the beginning it was very funny for them since the sun conures were playing and sitting on them. However, they finally realised it was a serious matter when the sun conures were going out of the enclosure when the door was getting opened.In order to help them, we conditioned them to go to the other side of the enclosure. Every time any of the staff wanted to go inside, they would call the sun conures on the other side of the enclosure, far away from the door, and they would reinforce them with different reinforcers.The sun conures learned that they were getting what they wanted by letting them come inside of the enclosure.
Anna during the training

Medical Care Training
Routine check-ups like checking the mouth, cutting nails, drawing blood, giving an injection or even taking an X-Ray is very stressful for animals and people. However, training animals to cooperate with their own medical care will reduce the stress and the use of anesthesia. It will help to prevent/diagnose many health problems in an early stage.
BLOOD DRAWING - OSTRICH
When people visit an animal facility they usually get amazed by the ostriches. Their size, their long legs, how powerful they are and how fast they can run. People talk about the big eyes and the small brain that they have but they do not realise how smart they are.When we talk about blood drawing, cleaning a wound, putting stitches or giving some treatment to an ostrich, it usually comes to our mind that anesthesia or restraining will be needed due to their size and power. However, as trainers, we think on how to condition them to accept and cooperate with us during these kind of procedures without being submitted to stress and further consequences.We started training some husbandry behaviors to make our daily routine easier such as recall, target, stationing, laying down or shifting them from point A to point B. Eventually, we started building a good relationship and trust that allowed us to go further with our training. Soon we jumped into some medical training like cleaning wounds, drawing blood and taking medicine.One day, when he was a grown up,the ostrich needed a routine blood test and everyone wanted to restrain him. The people that was involved on his training trusted the power of training, trusted the animal and trusted the teamwork that we were doing for a very long time. The result could have not been any better!Instead of seeing the typical scenario in which an ostrich is restrained on the ground or is asleep due to the anesthesia, he was actually responding to the training!On the video you can see the lay down (when he was still a baby), blood drawing and why training this was so helpful.Never underestimate any behavior that you want to train or you have already trained. You never know when you will need the animal to cooperate with you to avoid stress and unwanted situations.
Enric training with Willy
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