Short answer question worksheet
The following questions are to review some of the main concepts related to providing enrichment for companion animals and to give you practice for reading a feeding plan. After you have completed the questions, you can compare your answers with some suggested feedback at the end of this worksheet.
Questions
Questions 1: There are three key elements of animal behaviour to consider. These are:
a Can you give some examples of specific behavioural activities?
b Activity budgets show the appropriate amount of time that should be given to an activity (adjusted for variables). Can you give any examples of activities and an appropriate time?
c An important consideration is that all animals have a capacity to maintain their own well-being. In other words, they are able to control their behaviour in a way that best suits their needs. Can you list reasons why these elements work well in the wild?
Question 2:
a What are the limitations of the environment of most captive animals when compared to their environments in the wild?
b Captive animals are credited with abundant captive time. Captivity often suppresses/alters an animal’s ability to address its own needs in a timely way. So, what happens with all that captive time?
c. Let's use the captive laboratory rat as an example. List what you think might happen during their captive time.
Reflective questions
Now, for a moment imagine that you have released a captive laboratory rat into the wild. What do you think would happen?
· Would it adjust to doing what it was biologically designed to do? OR
· Would it still not express all of its typical behaviours because it was in captivity for so long? OR
· Is the answer somewhere in between?
Now, list some of the behaviours that you would expect to see:
Suggested feedback
Question 1a: Feeding/foraging, Fight or flight response, reproduction, communication, social comfort needs
Question 1b:
environmental:
· time of day––eg nocturnal vs diurnal behaviour
· seasonal variation––influencing reproduction or feeding
individual:
· age––the young vs old
· sex––differences in behaviour between males and females
· health
Question 1c:
· unpredictable environment
· social contact within the environment––using appropriate sensory contact
· freedom to move throughout the environment
· environmental complexity––challenging and stimulating
· freedom of choice.
Question 2a
Some of the limitations of captive animals' environments include:
· their environments are controlled
· the animal's choice is limited
· their activity is limited.
This means that have abundant captive time.
Question 2b
With the abundant excess time, the following happens:
· Development of inactive or over active abnormal behaviours
· These behaviours fit into a distorted activity budget.
Question 2c
Captive laboratory rats receive:
· predictable routine of daily cleaning and care
· ad lib (constant) food and water
· constant environmental conditions
· few choices
· fewer opportunities to control individual comfort and wellbeing.
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© NSW DET 2007