<p><em>By Amy Roberts, Lead Keeper, Habitat Africa &amp; Wolf Woods and<br />
Sarah Feliciano, Senior Craftsman/Exhibits<br />
Brookfield Zoo, Brookfield, IL</em></p>

<p>In an effort to continually advance our animal care and management we are initiating several changes to our giraffe husbandry program including making improvements in enrichment, training and feeding strategies. Specifically, for the purposes of this article, I will describe a new enrichment option we developed. Living in Chicago our giraffe herd spends nearly half the year in their indoor exhibit that has horizontal cables that form the front perimeter of the exhibit. We wanted to create an effective method of using the cables to provide enrichment. The cables can be accessed during the day without entering the exhibit itself so we would have the ability to add or change items throughout the day. Hopefully, attaching enrichment to the cables would also draw the giraffe closer to our guests.</p>

<p>At the Brookfield Zoo we have an Exhibits Team who have described themselves as, "Who you call when the job does not fit into anyone else's job description". They are a creative team of individuals with diverse skills. One Exhibits Team member, Sarah Feliciano met with me to discuss some of my ideas. I relayed to Sarah I hoped for a feeding device to hang from the cables that was safe, easily cleaned and would not fray the cables since ideally I wanted the device to slide along the cable making it more challenging for the giraffe. Sarah was provided the enrichment chapter from the AZA Giraffe Husbandry Resource Manual to learn more about giraffe enrichment.</p>

[caption id="attachment_610" align="alignnone" width="522" caption="Jawara using the licking board designed to attach to exhibit cabling.  (photo by Jim Schultz, Oakland Zoo Staff Photographer)"]<img src="http://aecetia.net/gws/aazk/wp-content/uploads/giraffe.jpg" alt="Jawara using the licking board designed to attach to exhibit cabling.  (photo by Jim Schultz, Oakland Zoo Staff Photographer)" title="giraffe" width="522" height="346" class="size-full wp-image-610" />[/caption]

<p>What we created is a PVC pipe sleeve that slides along the cable very easily and has four attachment points for affixing various enrichment devices such as feeder jugs made from five-gallon water containers, bamboo rain stick, spoons, Horseballs brand balls, and so on. Each attachment point has a maximum weight of 50 lbs. [22.68kg]. The sleeve itself is unobtrusive and goes fairly unnoticed when no enrichment is attached.  The PVC sleeve has an end cap on each end with holes drilled in the caps to allow the exhibit cable to pass through.  This helps prevent the cable from fraying or wearing through the PVC while still allowing the sleeve to slide along the length of the cable. Polypropylene pipe clips, which can be purchased from Indelco Plastics™ Corporation, were used in conjunction with eyebolts to allow four attachment points.  The clips easily snap apart and therefore needed to be secured with screws to the sleeve to make them giraffe-proof. </p>

<p>The two widest attachment points allow for attachment of feeder tubes constructed out of 4" [10.16cm] PVC pipe and threaded end caps that allow easy access. A slot was cut along the length of the pipe and eyebolts were added to the ends of the screw caps with lock nuts so the giraffes could not remove them. All PVC pipes were lightly sanded and wiped down with acetone in preparation for painting. They were then painted with KrylonÆ Fusion spray paint which is designed for plastics.</p>

<p>Large diameter bamboo was also used to create another horizontal feeder. The open ends were capped with epoxy and eyebolts with lock nuts were added to facilitate attachment to the sleeve. The natural bamboo chambers were left intact and irregular holes were cut strategically along the length of the bamboo to allow the giraffes to access each chamber.</p> 

<p>The two inner attachment points on the cable sleeve allow for...</p>