Category: primate toys

By Mary Lynn Campbell

monkey toys

Olivia – 5 Weeks Old

Happy New Year From Primate Care. We are excited to start 2018 with a post about monkey toys. All monkeys love toys from the very beginning of their lives. In my book “Living With Monkeys”, which is for sale on our sister site primatestore.com, I wrote about helping baby monkeys to not bite by offering things for them to chew on instead of your fingers, hands and hair. Yes, even your hair can become one of their favorite play things. Monkeys love to chew on everything.

When Bob and I were raising Silly Willy and he started to put his mouth on us, I knew it was time to offer him something to put his mouth on instead of us. Baby monkeys are not able to hold extremely large toys, so I went through the house and gathered things that I felt would fit into his small hands and then put small dishes full of these things into the rooms of the house that he was taken into.

The things that I chose to put into the dishes were things like: plastic Bic pen tops, medium size springs, medium size washers, large paper clips, medium key rings, plastic rings that are used to hang toys on baby cribs, plastic coke bottle caps, milk bottle caps, and any other small safe things that I could find. Of course, I washed these toys frequently to ensure that they were safe for my little guy.

I have also learned from many other monkey caregivers that some babies come with even more of a “mouthy problem” than Silly Willy came with and that their monkeys chose to put their mouth on everyone’s hands every time their baby monkey was being handle

. I know this must be a challenging behavior as a caregiver is trying to train their baby monkey to not do this. Due to this being such a problem, the little ones will become very hard to deal with when languaging with them using the word ‘NO’ so often.

(more…)

By Mary Lynn Campbell

nutty monkey
Opie ( age 11) – this monkey asked to not be spoken about in this post due to her “very nutty behaviors.”

When I think of “nutty monkeys” many memories from the past 27 years come floating across my mind. Oh, the stories I could tell! We will also be talking about toys in this post too. But before we get to some important information about toys, I feel that the rest of the story about Casper from my last posting here on the Primate Care Site, would be the first story to start with for this posting.

(more…)

Bio-Serv has some pretty unique treats for primates and while not every monkey loves every treat, they’ve got plenty of different treats so one of them could be your monkey’s favorite!  The great thing about their treats is that they’re nutritional complete and that nearly all of them have vitamin D3 in them which is very important especially for new world primates.   This blog isn’t so much about their treats but more about their enrichment devices.   We’ve tested out 3 of them with our capuchin so let’s find out together if these enrichment devices are worth their asking price.

(more…)

A few months ago I read about an amazing treat dispenser one could easily build themselves so to the store I went to get the necessary materials to build this great enrichment device.   Out of all the enrichment units we have available to our capuchin, this one is without any doubt his favorite.   This monkey treat dispenser is available outside his monkey room and the first thing he’ll do when we release him from his room is run towards it to see what we put in it today.  He loves to pull the handle up to see what appears in the dispenser hole.  We typically put nuts, seeds, or popcorn into this primate enrichment unit which fit perfectly for this device.   It’s a enrichment device that will encourage their natural foraging instincts.  Interested in making our own?  Let’s find out after the break what you’ll need to get started!

(more…)

Primate Activity Cube

While  making changes to the environment in which your primate(s) is spending most of their time at is very important to keep them intrigued, introducing new toys is just another way of preventing boredom.   Many of the items we introduce to our capuchin are sure to keep him busy for a while and allow him to really go to town.   Amongst the items we like to introduce weekly are carton boxes, magazines, or paper bags – all items that are available at no cost.

Every other week we like to buy a new item to add to the collection of primate toys.  One of his true favorites are plush animals which he really likes to carry around.   We often shop in the baby/toddler sections of the store or for a dog toy since those are typically more sturdy toys that can handle those sharp teeth.    If it is a battery operated toy, it is crucial that the battery area is secured with a screw.   It is especially important with baby toys to keep an eye on your primate since they’re really great at taking things apart.

During our last shopping trip at Target, we were once again trying to find another great enrichment toy for our monkey.     More on this with several pictures after the break!

(more…)