Working for Food

We often give enrichment items to our animals to keep them busy and encourage natural behaviors. An egg carton may not be something that a hawk would encounter in the wild, but it can stimulate behaviors Carson would be practicing in the wild. So I put a rat head in half of an egg carton and stepped back to see what she would do.

A meal that could have been swallowed in one quick gulp became a 5-minute event. She got the chance to use her talons to grip; her eyes to search for hidden prey; her beak to search and grab; her sense of balance while standing precariously on the object; her brain for figuring out how to get the food.

But was she enjoying it? In my post last week, I described how dopamine, a "happy" chemical, peaks in the brain while an animal seeks out food. Based on that information, we could conclude that the process of figuring out how to get the food would be enjoyable for her.

Can we observe any evidence of that excitement? While we can't read an animal's mind, we can hear Carson makes high-pitched squeals as she works out the puzzle. I posted this video to a zookeeper Facebook group to find out if other hawks make this vocalization as well. Several people confirmed that they hear it when their birds are anticipating food. Since food is a good thing, I would guess these squeals represent her excitement for her meal.

Some animals actually prefer to work for their food, even when food is also offered freely. This phenomenon is called "contrafreeloading," the opposite of freeloading. Rats in a 1963 study could press a lever to dispense food or they could eat from an open bowl of food. They ate more from the lever dispenser! Since then, this has been demonstrated in many animals including pigs, chickens, giraffes, and humans. The dopamine high during seeking must partially explain this preference for puzzling out their next meal.

We can, and sometimes do, drop a bird's food so they can quickly gobble it up. But there are many reasons that making them work for their food, through puzzles or training sessions, is better for their physical and mental health. Plus, they actually seem to enjoy it!