It’s no secret that Jamie Chimpanzee loves books, and after being on the nice list and getting lots of gifts at Christmas, she had amassed quite the book collection. Today we decided to give her lots of her books to look through all at once and called it Library Day. It was a blast! Sabrina and I had fun decorating for the occasion – setting up all of her books on their own shelves, and then providing cabbage, radicchio, and juice as refreshments for the event. It turned into a library party when the stars aligned and their enrichment for the day was peanut butter puzzles, so they got a lot of things they enjoy all at once!
Above: Jamie looking through her books.
Above: Jamie drinking juice from a tea cup.
Everyone except for Negra took turns drinking from the large juice pool by the library setup. Negra made her way upstairs quickly to the peanut butter puzzles and blankets and soon was cozy in her newly built nest.
Here is a photo of Negra that I took recently, being her wonderful, regal self.
I hope you all enjoy the video from today, and have had a wonderful holiday season. The celebrations continue at the sanctuary with Burrito’s birthday which is quickly approaching! If you would like to send gifts to help him celebrate, please check out our wish list here.
What a fabulous idea, Ellen! Though I have to admit, seeing them all so close to water, and knowing some are out of print, made me panic, thinking the other chimps might get them wet.
She definitely recognized that it was all “her” stuff! And more challenging for the others, to have more books and pages to look through for peanut butter!
Does Jamie now make you help choose her books, like she does with boots? Or does she just stick with Lucy Bonobo for the moment? And has she tried out that YT channel from the Twycross bonobos yet? The chimps there tend to fight a lot (particularly Jambo, the hairless one), but the bonobos play a lot, because…bonobos!
Hi Linda! I have to give credit to Sabrina for the idea, but I had fun getting to help execute it! That is a fair concern, thankfully most of them made it through the day unscathed and back to Jamie’s shelf for later reading.
She does have book preferences and lets us know if we have the wrong one by continuing with her request. Sometimes I think she wants a book, but she actually wants the boot on the shelf next to the books, or vice versa, but she continues to request what she wants until we get it right! She does really love her bonobo books. It’s nice that there are several different versions of bonobo Lucy books so she can still have variety even within the bonobo book category. I don’t think she has watched that channel yet, we have mostly been watching CSNW blog videos, but she may really enjoy some bonobo videos! Thanks for the suggestion!
Library Day! What a fun theme, especially for Jamie who was so excited to share the news and her numerous books with the others. She could have tippy-toed about keeping everything for her self but instead, she announced the fun for all to hear. And I always smile when I see Jamie sipping from her tiny tea cups. Pinkies out ladies!
Great set up and I loved your snack trays. I can only imagine Negra’s joy as she licked her way through the pages of her periodicals. It’s amazing how you make their enrichment look brand new every day. How do you come up with all these creative ideas?!
Thank you, Kathleen! I also loved watching Jamie use those small teacups, even when larger ones were readily available. She was so careful with them as she scooped up more to drink as well. We definitely have fun how we present the enrichment, and will have themes for different days (for example, blanket forts, or pre-made nests) which give us a general idea to go off of, and from there we just get to have fun and be creative with the presentation of toys the chimps already have!
I’ve always loved that you do that. After all, they don’t know that what they’re unwrapping is supposed to be brand new…they just like the fun of unwrapping. And using that soft green blanket for a “gift tree” this year was fun, because Jamie got to use it for her nest right after!
What an awesome idea! It’s so wonderful to see Jamie enjoying her own personal library. Seeing her pushing the barrel… Am I wrong in assuming she did a display to let everyone know who the boss is? 😉
As for Neggie… I wonder if she took all of the peanut butter puzzles to her nest to keep them for herself? 🙂
I love it! I bet Cy would love a magazine library day???
i love it! cy wohld love a magazine library day!