How to Keep a Monkey Busy and Active in Captivity

Monkeys can be very destructive. They’ll tear down curtains, knock over lamps and chew on furniture. If they get loose in your house, they’ll probably also turn doorknobs and open windows. For this reason, it’s important to keep them in a room that is off-limits to strangers. In the wild, monkeys hunt and search for their food so they get lots of exercise and don’t become bored. In captivity, you can help your monkey stay busy and active by giving them small pieces of their favorite foods in different places. This way they have to find it and take it from their hand or a container before they can eat it. You can even hang up a plastic pipe horizontally with holes in it, fill it with bedding and put some mealworms inside. Your monkey will have to crawl through the bedding to reach the mealworms and eat them.

A monkey’s diet should be high in complex carbohydrates. While they are omnivores and can eat animal parts, the majority of their calories should come from plant material. They’re also frugivores and can eat a variety of fruits. They have specialized anatomy that allows them to digest the sugars in fruit.

Monkeys can communicate with one another using a variety of body postures and facial expressions. Some, like cotton-topped tamarins, will bob their head and shoulders forward in a gesture that looks like a smile. They can also grin and display their teeth to show aggression or to make themselves look fearful.