Tips on building enclosures

For a baby tamandua or for an injured animal, it is important to provide safe, clean environment, where you can monitor their behavior and have access for observation.  We used the mesh covered enclosure inside the house that gave me 24 hours access to monitoring the animal.  Inside the enclosure there was a wooden box that tamandua used for a nest, with old t-shirts in it as well as a piece of cloth covering it, so that tamandua would feel that she is hiding.  For the baby we used a think fleece blanket in the cold days, because their metabolism rate is very slow and they cannot heat themselves up easily.
Enclosure also had 3 stacked together dry orange trees to provide climbing grounds, as well as had a lot of piece of cloth hanging like hammocks to add additional support for climbing. They also served the purpose of providing security in case if baby tamandua would fall from the higher branches.  While they learn to climb it is a very common issue.

For the injured tamandua( due to her broken paw) we had to trim the trees to limit her climbing and place boards on the sides of the enclosure, leaving just the bottom and the top for air movement and light.





 
Since that enclosure is inside out house, to make sure that the termites that she was given daily would not escape, we used 2 strong plastic containers: smaller one had the actual termites nest, but it was placed inside the bigger plastic container that contained 2 inches of water. Termites, even if they were escaping the first container are not able to pass the water.












Outside enclosure- transitional enclosure

The idea is to provide as close to natural environment conditions: have trees for tamandua to climb and exercise, areas where she can hide while sleeping, a lot of hiding places and old wood that will be easily populated with termites. Since we had only 3 naturally growing trees, we planted bananas and heliconias( they attract ants, providing a natural source of food), a couple of hibiscuses, because they grow fast and even if she breaks some branches, it continuously provides area for climbing.  We cemented a big, old cahoon tree into the ground, which she continuously used for sleeping, and cemented in a couple of old orange trees, that became breeding grounds for termites. started with cementing the structure into the ground
 ended up - with some necessary additions- plastic wings on the side to protect from the rain with strong wind, tarps on the roof and half of the enclosure walls covered with thatch palm leaves. Tarps became necessary because in the rainy season in nature , tamandua would have a variety of areas to hide from the rain, while in the enclosure, the choices are limited.
 
 Thatch leaves were an absolutely necessity, especially in the beginning. The first few times, i was bringing her into that enclosure only for an hour or 2, because she was getting very agitated, running into the mesh walls- concentrating only on the smells of wilderness, and not noticing the mesh.  As soon as we enclosed the walls from inside, she started exploring the central area of the enclosure, and relaxed. For the first 2 weeks, she was progressively spending more time in the enclosure from 1- 4 hours.

 

3 main areas that our tamandua used for sleeping: inside the tall cahoon

between the air roots of this tree

under the old thatch leaves on the ground in the hot days

 between the thatch leaves and the wall of the enclosure- very cool and dark area
 
She dug out the center of the rotten cahoon but never used it for sleeping:
Termites were brought every 2- 3 days, and as we placed them in different parts of the enclosure, they were building tunnels thru the ground as well as on the banana and cahoon. Tamandua would dig them out for short period of time and move to the next tunnel, or another nest.

old rotten pieces of wood and bromeliads became populated with ants and termites.

we also had a water feature- small pond on one side of the ecnlosure and a little waterfall on the other. Reason for that, from our own observations, tamanduas poop next to the running water or sometimes into it.

Some termites nests i placed right next to the tree and old cahoons, old branches

and she would be searching for fresh termite tunnels

Some termites nests i was placing in the containers, to isolate them from the other termites, it seems that termites from different nests do fight with each other and die in big numbers. In the container termites stayed healthy for a couple of days and then would build out the exit tunnels, which tamandua would visit.

I also placed a lot of dry branches leaning on the walls of the structure- that provided her extra climbing support while she was trying to climb the walls of the enclosure.

You can see her on top of one those logs.  The main thing is to keep the enclosure with a lot of hiding areas, as well as the variety of things that she can tear up foraging for food and have plants that encourage population of ants and termites to settle it.