Animal care is a science that requires a dedicated, knowledgeable, and skilled team. The Elgin Center can provide comprehensive training for your staff to ensure that they have the tools necessary to provide exemplary care and a safe working environment to whatever species they care for.

The Elgin Center believes that each animal has both species-specific needs and challenges, and individually-specific needs and challenges. We can provide your team the guidance on how to create animal care protocols that provide a level of care that addresses all needs, while being efficient and safe for staff to perform.

A proper, and species-specific, social environment is a critical component to good welfare. The Elgin Center can assess the social housing situation at your facility, and make recommendations as to future introductions. The Elgin Center can work with your staff to arrive at introduction plans that are realistic and safe.

Operant conditioning, or animal training, allows for an animal to voluntarily participate in their own care. Operant Conditioning can lessen the stress of veterinary procedures, provide an enriching activity, and can provide your staff with positive interactions with the animals in their care that can ultimately improve their well-being. The Elgin Center can work with your staff to create operant conditioning plans, and train staff on these techniques.

A robust enrichment program can promote cognitive stimulation, movement and exercise, and socialization. The Elgin Center can work with your team to develop an enrichment schedule and build enrichment devices that can bolster the care protocols and welfare of the animals in your care.

The Elgin Center can provide your facility with a confidential and complete audit of all practices. This intensive exercise, steeped in current regulations and standards, can provide your organization the opportunity to discover what your strongest practices are and where you face challenges. The results can ultimately help your organization ensure compliance with oversight bodies and accrediting agencies.

Beyond architecture, animal enclosures must meet the needs of the species — allowing the degree of physical movement, social space, safe space, and ability for intrinsic motivation, needed by the species. Additionally, animal enclosures must be operational and practical — allowing for proper cleaning, animal feeding, animal observation, and staff safety. The Elgin Center can work with you to design a proper enclosure that meets animal needs, staff needs, oversight needs, and the budget of your organization.

The Elgin Center can assist with your master site planning needs. Let us work with you on developing the most operational facility possible, while adhering to animal care and welfare and with your budget in mind.

The Elgin Center can work with your leadership team on creating a program of veterinary care — determining how big a veterinary staff is required, what type of veterinary facility is needed, and a focus of your veterinary program that meets the needs of your animal residents.

A philosophy of care serves as a “constitution” of care for your organization. This philosophy informs your standards of care and your protocols to ensure that what you define as your care objectives are always maintained throughout the life of your organization. A philosophy of care is integral to animal welfare. The Elgin Center can help you devise a philosophy of care and implement this into your existing and future practices and protocols.

The care of non-human primates is a complex science; with primates requiring unique social housing, enclosure design, enrichment, operant conditioning, etc. The Elgin Center specializes in the care of non-human primates.