Enrichment has become a very important part of our animal's lives especially among pet owners, zoos, and sanctuaries. People with domestic pets have pet shops, pet super stores, and the Internet stores to purchase a multitude of toys for their pets. Some of the toys are wonderful and some of them are kind of silly. Finding the best toy for your pet is a matter of selection to find the ones that stimulate and create challenge and activity for your individual pet.

Zoos have international meetings where the Enrichment Departments show some of the products that each of the many Departments have discovered. Our products have been shown at these international meetings and have been used by many zoos and sanctuaries since we started with them just about ten years ago. (We will be celebrating our 20th year in 2005.)

Sanctuaries are always looking for positive ways to challenge their animals. It is important to give the animals something safe that they can play with, something that will engage them for a little while, or for a long while. It is so important for animals to have safe objects to play with, things to do, that are a little different and a bit challenging, beyond the everyday routine.

Domestic, and wild animals that are confined do not have the challenges they would have if they were still in the wild. Their life in the wild, would consist of a lot of walking, running, finding water, finding other animals for food, avoiding some animals for their safety, dealing with weather, and finding shelter. Safe places were not always available for them, so they were constantly being challenged to find an area that was safe enough to relax. This is quite the opposite for our captive wild animals that just have to stand there. The food is given to them, no challenge there, the water is supplied to them, no challenge there, the area is safe, and no challenge there. Often the confined animals get bored, and will begin to destroy whatever they can. They will develop bad habits such as picking themselves, kicking the wall, weaving, grinding their teeth, rub against the wall enough to cause a sore spot, paw the ground, pacing back and forth, and other destructive habits that will hurt them in some way.

As for our beloved horses, we started finding a way for them to be challenged, exercised, and to become more sociable in 1984. We became so interested in this area that we started Horseballs, Ltd, as a business, to help find enjoyment for horses. We negotiated with the company that manufactured the original Hoppity Hop Ball for children, to sell it for horses and called it a Horseball®, our first one! That product has been retired. How many of us had one when we were younger? Then, we designed and patented the Eggbutt™ Horseballs® because of the clever shape and how it bounces erratically and how it and really challenges our horses.

We pioneered these products for horses. We have, unfortunately, had to defend our product against several “knock-off” copies of both physical similarities, which are patented,and using the name Horseballs® our registered trademark. How flattering it is that a few companies copy everything that we do. If only these companies would come up with new ideas, then there would be more original items for the horses, instead of inferior copies.
For horses we have found ways to simulate the life that they had when they were in the wild:
The Eggbutt™ Horseball® is used as a tool to give the horse the exercise that they need, in a day and to help get the good endorphins working. This product is purposely inflated to make it light, tight and floaty. When and if it deflates, it goes flat, and is very little problem to the horse this way. If it were uninflated it would only plop on the ground and not give any bounce as our always do. The inflation allows it to become so challenging.
This method is far superior to any other imitation. That was the reason that we had to patent our product. No one can reproduce this same product.

The PasturePal® Feeder is used to simulate the foraging that horses used to do in the wild. An animal can actually forage for as long as 5-6 hours with the PasturePal® Feeder.