The "Enchiched Rack" Experiment

[Lizardlicks]

Conversation in many of the reptile communities I follow has started to revolve around adding enrichment to our reptiles' enclosures to improve their captive lives. Industry standard for many reptiles keeps them alive, eating and reproducing, which for reptiles is usually enough, right? After all, ball pythons in particular are known to be finicky, often requiring exacting parameters, only eating, mating or laying when they feel secure and comfortable. But the question is, while their basic needs are being met, and certainly they're safer and more comfortable in captivity than the wild, is living their entire lives in a 35x17 box the best we can be doing for our animals? Can we do better?

Ball Pythons are considered terrestrial snakes. They don't constantly burrow like fossorial snakes, nor do they spend much of their time in high branches like arboreal species. However they will engage in both burrowing and climbing behaviors in the wild. Hungry young ball pythons on the hunt for either food or a mate have been recorded to climb into lower branches. A snake that's just eaten a big meal or going into shed will generally go to ground to be left alone in safety. In decently furnished display cages, captive terrestrial species will utilize their surrounding in much the same way. If they will use their surrounds and engage in these behaviors, shouldn't it follow that they should be provided the opportunity to choose to do so?

For ball pythons, the name of the game is creating visual disruption, allowing them to traverse their entire enclosure while being forced into open space as little times as possible. This is easy to provide in pvc caging and tanks that have both horizontal and vertical space for furnishings, but those keepers whose space or collection size limit them to rack systems are at a disadvantage for providing enrichment objects. I'm included in that last category, and I was rather fussed at not having a lot of options for providing my snakes a more stimulating environment. I WANT my snakes to be able to engage in natural behaviors while still being in the safety of captivity. So I decided to experiment.





The girls got upgrades to their new adult sized digs last Thursday. I picked out the Sterilite 90 qt tubs (1866). They're pretty close to the foot print of the 41 qt standard; at 30X19 inches it actually has about 10 square inches more of floor space. More importantly though, it's more than double the height: 13 inches versus 6. The tubs are a little bare bones at the moment, but in the next few weeks I'll be adding pvc pipes for tunnels, and some Malaysian drift wood pieces for climbs (they're wider than other types of wood for fat beep butts and the twisty bits make lots of additional hiding spaces). Other enrichment items will include leaves gathered from my yard (frozen in ziplock bags for a few weeks first to kill off any unwanted creepiest first, of course) for interesting smells. I can even scent them with their rats the day before feeding to stimulate hunting behaviors.

It’s been almost a week and everyone seems happy with the upgrade so far. The temps and humidity are stable, they both ate fine the day after, and when I checked on them last night, both had a serious case of pink belly, so we’ll see some new paint in a few days. If the current set ups work out with the extra furnishings, I'll be building some custom racks to house the bigger tubs and outfitting all of my enclosures similarly. Fatty liver disease and other obesity linked diseases have been turning up more frequently in necropsies as cause of death for what should other wise have been healthy, young captive snakes, a fate I hope to avoid by giving my pets a more enriched and complex environment that encourages them to move about and explore. I lose some efficiency in space from the increase in vertical height, but that doesn’t really matter much since I don’t ever plan on having some giant monster operation like BHB or something. This is purely for my own enjoyment, and what I lose in space I hope to gain in happier, healthier snakes. I don't think I'll ever be able to revolutionize the industry, but by experimenting and keeping track of my animals' progress in public, maybe other small scale owners and breeders might want to try some experiments of their own?

[nightwolfsnow]

I've thought a lot about this since I do want to get more snakes. I'm interested to see how your experiment goes.

[Tsanford]

That was a good read my friend. I am interested in hearing your results.

I also see we have the same tastes in hides. Those were 4 for $1 on sale after last Christmas.

Sent from my SM-G900T using Tapatalk

[AKA Dave]

I'll be following this closely. My new rack, display case really, will be ready in a few weeks. I plan on doing something like this, and I'll admit it's partially for me. Why would I not when I have to look at seemingly empty enclosures hoping one of the pythons comes out? I hope that the snakes will enjoy it though, as it's really for them.

Dave

[wolfy-hound]

A few of my snakes have hides in the racks. One will refuse to eat if she doesn't have her hide woobie, although it's a cereal bowl and she's an adult breeder size female now. (she won't accept a larger one either, only that one).

If the snakes don't stress over the new additions, then the only detriment I could see would be cleaning all of it on a regular basis. So a bit more work for you.

I wouldn't think that fatty liver comes from lack of exercise as much as overfeeding(especially powerfeeding to get animals to size quicker). But voluntary exercise can't be bad, right? If the python doesn't want to slither about, he can sit in one of the hides.

[Lizardlicks]

Exactly. If a snake doesn't make use of it, oh well, but I'd rather have at least given them the option. There's living, and then there's thriving, and I want my animals to thrive.

Fatty liver is more related to power/over feeding, but it's easy to over feed on accident if you're calculating how much to feed your snake based on studies of how much they need to eat in the wild to grow or maintain weight. A lot of our "rules" of feeding come from these studies of wild populations, and don't apply so well to the relatively sedentary lives many snakes live in captivity, but we still use them.

I would actually like to see if my animals gain healthy weight and a better body condition from muscle tone if given enrichment options that encourage exercise. Definitely something I'm going to have to make observations on.

[Aztec4mia]

I hope everything works out for you and you find out something new about your animals. It is good to see someone try to experiment and think outside the box and think for themselves. I was going to write a long detailed response but I am feeling lazy, so here are a couple bullet points. Please don't take this as a negative response, I think its good what you are doing.

-Most people who have been keeping snakes for a while have done this.
-Racks have not always been popular.
-The fancy lights, hides and bedding has not always been around either. But experimenting like this has brought all this new stuff to the hobby.
-In the 20+ years of keeping snakes, I have used a rack system for maybe the last 9-10 years.
-I personally did not see a difference in my snakes health, granted I have changed various husbandry practices over the years but as long as they felt secure they would eat and thrive.
-I was a slow starter to the forums (06') and had to figure a lot of stuff out for myself trying different things.
-I still keep some snakes in melamine caging, I have had more success with breeding in racks though.
-I like the bio-active bedding a lot of the monitor guys keep their animals on, not sure it will work in racks but maybe people will start going back to larger caging for their animals.


As for the activity and feeding of the snakes, there are a lot of factors that make it difficult to compare a wild snake to a captive bred. Most of the wild caught animals are thinner depending on the season they were caught, they might have just laid, they have parasites inside and out, food is not always available on a weekly or monthly basis. From my experience thinner males are more aggressive breeders, females with a little more size will have the extra nutrition to lay bigger clutches but an obese snake does neither. I think power feeding at certain times for females for a short amount of time is fine. I think ball pythons do this in the wild, they gorge themselves as often as they can when food is abundant which is I assume is right during the breeding season. This is just my 2 cents though, keep us up to date on how this works out for you and your animals.

[bcr229]

The tubs are a little bare bones at the moment, but in the next few weeks I'll be adding pvc pipes for tunnels, and some Malaysian drift wood pieces for climbs (they're wider than other types of wood for fat beep butts and the twisty bits make lots of additional hiding spaces).

Some advice since I have been here done some of this:
- Cut your PVC pipes lengthwise for the tunnels, otherwise you BP will get in and you won't get it out easily if needed.
- Nix the driftwood idea, it molds quickly in higher-humidity environments and is almost impossible to clean and disinfect when your BP makes a mess on it. There are PVC/plastic options, or you could make your own PVC pipe "jungle gym" instead for climbing options. I have a few that disassemble for cleaning, so they fit easily in the dishwasher.

[Snake Judy]

Cool, I'm all about enrichment for reptiles! I bet we've been reading a lot of the same stuff. I'd really like to see more people taking the psychological needs of their herps into account. Especially ball pythons, who I think sort of get the short end of the stick when it comes to that kind of thing. They don't really "do" much, to our eyes, so why would we need to give them stuff to do? But even if we don't see them out and exploring constantly, they're still interacting with and sensing their environment in a lot of complex ways we can't observe. I also think some keepers get so used to seeing their snakes in a rack environment that they start to believe that the behavior they observe in their animals is actually the full range of behavior they exhibit naturally. BP.net keepers tend to be great, but I've gotten some really strongly averse reactions to my custom enclosure on other communities just because it has ~15 inches of vertical space and a couple branches and ledges!

Here's some good further reading I came across the other day. Pretty basic, but well-written.
Environmental Enrichment for Reptiles

Keep us updated with your progress and findings!

[Lizardlicks]

Some advice since I have been here done some of this:
- Cut your PVC pipes lengthwise for the tunnels, otherwise you BP will get in and you won't get it out easily if needed.
- Nix the driftwood idea, it molds quickly in higher-humidity environments and is almost impossible to clean and disinfect when your BP makes a mess on it. There are PVC/plastic options, or you could make your own PVC pipe "jungle gym" instead for climbing options. I have a few that disassemble for cleaning, so they fit easily in the dishwasher.

I might have to consider Some pvc climbs! Part of the reason I had my eye on the Malaysian drift wood is because it's a hard wood that's usually used in aquascaping. I figured if it was fine being totally submerged, it should be pretty resistant to rot and mold in a beeps tub. For sterilizing I can wash them then "bake" them on a low temp in the oven. I don't (yet, it's there but not hooked up) have a dish washer in this place so everything is going to be hand washing for the moment anyway.

I hope everything works out for you and you find out something new about your animals. It is good to see someone try to experiment and think outside the box and think for themselves. I was going to write a long detailed response but I am feeling lazy, so here are a couple bullet points. Please don't take this as a negative response, I think its good what you are doing.

-Most people who have been keeping snakes for a while have done this.
-Racks have not always been popular.
-The fancy lights, hides and bedding has not always been around either. But experimenting like this has brought all this new stuff to the hobby.
-In the 20+ years of keeping snakes, I have used a rack system for maybe the last 9-10 years.
-I personally did not see a difference in my snakes health, granted I have changed various husbandry practices over the years but as long as they felt secure they would eat and thrive.
-I was a slow starter to the forums (06') and had to figure a lot of stuff out for myself trying different things.
-I still keep some snakes in melamine caging, I have had more success with breeding in racks though.
-I like the bio-active bedding a lot of the monitor guys keep their animals on, not sure it will work in racks but maybe people will start going back to larger caging for their animals.


As for the activity and feeding of the snakes, there are a lot of factors that make it difficult to compare a wild snake to a captive bred. Most of the wild caught animals are thinner depending on the season they were caught, they might have just laid, they have parasites inside and out, food is not always available on a weekly or monthly basis. From my experience thinner males are more aggressive breeders, females with a little more size will have the extra nutrition to lay bigger clutches but an obese snake does neither. I think power feeding at certain times for females for a short amount of time is fine. I think ball pythons do this in the wild, they gorge themselves as often as they can when food is abundant which is I assume is right during the breeding season. This is just my 2 cents though, keep us up to date on how this works out for you and your animals.

I wish I had the budget for stacked pvc or melamine like the boaphile or ap stuff. I may at some point say to heck with it and build my own customs, or I might go back to the standard rack set ups. Who knows! That's what this experiment is for, figuring out what works best for me and my snakes, and sharing the results.