Discussion time - Boredom and "enrichment" in snakes

[JellyFish72]

Personal anecdote up top, discussion on the bottom.

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Let me preface this by saying that our collection has some ridiculously strong personalities in it. Quite a few don't act like BPs at all.

I have bored snakes.

I know there's a very divisive debate on whether snakes feel emotion or whether we anthropomorphize them. I'm very strongly of the opinion that they have emotions, personalities, desires, etc. For those of you who disagree with me, I genuinely invite you to spend an hour with our collection, because you will change your mind.

We have a few BPs that follow the standard adage of "a happy ball is a hiding ball", but others... (and I'll refer to them by name because it's easier to follow) Prada snaps her tub lid when she's bored, Albert flips his water bowl, Houdini plays with his paper and waves at you to get your attention, Recon climbs the walls of his tank until he falls over (or if he just wants your attention he taps his hide until you give him said attention)... Penny, Jive, Bindi, and Vada are content to drape themselves across their tubs and watch you from across the room.

I know many people claim these are signs of stress or whatever, but we've determined these to be genuine attention seeking behaviors. If we take them out and handle them, let them explore, they settle down. Let me also clarify that these are noticeably different behaviors to their hunting behaviors.

I was joking around earlier that I should develop a line of snake toys based on the reasoning that if rodents, birds, and horses can all justify having toys, why can't reptiles, but this is a genuine thought to me. Does anyone have any sort of "toys" for their snakes?

I know for Recon (who is in half of a T8) we're still working on the design, but we will be installing a wooden lattice for him to climb and perch on - he has an identity crisis; he thinks he's a Green Tree Python. Genuinely - until we managed to permanently mount it, he could take his light down in under 2 minutes and would be perched on it 24/7, once going so far as to hunt, strike, wrap, and eat a small rat from it without ever touching the ground. The breeder we purchased him from didn't believe it to be possible until we showed him the video (he now understand what we mean when we say Recon is genuinely odd).

For Houdini, who I bought after he played peek-a-boo with me, I'm considering putting balls (potentially those plastic jingly cat toys that my cat refuses to play with) into his half of the T8; while he enjoys exploring and simply perching on your neck and shoulders while you go about your business, he seems to be seeking something to do whereas the others are more seeking attention.

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I'm genuinely curious to see what y'all's views on this are, and I'd like to start a true discussion of this topic. I feel as a community we're beginning to move away from the idea of snakes being instinct-only animals, and I know I'm not the only one to have extremely strong personalities in their collection.

Why are other non-mammals like birds (who are often also considered instinct-driven, though more trainable) considered to benefit from toys, but not reptiles?

The majority of us would consider our snakes to be intelligent (well, with the exception of Recon up there...), so why do we (the community as a whole) accept the idea that they're content to do nothing 99% of the time? Wouldn't they benefit from the intellectual stimulation alone?

I've worked with all types of animals for the majority of my life, and I've always been very firm in my belief that all animals are as complex as we are, we just haven't necessarily figured out how to interpret them yet. We know of mammals capable of higher thought (gorillas, dolphins, elephants), and we know of mammals at least capable of forming complex bonds with humans (cats, dogs, horses) if not complex thoughts and actions, so why do we inherently assume mammals are the only animals capable of these things? I would argue that it's because we can interpret the body language of mammals better than of birds or reptiles on a subconscious level, and this prejudices us. We know that humans are prejudiced against snakes to begin with - it's a subconscious learned behavior in our evolution, which is also why so many people claim to be afraid of snakes until they actually meet one.

Discuss, rebut, etc. - rather than just say they are, tell me why do you believe your snakes are instinct-driven? Why won't they benefit from enrichment? Have you noticed similar trends in your collection?