Discussion time - Boredom and "enrichment" in snakes

[AlexisFitzy]

Oh Skip what would we do without you I agree with you 10000000%.


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[mvptext1]

I think too much of this this "hobby" is all about what is convenient for us (humans). What's the cheapest way to keep many ball pythons? Racks. I have 3 ball pythons now. I want more. Most of us want more. So what's the most cost effective way for me to house ball pythons? Racks. Can you keep a BP alive and eating in a rack - yes. At the end of the day though, my gut tells me the use of racks are rationalized by those that find them convenient for their own purposes.

The reptile world is being industrialized. We've done it with other animals we've wanted to breed for capital gain, and now its the reptiles turn (at least those reptiles that can survive in a tight enclosure).

I do believe that there is a lot of grey area here though. There may be someone out there with a rack that uses huge tubs and provides an enclosure with limbs etc, and so it could be described as better than a well decorated AP T8. I thought about this angle myself. Using those Christmas Tree tubs to house my snakes, so I could have the convenience of a rack system, while still feeling like I was providing the BP's enough space to explore and move around.

My take on all of this is - the minute we take an animal from the wild - we need to do our best to give that animal an honest life. Animals are voiceless. They can't tell us if their tubs suck. We can read body language and try to interpret signs, but at the end of the day we are the ones running their lives.

I think about all this stuff a lot. I want my BP's to live a good life. I've come very close to getting a rack so I can add 3 or 4 more BP's in a way that fits my budget. But at the end of the day, it wouldn't be right, I'd regret it if I did. I like having time to spend with reptiles. And honestly with 3 BP's, 2 Leos, 1 Crested, and a corn snake, I don't think I could add more than one or two animals and still have time to make sure everyone was doing well. Checking their enclosures and making sure everyone has fresh water, and a clean habitat is time consuming. But I like doing that. A rack would make it easier to do, but again I think the animals would be coming second to my needs.

By not getting a rack, I'm keeping myself in check. It puts limits around how many BP's I can get, because of space and money. For some with deep pockets this wouldn't limit them, but I am thankful for that limitation - it keeps me from exploiting the animals for my own enjoyment.

[jdhutton2000]

I think with Ball pythons you are seeing what happened to the wolf converting to the domestic dog.

We pulled from the wild the most mild, easiest to find, and honestly, the ones with the most genetic defects, aka morphs.

The domestic dog started very similar. Ancient man domesticated wolves that had been cut off from the pack and survived off the trash of men. They followed man and learned what it took to be accepted by men. In turn men only excepted the most docile and trainable wolf and made a dog.

Now granted Wolf and reptiles are not the same. Reptiles have much smaller brains and even smaller diversity in brain function. A mamals brain is rather large because it has to run so many different things, running of dense bone structure, balance, maintaining a body temperature; which that alone in turn requires more food, more food requires multiple methods to find food. Our warm blooded bodies force us to have problem solving skills by finding/hunting food all day.

Now snakes being taken from natural habitat and handled by a predator all day long, will naturally find ways to encourage non-hostile behavior. That is the first steps of domestication. Domestication does not take 10K years. But in a few years snakes can go from snappy to docile to ensure survival.

Don't believe me? Very intelligent mammals, we will call them humans, throughout their history have gone from 10 generations of Warriors to being defeated (say by the romans) to being docile slaves for a 1000 years.

The personality you see in snakes is the snakes reaction to you and adapting to what it perceives insures its survival.

*2 cents*

[CatandDiallo]

I studied human evolution in University and this thread it hurting me.

[Skiploder]

I studied human evolution in University and this thread it hurting me.

I didn't study evolution and it's making me cramp up pretty bad.

[Pythonfriend]

the most recent change that took place in humans that i know about took 7000 years. and so far it spread to just 30% of the human population.

its lactose tolerance, the ability for adults to digest milk. 70% of humans can only digest lactose as children, and lose that abilty somewhere around age 5 to 8, and are then lactose intolerant. and after the clearly beneficial mutation of being lactose tolerant popped up 7000 years ago somewhere in central europe, it only reached 30% of the human population so far.

a nice video about it: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ecZbhf96W9k

and thats the ONLY real evolutionary trait that changed in humans in the last 10000 years that i know about. are there others? i dont know.

but i surely do know that humans dont "evolve" from being "good warriors" to being "good slaves" within a lifetime. thats just ridiculous. thats not evolution, thats not how it works. (EDIT: i think that has more to do with whips and metal chains and the occasional crucifiction)

domesticating an animal is sped up by artificial selection, but it STILL requires THOUSANDS of years to get the job done, and relies heavily on the natural genetic diversity that the species brings to the table.

oh, and most wild BPs are really docile when you handle them right. its definitely not something we did to them in the few generations of captive breeding.

[CatandDiallo]

Stop. It hurts. That's all I can say.

[jdhutton2000]

My point is not evolutionary, its domestication. That's what you are seeing. Evolution is different all together.

The difference is today with information we are overloaded with information from so many different places we read too much into small things.

We are at what, 30-40 years of snakes being bred in captivity?

Snakes that have instincts but never have hidden in a rodent burrow, nor did their parents + 20.

Adaptation to the environment and our desire to have them be affectionate results in us seeing what we want. That's my main point.

a mass breeder I dare to say doesn't see personality in all their snakes. A hobbiest that spends hours a day with them sees this because as humans we search for validation. So ANY act that is not burrowing or hiding or doing any one thing to get food, as humans we read into it as something it more than likely is not.

Now don't confuse this with evolution at all. Ball pythons, the longer they are in captivity will stray further and further away from their wild counter-parts (my wolf/dog reference). The growth of "my snake loves me" comments will increase because of new odd behavior.

A snake can adapt its lifestyle in its lifetime, it does not require 10000 years to do so.

That was my point.

[Pythonfriend]

Stop. It hurts. That's all I can say.

could you elaborate?

[JeanTownsend]

I agree with you. Reptiles are intelligent creatures, too. And not just lizards--snakes, as well. And I think you're right when you mentioned that maybe it's because we can't always interpret their body language as well as other animals, like cats or horses. Or even lizards.
So many owners say they're content to just sit in a small, sterile tub (which has nothing to do with their natural environment), with a water dish, and maybe two hides. It's ridiculous. Sure, they'll survive. That covers their basic needs. But their psychological health will suffer.
I recently read an article published by herpetologists that no, ball pythons do not just burrow in some hole and "wait for their food to come." They know they need to search for food. And they love climbing trees. They're semi-arboreal, a fact proven by scientists that few owners know.
And to those owners who say their herps do well in plastic tubs with nothing to do all day BUT sit in their hides waiting for food, explain to me just why they are finicky eaters. In the past year of having my ball python, she has never ONCE passed up food. I don't have the greatest setup for her yet (I'm going bioactive this weekend, finally), but she's not in a tub, with artificial hides. Yet any owner who has plastic tubs will say ball pythons are finicky eaters. Any owner with a naturalistic setup or bioactive one will likely say theirs eat 99% of the time.
Bioactive environments are one way to add enrichment. It's completely natural, so it reminds them of home.
Another rather necessary "enrichment" item should be a branch. Again, they're semi-arboreal.
I really like the idea of building the ends of branches into a wooden enclosure, so that if the snake climbs the walls, he can go through all the branch ends. I can't find it on Google again.
It'd be neat to see what one would do with cat toys lol.
I'd say that they're creatures, they need a life. They're alive--they aren't just inanimate objects designed for display. They have thoughts, emotions, personalities, and intellect. Thus, they need something other than a tub, with two hides (if they're lucky) and a water bowl. That's not a life. That's a life dimmed down for our entertainment. But that's not what they were designed for, was it? They need some form of enrichment, and we as responsible owners need to provide it. Otherwise, it should be illegal.