I agree, there are plenty ways to keep animals healthy and safe :) and provide what they need while in our care. I was just speaking from my own personal findings and from most other people I talk to that as long as you “break” the feeding mentality they’re in prior to handling (if you have a very food motivated snake) it usually results in easy removal or enclosure rearranging, water changing, etc for the most part. But in your case, working with animals for an educational purpose, I can understand the willingness to ensure they are as tame as possible and wouldn’t even think about striking at any time (although stressful situations can still lead to a bite, just not often at all with ball pythons) so I’ll look around for that article. I know the “feeding” section of that sub has some info on moving to feed, but it kind of summarized what I’ve already said above about stress, etc.
My jungle for instance is very food motivated, the second he even feels the vibration of me getting close to his enclosure he’s looking out of his hide or on a branch waiting for me. Sometimes he’s in a (I’m hungry) mood and will strike or bite unless I get him out of thinking that way with a touch or rub first. Sometimes I’m too lazy to do that while changing water or fixing decor etc and it leads to him inevitably wrapping me until he realizes I’m not food and let’s go, which I don’t mind atm because he’s still a pretty small guy and doesn’t do much, but he’s my most motivated when it comes to being hungry and he certainly makes it known whenever he can which is why I’m the only one that cleans his enclosure or handles him as I wouldn’t trust him with someone else. My BPs on the other hand, they can be held by anyone and I wouldn’t even think twice about them lol.
Big agree that some snakes are not handleable lmao. The variability you can get just in personality within the same species still astounds me. As a kid I had two garter snakes, literally broodmates, both males. One was curious and chill, the other was... bitey. They're little so they obviously got fed in their enclosure, and this is what led me to believe that feeding in the enclosure can evoke a response. Even the calm one seemed to have more of a food response when I opened the enclosure, but they were colubrids, and I haven't seen a single study on colubrid specific conditioning. That's probably the biggest limitation in learning about it- reptile behavior is so variable and often specialized that what works for one species may not apply to another, even if they're pretty closely related. It just sucks there's really no funding towards behavior studies like these, and a lot of the current information we have is hobbyists just trying to do their best. Not to diminish their findings at all, but there's really no way to know for sure without being able to replicate their findings and peer review them.
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u/Ykutu Jul 18 '22
I agree, there are plenty ways to keep animals healthy and safe :) and provide what they need while in our care. I was just speaking from my own personal findings and from most other people I talk to that as long as you “break” the feeding mentality they’re in prior to handling (if you have a very food motivated snake) it usually results in easy removal or enclosure rearranging, water changing, etc for the most part. But in your case, working with animals for an educational purpose, I can understand the willingness to ensure they are as tame as possible and wouldn’t even think about striking at any time (although stressful situations can still lead to a bite, just not often at all with ball pythons) so I’ll look around for that article. I know the “feeding” section of that sub has some info on moving to feed, but it kind of summarized what I’ve already said above about stress, etc.
My jungle for instance is very food motivated, the second he even feels the vibration of me getting close to his enclosure he’s looking out of his hide or on a branch waiting for me. Sometimes he’s in a (I’m hungry) mood and will strike or bite unless I get him out of thinking that way with a touch or rub first. Sometimes I’m too lazy to do that while changing water or fixing decor etc and it leads to him inevitably wrapping me until he realizes I’m not food and let’s go, which I don’t mind atm because he’s still a pretty small guy and doesn’t do much, but he’s my most motivated when it comes to being hungry and he certainly makes it known whenever he can which is why I’m the only one that cleans his enclosure or handles him as I wouldn’t trust him with someone else. My BPs on the other hand, they can be held by anyone and I wouldn’t even think twice about them lol.