There he is!
Lórien out in the sunshine 🥰
[ID: Four pictures of Lórien the grey corn snake on Juniper's shoulder at different angles]
Changing human behaviour to benefit reptile welfare: Facts don’t add up
Ever tried to explain why bare minimum style husbandry dosn’t allow animals to thrive by throwing science at them? I have… It very rarely works. Often the person in question just gets defensive, and ultimately they may become even more firm in the belief that their husbandry provides animals with everything they need; that enrichment is “unnecessary and based on anthropomorphism” despite the wealth of scientific evidence demonstrating otherwise.
The science behind the challenges of changing human behaviour can help us explore why this is and what approach to take to promote change for the better.
It’s a huge topic and I’m not going to attempt to cover all of it… But one important concept is understanding that people do not often make choices with the understanding that they are doing something “wrong” and emotions play a huge part in what dictates behaviour even if logical reasoning contradicts it. For example.. Logically I know it would be good for me to go to the gym tonight but emotionally I’m pretty tierd and that is what is dictating my behaviour!
Cognitive Dissonance
When a person is faced with information on a topic that directly conflicts with their personal beliefs it puts them in a very negative emotional state.
The idea that bare minimum care provides reptiles with everything they need is in direct conflict with somebody explaining the scientific evidence on the importance of enrichment; both views can’t be true at the same time. But finding out you aren’t providing your animals with what they need to thrive can be very difficult to hear.
The person in question may feel guilt, shame, or anger and it makes them feel bad!
Cognitive dissonance refers to how, when put in this negative emotional state, a person will more strongly rebel about the ideas that oppose their views and attempt to explain away any personal responsibility. They end up being even LESS open to the new information than they were before.
What drives behaviour and how to promote change
A useful tool for thinking about what drives behaviour and how to change it is the “capability, opportunity and motivation” (COM-B) behaviour model and the behaviour change wheel (Michie et al, 2011).
Looking at the blue wheel in particular It’s easy to see how minimum care fits into this:
- Physical and pyschological capability: It’s realtivley easy to find info on basic set ups and the equipment is relativley cheap, easy to understand and set up.
- social and physical oppotunity: Lots of people use the same technique and share their experiences on social media, providing guidlines on how to do it and encouraging one another with personal accounts of their breeding success.
- Reflective and Automatic Motivation People build up reputations and a sense of identity based on their success within online communities and continue to care for their animals with (what they percive as) no negative impact on the animals in their care or social repercussions.
What then, are some of the important barriers that prevent people from switching to more advanced keeping methods?
Barriers to Physical and Phycological capability
Lack of knowledge of equipment and how to ultise it- Advanced care standards involve relativley more complex heating and lighting systems which can, if set up incorrectly, even be a saftey risk to the animal. Selecting the best equipment and for an individuals species and circumstance ivolves a lot of research and technical know-how compared to basic set ups.
Multi-disciplinary approach to husbandry- Advanced care encompases a huge number of different complex topics which can be overwhelming and complicated to somebody new to these concepts. To name just a few things commonly disscussed in online comunities and relavent to reptile husbandry; Animal nutrition, Animal behaviour and welfare science, biosecurity, Lighting (for plants and animals), vitimin D synthesis, vivarium and habitat construction techniques, ecology and natural biology, animal anatomy….The list goes on and the more you know about these things the easier it is to forget how baffling it all is to a lay-person.
Cost, time and space restrictions- Not having the funds, space or time to switch over to advanced care is a huge barrier. If you have lots of animals in a minimum rack system you physically will not have the space to switch them all to advanced care… Downsizing is not an attractive option for many as it has emotional costs as well as percived lost revenue from discontinuing certain breeding projects ect. Advanced care is not cheap, quick to implement or profitable.
Barriers to Physical and social oppotunity
Information accessibility- Ask somebody who does implement more “advanced husbandry” where they got their information from. It will be a long list composed of a huge range of sources… Information on advanced care is not as accessible as information on bare minimum care and the sheer amount of misinformation on the internet is another barrier to finding reliable information.
Equipment acessibility- Finding and purchasing the right equipment is not easy or cheap, and often needs to be sourced from many different places. In comparison you could buy everything for bare minimum care quite easily. Not all products are availble in all countries so there are barriers to sharing info and experiences…Some equipment manufactured and produced (such as red heat bulbs) are mis-marketed and not fit for purpose. Availible technology can also change quite fast.
Social aspects- If a person identifies with a certain community and has built a reputation within that social group (who all practice similar husbandry techniques and share the same views) then changing everything about the behaviours that won them their place in that community is not an appealing choice….
Switching to advanced care potentially means “starting from the bottom” in a new community. If these same new comunities are percived as unwelcoming hostile or aggresive then that is a barrier to change. If these communties belittle people with opposing opinions (even if those groups think it’s justified) that is another barrier to encouraging behavioural change.
Barriers to Reflective and Automatic motivation
Social aspects- Theres a great deal of overlap with the point above here. Having a sense of identity and comfort within an online community means theres no motivation or social pressure to change behaviours.
Views on consequences- The benefits of advanced standards of care are not always obvious. Somebody keeping their animals in a barren envioronment cannot see or measure the impacts on cognition, brain development or stress responses, and they have no other personal point of reference to notice any difference in animals behaviour, growth or immune health.
Providing facts that, in their view, contradict their percived sucess at caring for animals, means they have to confront the possibility they are responsible for neagtive impacts on their animals wellbeing…which is an uncomfortable thought.
Emotional responses- Information on these negative consequences puts people in a negative state and causes them to stubbornly rebel against those feelings to try explain away the responsibility (cognitive dissonance). They may reasure themselves by saying the “science isn’t good or specific enough” or there “isnt enough evidence” rather than confronting that uncomfortable realisation that their animal care standards dont facilitate good welfare.
Motivations and goals- The motivations and goals of reptile keepers varies!
Creating stimulating habitats and watching animals interact and engage with there enclosures may be the primary goal for some but this may not be enjoyable or motivating to others. Breeding snakes and producing offspring may be the main goal for some keepers (and depending on the species kept this may also influence their husbandry techniques). Ultimatly if watching the animal engage with its enclosure isn’t important to the keeper there may be little motivation to switch to advanced care…
(finding out the different motivations and goals of keepers employing different husbandry techniques would actually be quite intersting…)
belief about capabilities- If a keeper is adamant that advanced keeping would take up too much time, money and effort they are unlikely to try it.
This is also an important consideration for new keepers who maybe just got their first reptile or those thinking about getting one. If they think a naturalisitc, bioactive or enriching set ups are for “experienced keepers only” and are difficult to set up and maintain then they may not invest time looking into those methods.
If they are led to beleive you need to have exceptional artistic ability to make a fake rock background they may not try. Simpler methods which are easier to understand and seem to be widely accepted may then be a more attractive option.
So what can we do?
There are individuals and groups making efforts to make advanced care information more accessible which is vital.
Updated care sheets that take into account new technology and knowledge of animal welfare science, equipment recomendation lists, step by step guides for setting up enclosures, ect are all very useful; particularly for new keepers.
When it comes to challenging those stuck in the mindset of upholding bare minimum keeping as gold standard though things become more tricky.
If you are approaching somebody to try suggest husbandry improvements it’s important to do so as an ally rather than an opponent. This helps to create a positive emotional state, otherwise the spiral of cognitive dissonance will continue. Sharing information is important but unsolicited sharing of information (regardless of it being backed up by evidence) can actually have the opposite effect!
To move on from here there needs to be more emphasis on support, and inspiration to encourage the uptake of higher welfare husbandry methods.Rather than point by point attacks on the alternatives.
Personally- I’m taking a step away from online debates.
I don’t feel they are accomplishing much and it also impacts my own enjoyment of reptile keeping.
I’ll continue to post about animal welfare and behaviour topics- but my primary focus will be on my own animals and future enclosure builds. I’ll be sharing the process of designing and building them, and attempting to showcase why its so rewarding for me. If that gets other people interested in trying it for themselves then that would be great.
Im hopefully going to be able to start on my next display viv for Leon this year and I honestly can’t wait.
Just resharing this. When it comes to minimal husbandry it can be a very emotive and upsetting topic, and of course it needs to be challenged. Just be aware of how you engage with people and look after yourselves too.
Plate-billed mountain Toucan
📸 Javier Zurita photography
Mindo-Ecuador
Leon has some Sne-KIA furniture too.
More info about these vivs in this post
Long time no post. Got some new snake vivs from future terra.
Just posting a preview of Levi's viv to rave talk about these cages, with the disclaimer that I plan to get more branches in there to use the space more effectively and he basically just has snake IKEA furniture for the moment. It's a work in progress.
The vivs are welded Polypropylene with a built in hot spot guard and light guard to keep all the electronics external which is really convenient. It has hinged toughened glass doors with locks and keys (doors are wide open in the pics).
Heated with a PAR38 halogen on a dimming stat (I'm going to offer some more varied basking heights when I get more branches). Lighting is via an Arcadia pro-T5 luminarie for UVB and UVA.
The viv is 170 (l) x 60 (d) X 100 (h) cm but it's made from two separate pieces that bolt together with rubber coated washers and a rubber seal between the pieces. so when bolted together it's a watertight seal. This is the only way I could get vivs this big up my stairs into the snake room, and future terra were really accomodating with this specific requirement. They are seriously strong but so much lighter than melamine or plywood would be.
Overall, super happy with them. Leon is in a separate Viv above Levi (same specs), so more updates to come as I work on the furnishings ect.
Ace and Jocelyn have been spending more time out basking in the evening before lights out. They also have been locking and courting with all of these heavy rains going on. Hopefully one day something comes of it!
Leiopython albertisii
Snakes are everywhere; they come with the warmth of spring.
Changing human behaviour to benefit reptile welfare: Facts don’t add up
Ever tried to explain why bare minimum style husbandry dosn’t allow animals to thrive by throwing science at them? I have… It very rarely works. Often the person in question just gets defensive, and ultimately they may become even more firm in the belief that their husbandry provides animals with everything they need; that enrichment is “unnecessary and based on anthropomorphism” despite the wealth of scientific evidence demonstrating otherwise.
The science behind the challenges of changing human behaviour can help us explore why this is and what approach to take to promote change for the better.
It’s a huge topic and I’m not going to attempt to cover all of it… But one important concept is understanding that people do not often make choices with the understanding that they are doing something “wrong” and emotions play a huge part in what dictates behaviour even if logical reasoning contradicts it. For example.. Logically I know it would be good for me to go to the gym tonight but emotionally I’m pretty tierd and that is what is dictating my behaviour!
Cognitive Dissonance
When a person is faced with information on a topic that directly conflicts with their personal beliefs it puts them in a very negative emotional state.
The idea that bare minimum care provides reptiles with everything they need is in direct conflict with somebody explaining the scientific evidence on the importance of enrichment; both views can’t be true at the same time. But finding out you aren’t providing your animals with what they need to thrive can be very difficult to hear.
The person in question may feel guilt, shame, or anger and it makes them feel bad!
Cognitive dissonance refers to how, when put in this negative emotional state, a person will more strongly rebel about the ideas that oppose their views and attempt to explain away any personal responsibility. They end up being even LESS open to the new information than they were before.
What drives behaviour and how to promote change
A useful tool for thinking about what drives behaviour and how to change it is the “capability, opportunity and motivation” (COM-B) behaviour model and the behaviour change wheel (Michie et al, 2011).
Looking at the blue wheel in particular It’s easy to see how minimum care fits into this:
- Physical and pyschological capability: It’s realtivley easy to find info on basic set ups and the equipment is relativley cheap, easy to understand and set up.
- social and physical oppotunity: Lots of people use the same technique and share their experiences on social media, providing guidlines on how to do it and encouraging one another with personal accounts of their breeding success.
- Reflective and Automatic Motivation People build up reputations and a sense of identity based on their success within online communities and continue to care for their animals with (what they percive as) no negative impact on the animals in their care or social repercussions.
What then, are some of the important barriers that prevent people from switching to more advanced keeping methods?
Barriers to Physical and Phycological capability
Lack of knowledge of equipment and how to ultise it- Advanced care standards involve relativley more complex heating and lighting systems which can, if set up incorrectly, even be a saftey risk to the animal. Selecting the best equipment and for an individuals species and circumstance ivolves a lot of research and technical know-how compared to basic set ups.
Multi-disciplinary approach to husbandry- Advanced care encompases a huge number of different complex topics which can be overwhelming and complicated to somebody new to these concepts. To name just a few things commonly disscussed in online comunities and relavent to reptile husbandry; Animal nutrition, Animal behaviour and welfare science, biosecurity, Lighting (for plants and animals), vitimin D synthesis, vivarium and habitat construction techniques, ecology and natural biology, animal anatomy….The list goes on and the more you know about these things the easier it is to forget how baffling it all is to a lay-person.
Cost, time and space restrictions- Not having the funds, space or time to switch over to advanced care is a huge barrier. If you have lots of animals in a minimum rack system you physically will not have the space to switch them all to advanced care… Downsizing is not an attractive option for many as it has emotional costs as well as percived lost revenue from discontinuing certain breeding projects ect. Advanced care is not cheap, quick to implement or profitable.
Barriers to Physical and social oppotunity
Information accessibility- Ask somebody who does implement more “advanced husbandry” where they got their information from. It will be a long list composed of a huge range of sources… Information on advanced care is not as accessible as information on bare minimum care and the sheer amount of misinformation on the internet is another barrier to finding reliable information.
Equipment acessibility- Finding and purchasing the right equipment is not easy or cheap, and often needs to be sourced from many different places. In comparison you could buy everything for bare minimum care quite easily. Not all products are availble in all countries so there are barriers to sharing info and experiences…Some equipment manufactured and produced (such as red heat bulbs) are mis-marketed and not fit for purpose. Availible technology can also change quite fast.
Social aspects- If a person identifies with a certain community and has built a reputation within that social group (who all practice similar husbandry techniques and share the same views) then changing everything about the behaviours that won them their place in that community is not an appealing choice….
Switching to advanced care potentially means “starting from the bottom” in a new community. If these same new comunities are percived as unwelcoming hostile or aggresive then that is a barrier to change. If these communties belittle people with opposing opinions (even if those groups think it’s justified) that is another barrier to encouraging behavioural change.
Barriers to Reflective and Automatic motivation
Social aspects- Theres a great deal of overlap with the point above here. Having a sense of identity and comfort within an online community means theres no motivation or social pressure to change behaviours.
Views on consequences- The benefits of advanced standards of care are not always obvious. Somebody keeping their animals in a barren envioronment cannot see or measure the impacts on cognition, brain development or stress responses, and they have no other personal point of reference to notice any difference in animals behaviour, growth or immune health.
Providing facts that, in their view, contradict their percived sucess at caring for animals, means they have to confront the possibility they are responsible for neagtive impacts on their animals wellbeing…which is an uncomfortable thought.
Emotional responses- Information on these negative consequences puts people in a negative state and causes them to stubbornly rebel against those feelings to try explain away the responsibility (cognitive dissonance). They may reasure themselves by saying the “science isn’t good or specific enough” or there “isnt enough evidence” rather than confronting that uncomfortable realisation that their animal care standards dont facilitate good welfare.
Motivations and goals- The motivations and goals of reptile keepers varies!
Creating stimulating habitats and watching animals interact and engage with there enclosures may be the primary goal for some but this may not be enjoyable or motivating to others. Breeding snakes and producing offspring may be the main goal for some keepers (and depending on the species kept this may also influence their husbandry techniques). Ultimatly if watching the animal engage with its enclosure isn’t important to the keeper there may be little motivation to switch to advanced care…
(finding out the different motivations and goals of keepers employing different husbandry techniques would actually be quite intersting…)
belief about capabilities- If a keeper is adamant that advanced keeping would take up too much time, money and effort they are unlikely to try it.
This is also an important consideration for new keepers who maybe just got their first reptile or those thinking about getting one. If they think a naturalisitc, bioactive or enriching set ups are for “experienced keepers only” and are difficult to set up and maintain then they may not invest time looking into those methods.
If they are led to beleive you need to have exceptional artistic ability to make a fake rock background they may not try. Simpler methods which are easier to understand and seem to be widely accepted may then be a more attractive option.
So what can we do?
There are individuals and groups making efforts to make advanced care information more accessible which is vital.
Updated care sheets that take into account new technology and knowledge of animal welfare science, equipment recomendation lists, step by step guides for setting up enclosures, ect are all very useful; particularly for new keepers.
When it comes to challenging those stuck in the mindset of upholding bare minimum keeping as gold standard though things become more tricky.
If you are approaching somebody to try suggest husbandry improvements it’s important to do so as an ally rather than an opponent. This helps to create a positive emotional state, otherwise the spiral of cognitive dissonance will continue. Sharing information is important but unsolicited sharing of information (regardless of it being backed up by evidence) can actually have the opposite effect!
To move on from here there needs to be more emphasis on support, and inspiration to encourage the uptake of higher welfare husbandry methods.Rather than point by point attacks on the alternatives.
Personally- I’m taking a step away from online debates.
I don’t feel they are accomplishing much and it also impacts my own enjoyment of reptile keeping.
I’ll continue to post about animal welfare and behaviour topics- but my primary focus will be on my own animals and future enclosure builds. I’ll be sharing the process of designing and building them, and attempting to showcase why its so rewarding for me. If that gets other people interested in trying it for themselves then that would be great.
Im hopefully going to be able to start on my next display viv for Leon this year and I honestly can’t wait.
Just resharing this. When it comes to minimal husbandry it can be a very emotive and upsetting topic, and of course it needs to be challenged. Just be aware of how you engage with people and look after yourselves too.
Waited a little too long to get pics of Emberglow, it was a pretty overcast! Still looking so great though.
This is the standard of keeping ball pythons. Its the most common technique, and it IS widly spread.
We can do better than this. This kind of stuff doesnt allow for a range of natural behaviors. It makes us look like animal abusers. Yes, the animals survive, but they cannot thrive in this setting. There’s literally not enough room for even one of them to stretch all the way out.
We can do better. We have to do better because this isn’t good for the animals health wise, or even mentally. It also gives HSUS and PETA more grounds to ban reptiles as pets.
Enrichment provides animals with an outlet for natural behaviors and promotes healthy animals. There are tons of studies on the benefits of enrichment- it’s not an extra step- it’s necessary for the good of the animal and is part of proper husbandry.
Dont be like this picture; dare to do more.
(image source purposely withheld)
Do remember that ball pythons in particular are largely sedentary and would prefer to be holed up in a small, closed, dark place. I don’t think size is the issue here. I’ve never used newspaper as substrate but I have used paper towel and I feel like it’s more of a pain than something like reptichip. Odors/soils quickly. I can’t give an input on whether it’s actually harmful though because I’ve never used it but I notice my reptichip always smelling much more fresh. Idk sitting in ammonia can’t be good! Even if you change the newspaper daily, chances are you’re not going to get to it as soon as the snake urinates… I would assume that might cause health issues. Again though, I’m not certain, just speculating lol.
Other species, like carpet pythons, I really don’t like tubs for. Using carpets as an example, those guys are active and move a lot and will make full use of the space provided to them. Balls really won’t.
IMO it’s subjective like that. I’d like to see more enrichment in tubs overall (substrate, perhaps a hide just in case, maybe foliage) and I’ve been doing that myself but I wonder if it’s more for me than it is for the BP lol. I dunno! I like this conversation though, so please do interject, we all might learn something.
Ball pythons have got themselves this reputation as being “pet rocks” in the hobby partly because of the persistent myths that they only live in termite burrows which they never leave in the wild. However, they are quite active at certain times of the year (breeding season) and males in particular are documented climbers, feeding off avian prey and even having very different parasite burdens in the wild compared to females because of this. Of course, ball pythons are also nocturnal. So even given the opportunity to make use of space and climbing things in captivity they often won’t be doing it at when the keeper is watching them. Reinforcing this idea that they “don’t do anything”.
Rack systems like the one in the picture are popular because they save money, time and space for the keeper when compared to setting them all up in fully furnished vivariums or large tubs. Giving them more space would address the concerns with them sitting in ammonia… If an animal does not have the ability to move away from its own waste that should be alarm bells that the enclosure is definatly not big enough (Though I know snakes love to sit ontop of it for no reason sometimes but at least they should have the option to be sensible).
But the issue is not JUST space because ball pythons are such a shy secretive species giving them more space also means they need proportionally more hides and visual barriers ect to feel secure… just scaling this tub up and saying “ta da- now you have more space” won’t work. So if you have a larger number of snakes…. That just starts to add up to a LOT of cleaning, a lot of space required and a large expense.
The ball python industry wants to hold on to the outdated opinion that ball pythons “are scared of space, never move, and thrive in tiny barren tubs - Just add water!” because it’s how they turn profits… They also promote it to new people getting in to the hobby because otherwise that would be admitting they are not doing the best they can… This is also why its not something thats disscussed rationally in facebook groups either. It angers/upsets people that are in too deep to change their ways without going to huge extra costs or dramatically reducing the numbers of animals they have to make room for fewer better enclosures… So they would rather deny any is wrong to avoid that .. The argument also gets wrapped up with irrelavent details or oversimplified to “tanks vs tubs”… or “vivs vs tubs”.. or “naturalistic looking vs non naturalistic looking”…
At the end of the day this is an issue about good husbandy, good enclosure design and good animal welfare..which is not always cheap, nor is it always good for “productivity”. The truth of it is that there is NO scientific studies confirming that small barren tubs allow snakes to thrive and PLENTY of evidence that environmental enrichment is beneficial for their welfare. Restricting stimuli captive animals are exposed to is not good for their physical and psychological well-being and can negativly impact behavioural expression,neural development, learning ability, activity levels and even lead to chornic stress, immunosuppression and thus increased disease susceptibility.
Ball pythons are victims of their own hardiness and adaptability…they may not show stress or appear to suffer when kept like this as much as a more active colubrid might…. But that still doesn’t make it an acceptable standard. They still eat, shed, poop and breed, which is all well and good, but not necessarily an indicator of good welfare.
It also sets a worrying trend for how the hobby itself measures and assesses reptile welfare and quality of life…. Already the model of “ if it eats, poops, sheds and breeds then its thriving” has spread and is applied to keeping other more active species… I’ve seen arboreal asian colubrids in the same 6″ high tubs with no climbing stuff, even etbs, gtps, atbs, kept in similar barren set ups…..retics and other large constrictors in boxes they can not even stretch out half their length in ect ect…unless they drop dead or rub their faces off in stress the individual animal or even the whole species, will get the stamp of approval for “doing fine in a tub!”.
This is not how animal welfare scientistis assess welfare. And as @wheremyscalesslither mentioned when our hobby is under attack from animal rights groups we have GOT to do better… and promote husbandry based on science.
TL: DR, You said you made the effort to provide some enrichment yourself. Rest assured it is not just for you, and will absolutley benefit your animals! If you are interested to read more about it I also have an article on it here
i know i seriously just reblogged this a minute ago but it is SO INCREDIBLY IMPORTANT that im doing it again.
Recently there was a documentary aired in on the 'UKs Tiger Kings' or something. I've not watched it yet but one of the episodes features a snake keeper with far too many animals in rack em and stack em style housing. Many of the reptile group's I'm in are freaking out about the damage it will do to the perception of reptile keeping... something really has to change.
Rainbow Snake 🐍🌈Been experimenting with rainbow pencils the last few months