| T O P I C R E V I E W |
| Ammerz |
Posted - 07/03/2011 : 07:12:49
This weekend i went away to the ABWAK seminar. For those of you who dont know what ABWAK is, its the association of British and Irish wild animal keepers (and Irish was added later hence it doesnt really fit the acronim).
Any way I picked up this magazine by 'the shape of enrichment', and too my suprise it had an article on reptile enrichment inside. The study was carried out to encourage the reptiles to become more active as members of the public keeped asking keepers to poke them to make them move etc. Some of the experiemnce done were on corn snakes. The first one was using half a pumkin as a cave, which in my opinion had the same reaction to adding any new piece of furniture to there viv. The last to were using sense enrichment. One was rubbing news paper on the back of a nutria (type of rodent) and then adding it to the snakes enclosure, and the other was adding a piece of news paper with seal urine on it. Obviously you can imagine that the snakes little tounge went into overdive when it came across these smells.
I dont know what you opinion on this is, some may think its creating unessacary stress for the snake while others may think its a great form of enrichment. I've always been a fan of using different scents as enrichment, we always used to use it at the Wolf trust on the wolves and I know many zoos do similar things with different animals, such as giving carnivores (eg lions and leopards) bedding from a prey animals enclosure (eg deer, zebra) which stimulates the animal.
I actually want to try this out and give my snakes something thats been in my friends hamsters cadge. |
| 7 L A T E S T R E P L I E S (Newest First) |
| zandefloss |
Posted - 08/03/2011 : 23:18:29
I think it's a great idea to try to enrich snakes lives, I often change the furniture in the viv/change things around/turn things around and spaghetti seems to really enjoy exploring then 'new' surrounding and does not show any signs of stress.
My concern with scenting paper would be this, last week, as I was very tired and not too well, I decided to feed spag. in her viv for the first time ever, I placed the mouse on a piece of kitchen roll, she struck and nommed down her mouse as usual, thankfully not straying from the paper and then proceeded to curl up under the paper.
'I won't disturb her by moving the paper' I thought 'she looks settled and I can remove it once she's moved from underneath (it wasn't gross in anyway)' go forward to a few hours later, I see her moving in the viv and I realise she is trying to EAT the paper. Thank goodness she was too silly to bite from the edge and was trying to fit the whole towel in her mouth from the middle of the flat sheet, thankfully. I do not know if she'd managed to fit it in her mouth if she would have swallowed it down or realised it was paper and not mouse.
My snake, I do realise isn't the brightest of specimens, even for a snake. She's previously bitten herself on the bum instead of the mouse and indeed once headbutted the side of the tank whilst striking at a mouse smell, of a mouse she'd already eaten.
I've never heard of this before and even now I don't even know if I believe what I actually saw! Still, it's something to think about. I know spag. goes mad if she can smell a mouse and usually does not calm down until the smell has gone, she goes to the pet store when I'm on holiday and apparently usually spends the 2 weeks hunting and following any movement past the tank very closely! When she was there last time they fed her 3 times in the space that she'd usually have one feed because they felt sorry for her acting so hungry all the time.
zan x |
| lotabob |
Posted - 08/03/2011 : 21:46:36
No need to go to the coast then, and just need a smaller flask. |
| Ammerz |
Posted - 08/03/2011 : 21:30:49
well i'm not gunna use seal pee, that was what was used in the original experiment. I was gunna use hamster scent. |
| lotabob |
Posted - 07/03/2011 : 19:22:29
Get yourself to the coast with a flask for freshness. |
| eeji |
Posted - 07/03/2011 : 19:17:39
one thing though, where are you going to get seal pee from?? :D |
| Ammerz |
Posted - 07/03/2011 : 19:02:03
No my viv is fine and i'm not worried about there activity levels, I'm just intrested in the reaction, and to me it was quite a interesting article as most enrichment articles a generally on carnivores and primates. In the original experiment the seal newspaper was in a seperate enclosure rather than the corn snakes viv. |
| tehbunneh |
Posted - 07/03/2011 : 10:21:32
The only issue I can see with adding the scent of a prey animal into the enclosure is that next time you put your hand in, you're likely to get a strike, or even full on bite! I certainly wouldn't do it with Widget of mine, as he's already pretty defensive, and very aggressive when eating, same as Boa'tata, so I wouldn't want that happening to myself, or anyone that goes in to get one of my boys. If their viv is pretty decorated, Corns are more active, as they feel safe to travel around, as there are plenty of places to hide if they feel threatened, or at least, that's what I have noticed with mine. The more I add to Ripley and Widget's vivs, the more they come out. I see Ripley and Conan most evenings, and Widget is usually out just before I go to bed. The two little ones travel around pretty consistantly. |
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