No Legs, No Stress, No Problem

Strategies and Tools to Decrease Stress and Fear When Performing Health Checks and Providing Medical Care with a Choice Based Handling/Training Protocol

When making the decision to start a voluntary handling program with a snake in our care, inevitably we will have questions about what to do when we seemingly have no choice to obtain consent from the learner. For more common challenges like getting a visual health check, taking a weight, or administering light medical aid, here are some tools and strategies that have proven useful and effective. They can be used individually or combined, in part or in whole. While we might not be able to completely remove stress from our captive snake's life, we can certainly reduce it. 

Let's slither on in and unpack some of these things now. These strategies and tools mostly assume that we don't have trained behaviors in place yet, but if you do then you have even more tools and strategies that you can use!

Assess What Is Medically Necessary to Do

Are you doing a general health and welfare check or giving an injection every other day? One might require more hands-on care than the other. Do you need to see a specific spot in their body? Do you just need to see body condition and movement? Do you need to observe for regurgitation? Do you need to get a weight? How often? What is your specific goal? This information will help to inform which strategies might work best for your situation.

If I want to get them out but it is not medically necessary, I generally try to wait for training to progress further. Keeping in mind that snakes usually start to show more behavior that I would label as outgoing and confident within 2-3 weeks of ceasing non-voluntary handling, I typically even cease taking weights for that period of time. Understandably, we are not always training our own animals though and this choice might not be one that we have the freedom to make. We also may need to form and adapt our plan based on veterinary advisement. 

Once you have assessed how frequently you need to get them out and for what purpose, here are some things that might help you accomplish what you need to do with less stress and in the least restrictive way.

Habitat Modifications

Here is a non-snake example of using paper to cover the large areas
of the glass to make the habitat feel more secure. 

When working with a medically compromised animal, if I am housing them in a habitat with a lot of glass walls or large glass doors, I like to partially cover all or most of the transparent sides with paper or cloth. This usually results in the snake using more of the habitat and being more likely to be out in the open where I can see them by briefly pulling back the cover and then putting it back. Using a camera when doing this can be very helpful because you will only need to peak in long enough to snap a couple of photos and then you can assess condition and symptoms from the photos. I think it is helpful to use a camera anyway when treating an animal for a medical condition because you can more objectively track progress than relying on memory for what they looked like previously.

As the snake becomes more comfortable and healthier, I start to gradually remove the covering.

Use a Good Adjustable Beam Flashlight and a Dental Mirror

If you are just wanting to look for signs of life and rule out any overt symptoms of disease or illness, a flashlight can be useful for shining into hides and areas of cover. An adjustable beam is useful, as you can use only the brightness level that you need. You can also easily source a flashlight that has different color options, including red or moonlight. While still visible to snakes, the light will not be as harsh as a bright white light. Finally, look for one that has an adjustable or fixed tight beam. This will allow you to shine it in one direct spot versus flooding the entire habitat. 

A mirror on a stick is also useful for sticking into tight spots and getting a good visual. This removes the need to take hides out or remove a lot of furniture and keeps overall stress levels lower. You can usually find a tool like this in the personal care or automotive sections of brick and mortar and online retailers. Some versions even have a light included on the device. Super handy!

Use a Wi-Fi Camera

Before assuming that an animal is never out naturally, which might necessitate me going into the habitat and digging around for them, I like to try setting up a short-term camera trap. Wi-Fi based cameras that you can set to record movement or simply be able to view from a phone app can usually be purchased for 15-30 dollars. This type of small camera can be useful for other applications during training and is a good investment. In a pinch, I have also been able to borrow one by asking around in my friend and family groups. Another low-cost option is to set your camera on your phone to time-lapse and point it at the habitat. While this might not be convenient for everyone, sometimes we must work with what we have.

Maximize the Potential of Feeding Time

When working with a snake that is not coming out of the habitat a lot, puzzle feeding for physical and mental enrichment becomes an even higher priority. Providing even a simple food puzzle will also stretch out the duration of time that they are active and allow me to get a better picture of their overall health. I will have more time to observe for any signs of illness and to observe overall body condition and fitness level. Depending on their overall health, I can adjust the difficulty of these puzzles to be easier or harder and adjust the placement in the habitat to help me get eyes on the body parts that I need to observe. By scheduling feeding times carefully, I can often get more detailed health checks accomplished during those times with no added stress to the snake. 

An example of a more complex feeding puzzle that uses 
commercially available rodent enrichment tunnels/tubes.

I typically use things like repurposed Tupperware or glass jars to make these puzzles. Cardboard boxes also work well. Your puzzles can also be more complex.
If you don’t want to use a physical object, even dragging the pre-killed prey item through the habitat and over different objects can help to increase and prolong interest in the feeding process through scent trails.

Use Scents

When the above strategies are not sufficient and I need more frequent eyes on an animal or I need them to voluntarily come completely out of a hide, I can often use a new or unique scent to coax even shy or fearful snakes out of hiding. This is especially useful when combined with other strategies like partially or completely covering the habitat and minimizing unnecessary handling.

I frequently use a new plant, branch clipping, sticks, or rocks from outside. Rubbing an object in soil outside or rubbing it through the leaves of a tree or bush will also transfer some scent. If this isn’t effective, I will often use a frozen or defrosted prey item. Herbs, perfumes, lotions, etc are also options. I recommend spraying or rubbing onto nonedible objects vs. spraying into the air of the habitat itself. Spraying a perfume into the air outside of the habitat and running an object through what you sprayed will often pick up enough of the scent. You can then introduce that object. Remember their olfactory abilities are a lot stronger than ours!

I have frequently had success with just misting items already in the habitat with plain water, as this will release new and interesting scents. The ability to do this may be limited depending on species and/or husbandry and medical needs.

Additional Tools and Habitat Modifications

Sometimes, it can’t be avoided that we have to remove a snake from the habitat and remove them often for medical treatment. In these situations, I like to keep the major furniture pieces easily removable so I can remove the furniture before I go into the hide to remove them. This minimizes wrestling around. An even better option though is to make the hides themselves removable. I like to use boxes with smooth sides. As this too makes it easier to remove them without struggle, do the procedure and quickly get them back into their habitat to recover and destress.

This partial hide is easily deconstructed allowing for fast and easy access.
When paired with removable hides, removable furniture can be helpful. It can
also be partially removed to get a good visual and then replaced.

Hides with removable tops and/or sides can be useful. Any device that can allow you to lift them out of the habitat without struggle and easily remove them from the hide once the hide is out of the habitat will reduce the duration of stress that the snake is exposed to. I also try to allow enough time for the treatment that they can have time to come out of the removable hide voluntarily if possible. Anywhere that you can reduce some degree of stress will be helpful and it will take your snake less time to return to a relaxed state. If you only need a weight, by lifting out the entire hide with them in it, you can get the weight, and put the hide back, without ever removing them from it. Weigh all of the hides before placing them in the habitat and you will already have the weight of the hide handy to subtract from the overall weight that you obtain.

A large pillowcase or couch cushion cover with the pillow removed can also be useful. This can allow the snake to move around in a circle and push tight against the sides without completely getting away from you. Being able to move, even if slightly restricted, is often less stressful than a full restraint. This can be helpful for things like some injections and giving fluids. This won’t work for everything, but ideally more aversive procedures like blood draws or x-rays are not going to be a daily or weekly event, even in active treatment. In an ideal world, we will also have time to train for these activities that require more restriction, which we can discuss in a future post.

Have a Cue That Means Choice is Not an Option

Even when your snake is fully trained and you have more learning history together, you could likely encounter a situation where you will not be able to allow them to act fully voluntarily. In these situations, it can be helpful to have a cue that means the choice is off the table. While it may take a couple of sessions for the snake to understand the meaning, a behavior never occurs in a vacuum and they can understand how context and environment impact the options available to them. While I have used mainly visual indicators like a different transport box, using a particular scent or a certain color of card or light or different target would all be options that you could consider. Making a clear distinction between when it is safe to offer new behavior with a lower or no risk of aversive can help you experience fewer setbacks in your training. I do not use this for non-emergent handling needs but in situations where stress can’t be avoided, clear communication is helpful.

Closing Thoughts

These have been some of the strategies that have been very effective for getting general health check information for both shy and fearful animals in training and those under active medical care. Reducing stress can help your animal to heal faster by keeping their body focused on healing versus being actively in fight or flight for long periods of time. It can also propel your training forward by helping them to see their habitat as a safe place where very little that is aversive and stressful happens. The more we can reduce fallout from punishment and aversives, the wider behavior repertoire our animals will have. They will have an overall better quality of life and we will have a better relationship with them.

Have you used any of these strategies to reduce stress in caring for fearful or medically compromised snakes? What have you found most effective? Do you have any tricks that we didn’t discuss here? Let me know in the comments or join the discussion in the Reptelligence FB social learning group here.

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