"so basically you need to find out what the animal likes and reward it when it does what you want it to do."



There's a little more to it but basically, yes, that is the premise behing positive reinforcement training.



"i wonder how that would work with a bp. i have a hard time thinking of food as a motivator as they are such picky eaters to begin with,"



I don't know how it work with BP. If you were to try it you may have to find some other motivator than food. Once you found whatever motivator you could use as reinforcement, the principles would be the same.



"and probable really need to be on a fairly strict feeding schedule for the health of the animal."



This, to me, is one of the biggest misconceptions of snake keeping. I actually think that varying a feeding schedule is good form of enrichment for the animal and more like feeding they are likely to encounter in the wild. You could feed your animal every week for a while but then maybe go a couple of weeks between feedings and then feed heavily for a while, etc. I know that BP can be temperamental feeders and some of this depends on your goals. As a breeder, you may want to get as much food in them as you can when when they are eating so they are condidtioned for breeding. As a non-breeding pet owner, however, I think this is less critical. BPs can certainly live on less than 52 meals per year. I had a long term captive for a while that ate between 3 and 6 times per year and maintained her weight on this schedule. She was the biggest BP I have ever seen in person, too.



This is just some food for thought. As you said, I am not planning on attempting to train any of my snakes but I have seen it done and it is pretty interesting.



Rob

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