Reptile & Amphibian Forums

this might be a hot one,
it came from another forum where a keeper claims his methods produced fully domesticated animals. this brings to mind two questions
1. what does domesticated mean?
2. under an agreed upon definition, does a snake have the capability to be domesticated?

BTW part of the process involves keeping the snakes in clear plastic deli cups until they reach approx. 2 feet in length.

No, because a snake is not a social animal.

Domestication involves selecting the 'tamest' animals out of a group of offspring and selectively breeding those offspring until you have a 'domesticated' version of the original animal.

I believe there was an experiment done with foxes, and the man who did it managed to produce 'domesticated' foxes in about 50 years (might have been generations?). Try googling it.

Snakes as they are can be conditioned to tolerate handling, but I don't think they have enough higher brain functions to be truly domesticated like a cat or dog.

~jenny
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"Polysyllabism in no way insures that what you're saying is actually worth being heard." - Blake (an e-friend of mine)

"I have never made but one prayer to god, a very short one: "O lord, make my enemies ridiculous." And he granted it." - Voltaire

thanks,
just what i needed
mike

I don't think this will be too hot...most answers will be NO. Snakes are wild animals and always will be. I don't think you can domesticate and snake, lion, tiger, croc, any wild animal. Some are extemely nice, others mean, and to me one of the best pets you can own. But I do not think they can be "domesticated".
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There was a TV special on animal planet a few years back about a guy that tamed an Aligator. Look it up, it's very interesting. Oh and just to add, there are plenty of wild animals that have been tamed and some have become domesticated over the years. Suger Gliders are now hand held pocket pets, Ferrets were like their wild cousins back in the day until the British started to use them for hunting. Parrots and many bird species were taken from the wild and are now household pets. Wolves, coyotes, foxes, Jackyl, and the Dingo can and have all been tamed and domesticated at one time, there is a russian man that uses Jackyl desendants as bomb dogs, look it up. This Russian man needed a dog with a better nose than all other dogs, he knew the Jackyl has the strongest nose in the canine world so he bred from Jackyl mates and raised the kits and after about 20 yrs or so he now has the rarest breed of dog in the world.

well animals are one thing, reptiles are another entirely. i don't think they have the brain power or the motivation be domesticated. imagine trying to get your snake to come when called, or to fetch your slippers. not gonna happen. heck half of us can barely get them to eat regularly. and most training is based on some kind of reward system. how do you reward a snake? how do you teach a snake? i submit that except under the simplest pavlovian system that a snake is untrainable. they are too unpredictable, think of the ppl that handle "hot" snakes. they'll go for 30 years and have no problems, and then BAM get bit. why? who knows. they are snakes.
mike

....domesticated. Unless I missed it, we still have not established our definition for this discussion. If your definition of domesticated is predictably tame then yes, some species of snakes can be domesticated. By predictably tame I do not mean the snake will never bite (even dogs and cats will bite at times and they are considered tame and domesticated) just that the animal can be handled somewhat consistently with the reasonable expectation that it will not bite. If your definition of domesticated includes the animal in question returning affection then no, I don't believe snakes can be domesticated.

Personally, I think tame and domesticated are two different things and I think that some species of snakes (like BP) are closing in being domesticated. By that, I mean, with all the morphs that are available and being combined we are now starting to make animals that are significantly different than their wild counterparts. Even if you may come across a given morph in the wild (as evidenced by the various imports that have proven out over the years) the liklihood of finding combinations (like a killer bee, for example) in the wild is probably close to nil. Domestication, in this case, has nothing to do with their tame demeanor as I think most would have considered ball pythons tame many years ago when there were only "normals".

As for whether or not a snake can be trained, in my opinion the answer is yes. I have seen rat snakes that were trained and could be counted on to perform a specific set of behaviors in response to specific cues as predictably as any other animal that is trained. I guess that too, however, comes down to what your definition of a trained behavior is. Another discussion, perhaps?

Rob

i think you're on the money on this one, my BP for example is very head shy. I am in the process of "training" him to be less so, thus modifying his natural behaviour. gently stroking up his neck till he starts to tense up then i back off. over time it appears to be working. BTW what did the guy with the rat snake teach it to do?
mike

The rat snakes were used as part of live animal show and after being released on the stage they would crawl to "tree" and raid a nest. The show was based on demonstrating natural behaviors of various animals and how they related to create an ecosystem. It was pretty cool.

There are actually lots of examples of reptiles that have been trained. Most of them have been so for husbandry reasons but some have been trained for shows. There have been green mambas, as well as many species of crocodiles, that have been trained to shift from their enclosure to a shift box to facilitate cleaning and other enclosure maintenance as well as medical procedures. Komodo dragons have been trained to follow a laser pointer and station while maintenance was being performed. I also know of Cuban crocs that have been trained to come when called (yes, I have seen this demonstrated and out of three crocs only the individual that was being summoned would respond) and station at their keeper's feet and then return to the water when told. All of this training was done by using positive reinforcement given for performing a behavior (food is pretty powerful motivator). I personally am not a huge fan of training just for trainings sake or for shows but I do believe whole heatedly in training for husbandry purposes. I have seen first hand how animals trained to perform certain behaviors can make life easier when caring for them. They have essentially been trained to participate in their own care.

Training can also act as a form of enrichment for the animals as it creates variety in their daily routine, activity levels, food presentation, etc. Some may view this anthropomorphic but I could easily see how an animal (even a snake) that has myriad choices to make in the wild (even if those choices are made only by instinct) could become "bored" in a sweater box or cage. Even an animal like a BP, which spends most of its time in wild in hiding, will spend some time exploring and/or hunting. So I think anything that we can do to create some variety in their lives while meeting their basic needs is a good thing. To me this includes activities like breeding but it could also include adding scents to thier enclosure, varying feeding schedules, substrate changes, etc.

So, this got a little long winded but these are just my thoughts; for whatever they are worth. These and $0.50 will get you the paper.

Rob

>>i think you're on the money on this one, my BP for example is very head shy. I am in the process of "training" him to be less so, thus modifying his natural behaviour. gently stroking up his neck till he starts to tense up then i back off. over time it appears to be working. BTW what did the guy with the rat snake teach it to do?
>>mike

YOU HIT THE NAIL ON THE HEAD THERE.

Domesticated and tamed are two different things. You can tame an individual animal, but to domesticate it requires many generations. It has been a few hundred years since humans have domesticated an animal. For the life of me I can't remember the most recently domesticated animal, but by definition, even a dog crossed with a wolf is not a domestic animal.
I read a really interesting article about all this, and I am going to look for it. I think you would really enjoy it. Has some facts in it that are really suprising. (even the real definition of "domestic animal" was a bit of a suprise)
Off to search, hope to share some cool stuff.....
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James.....
"Curiosity killed the cat, but satisfaction brought the beast back."

so basically you need to find out what the animal likes and reward it when it does what you want it to do. hmm, 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, and probable really need to be on a fairly strict feeding schedule for the health of the animal. so what would motivate a BP?
mike
BTW I'm not going to try to train my bp to do tricks or anything, so don't fire up the flame-throwers just yet, this is just a purely academic exercise.
m

"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

Hamsters and gerbils have only been in captivity for something like 50-70 years, and I think they qualify as domesticated.

Oysters are farmed for food and pearls. Are they domesticated?

Paul Hollander

Good point Paul, but I think they are not actually domesticated. Man I wish I could find that article! It was really cool, and explained it all in laymans terms. (I ain't too edumicated, so it was a goodun fer me!!!)
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James.....
"Curiosity killed the cat, but satisfaction brought the beast back."

do you have a link to this keeper and these claims?

sounds horrendous.
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robyn@proexotics.com

Pro Exotics Reptiles

http://forums.kingsnake.com/view.php?id=1487637,1487637

this is the thread that started it all, meant to be an entertaining story about how i lost and found my pueblan milksnake, and yes i have upgraded my tank to a much more secure model.

the post was removed.....

they don't think that way....

most critters only get you to believe they are domesticated.
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np
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Brad Chambers
WWW.HCU-TX.ORG

The Avalanche has already started-it is too late for the pebbles to vote....

Nobody has yet DEFINED domesticated, all the definitions people have been using have been personal definitions.

Domesticated: Converted or adapted to domestic use. (Domestic meaning household, or similar) http://wordnet.princeton.edu/perl/webwn?s=domesticated

THEREFOR according to the dictionary definition, snakes would be domesticated, because although there have been no large obvious adaptations from their wild counterparts, we have changed them. They do behave differently than they would in the wild (tamed), and also, we have learned how to take care of them. There was a HUGE long topic in a different thread about this, so i will give the link (http://forums.kingsnake.com/view.php?id=1485047,1485047) so we don't go over the same things twice.
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-Jacob

Knowledge is gained by asking the question "Why?", but true wisdom only comes from asking "Why not?". -Me

snakes are "tamed"? or just captive living in lower stress and predictable? there is a difference...
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robyn@proexotics.com

Pro Exotics Reptiles

The "tame" you are thinking of is NOT the actual definition of "tame".

I did a special search on "tame" and it redirected me to WordNet dictionary, which gave this definition:
(v) domesticate, cultivate, naturalize, naturalise, tame (adapt (a wild plant or unclaimed land) to the environment) "domesticate oats"; "tame the soil"
(v) domesticate, domesticize, domesticise, reclaim, tame (overcome the wildness of; make docile and tractable) "He tames lions for the circus"; "reclaim falcons"

(adj) tame, tamed (brought from wildness into a domesticated state) "tame animals"; "fields of tame blueberries"

http://wordnet.princeton.edu/perl/webwn?s=tame

When i say special search, just fyi, i mean using specific terms to get exactly what i want, in this case, a definition from google dictionary. If you don't believe me, just go to www.google.com and type in define: tame. It will take you straight to the definition, along with links to other dictionaries, and their definitions.

Just make sure that when you say something "is", that it isn't just what you THINK it is. Your definition is a personal, self-made definition. I went through all this in the other thread i gave the address to in my previous post, and this is going to get tediously long if we have to go over it again.

According to the dictionary accepted definition, snakes DO fit under the terms "tame" AND "domesticated"

Another little tidbit, but using "Define: *word*" with no quotes, where *word* is the word you wish to define, will take you straight to the definition in google dictionary...neat little trick.
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-Jacob

Knowledge is gained by asking the question "Why?", but true wisdom only comes from asking "Why not?". -Me

YES they can be,,,no nothing can'

they are different in a cage yes......they won't bite as much, captives eat better,breed better and learn what a box is from birth, they never were free running in Africa for a year or more before they were raped from the Earth to be sold for $1.29....

yes they can be taught to feed a certain way.....wild or captive....my milks feed from a bowl.......they lay in the bowl when they are hungry......neat trick....

./......they are different
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