- A debate I see in the community
that I find pretty interesting
is whether you're being a bad owner
or even an abusive owner
if you don't handle your pet reptiles or amphibians,
or mostly reptiles, but some amphibians too.
Obviously, this is going to vary a ton by species,
and by type of animal, and by opinion.
I don't have a ton of like data to back up my points here,
but I still just think it's a cool thing to share
and get your opinions on
as to whether or not you need to, for example,
rehome an animal you don't give much attention to
if it's going to cause the animal issues,
if the animal even cares at all,
or if it prefers not to be handled at all.
I think that's kind of our spectrum here
from you have to handle it to you have to not handle it.
We can start off with snakes, a pretty simple example.
Now, there are some snakes
that are pretty social between each other
like garter snakes, or water snakes, or something,
where they kind of enjoy being together or in groups.
But for the most part, snakes are pretty solitary,
especially all the common ones you see as pets
like ball pythons, corn snakes, milk snakes,
kingsnakes, sand boas, stuff like that
are not going to be found in groups
and they usually end up more stressed out
when they're kept with others.
Although it technically has worked out in the past.
I know some of you have like 100 gallons
with like four ball pythons.
Not something I would do, but okay.
Your animals are healthy and
I wouldn't do it. (laughs)
And then not just that
with being pretty solitary around other snakes,
but they don't exactly need human activity to feel happy.
I did a video on whether snakes can get bored
and whether snakes or reptiles can love you,
and I think this is kind of an addition to that trilogy
as to whether they need that human contact.
And for pretty much most snakes,
I would say that is not necessary.
If you buy a baby ball python
and you raise it its whole life
all like 40 something years without handling it,
it's not necessarily going to have any lower quality of life
assuming your enclosure's good and everything.
Now, that means that they were lacking on enrichment
like exploring a room, going outside,
seeing life, I don't know,
which are things they can't experience
if you don't take them out of the enclosure.
But do they really need to experience those things?
Like are they simple enough animals
where being in the same three feet of space
is fine for decades and decades?
Again, this is another hard debate
and it's like how much space is necessary
for an animal to be comfortable?
Like for a ball python,
some say a shoebox size tub,
others say a minimum 75 to 100 plus gallon
for a single male ball python or something.
Now, where people pull these numbers, I have no idea.
They're all pretty random overall.
There's different rules of thumb.
Like one is make sure the snake can stretch out
to the full length of the enclosure.
Another one I hear is make sure
the snake can just stretch out
to like the one length there and the other length.
Others say it should be twice the length of the snake.
Others say it should be half the length of the snake.
I don't know where these numbers come from.
I just kinda play it by ear
and base it on the individual animal
and how active they are.
But in the end,
I would have to argue
that if the enclosure is really nicely set up,
whatever that means,
a snake does not need to be taken out
or messed with at all throughout their entire life,
but this will cause some issues on your part as an owner.
It's gonna be harder to work with the animal,
maybe harder to feed it.
If it has issues and you need to take it out,
it's really not gonna be used to it.
And if you simply decide that it's time
that you want to start handling your animal,
you're gonna have to start from scratch.
Now, a lot of people buy snakes as adults.
I always prefer getting my own animals as younger
because you get to kind of work with it as it grows.
But now that we take in so many animals,
we get to see a lot of interesting adult snakes too,
and reptiles of all sorts,
but I'm just focusing on snakes as we start.
Just as an example,
if you get a baby snake
and you start handling it
maybe a couple weeks after you get it,
and you handle it almost every day
other than feeding days
and maybe the day after feeding,
so like say five days a week its entire life,
I don't think there's any snake
that would not eventually become comfortable with you.
I mean, there would be very few reptiles
in general that wouldn't.
And once you've kind of built this connection
where your snake is comfortable with you,
it can go away,
but if you just kinda keep it up occasionally,
it's going to remember that you are an okay being
that they don't have to freak out when you're handling them.
But if you do go long enough between handling snakes,
they can essentially lose that trust
'cause I've seen that with
specifically my black rat snake.
That's only one example,
so maybe it's a rare occasion,
but I would think it makes sense to happen more often.
When I got her, she was pretty crazy,
but I worked with her really consistently and really often
and she became quite comfortable.
She stopped musking, stopped striking, and rarely hissed,
but then I kind of started lagging
on taking her out and handling her and stuff,
so over time, she kind of converted,
reverted back to that state
where she was like I don't know if I can trust you
where she started musking again and stuff.
And from then on,
I've been pretty spotty about handling consistently
and so the question may comes
does that make me a bad owner?
Would somebody else doing this become a bad owner
because they let their snake lose that trust with the owner?
Again, that's the point of this video.
It's all up to debate,
but I would have to say
it really doesn't matter all that much
because I can work with her again.
The issue,
I would say the biggest complaint you could make
is that she's gonna have to go through that stress again
because taming an animal down is stressful for it,
but it's pretty much always worth it
if you want to get to that state
where you can handle it consistently.
Another example is my Kenyan sand boa.
I really like sand boas.
I think they're pretty cool.
They're not a favorite of mine,
like I'm glad I got one.
I don't regret getting my sand boa,
but I handle her less than any other animal
and not handling your animal can cause some other issues
like turns out she gained a lot more weight
than I thought she did.
She is chunky now.
She is I think you could just call her fat at this point.
I had literally gone months without handling her
because I don't know,
I just didn't have the interest at the time.
I had other snakes I wanted to handle.
It's even harder with her
because she's a borrowing species,
so she's not an animal you just see on the surface.
It's one that burrows
and you can really go its whole life without seeing it,
which is kinda weird to think about
'cause like they might stick their head up for some food,
they take it, they bring it down into the substrate,
and you never see them again.
So someone could also argue like oh,
you're not even checking on the snake
which means you don't know of any health issues
that are coming up,
which is also a pretty solid argument I guess.
I've never had an animal
just like develop something out of nowhere.
Like the main issues we've had in here
are like when I was getting started,
I accidentally introduced mites.
So that was introduced and I had to deal with that
and get rid of them all,
but that was like years ago now.
And then like parasites.
My savannah monitor had parasites.
She didn't get parasites while she was here.
She already had them before I even got her.
And then of course,
if you don't properly like quarantine an animal
or keep it too close, and it's new, and has an issue,
then it can be contracted to another animal you have.
And technically, any animal could develop something
like a cancer that you would not notice
without taking it out.
So it's a pretty decent idea
to check on your snake every so often
even if its just for a quick look,
kind of a quick little unprofessional exam
to see how it's doing.
And then there's the other people
that say every animal needs its six month exam.
I think that's a bit over the top, especially for a reptile,
but you do you if you want to spend $75
on something that an owner can probably just do themself
in like 10 minutes.
I mean, obviously, vets hold a lot of very useful resources,
but I don't think that makes sense to me
to take your animal twice a year
to get it looked at for no reason.
If it's been eating,
and hasn't acted different, and looks normal,
just all the common sense things when caring for an animal.
So in that case, I think Ember's a good example
of one of the negative thing that happens
when you don't handle your animal
is you simply don't pick up on those issues.
So now that I have taken her out
after a few months without, I'm like oh, she's fat.
Time to change her diet.
And now I just have to check on her more often
to make sure the new diet is working as it should be.
We can move on to something like lizards
which I think are a pretty similar deal,
but some species are known to be much more social.
We can start with a more antisocial species
which I would probably just say
leopard geckos as an example.
Now, that's not to say
that leopard geckos don't enjoy handling
or can't be handled.
They're one of my favorite species to handle,
but it does take them more time than a snake for me
to get used to handling if they aren't already used to it.
And it's the same deal.
If they're not used to it as they grow,
it's gonna be more difficult.
And if they go a long stretch of time
without human interaction,
that same thing will happen.
But they are so solitary that they're not losing anything
by not being handled by you.
And leopard geckos are even smaller,
so it's easier to get them a larger enclosure
that they can explore.
But I honestly don't think
leopard geckos enjoy exploring that much.
Some of my animals,
I like to mix the enclosures up super often.
Some of my animals, like,
they really seem to like it when I mix the enclosure up.
They have new places to explore, new hides to check out,
new plants to lick or whatever,
but leopard geckos, I try not to move stuff around
'cause when I have like if I wanted to switch something out,
it would usually just stress them out for me.
Like Goldie, my first leopard gecko,
if I would switch his substrate to something else
like paper towel, reptile carpet,
or even get him a new hide, or water dish, or food dish,
he would just act different.
He wouldn't like it,
and he would have to readjust,
and it would take him a while to get eating again.
But animals like bearded dragons and blue-tongued skinks,
I would say probably do enjoy
that mix up and that enrichment.
And bearded dragons are probably
one of the most social popular lizards.
Like I don't think that's a surprise.
I think most people agree
that they can most certainly enjoy being pet,
being like hung out with,
coming with you to places.
I think they really enjoy all of those senses
that they're filling in with smells, and sights, and sounds.
Obviously, it can overdo it
and like they can become stressed out because of it,
but I think in moderation,
bearded dragons really do enjoy human interaction.
But does that mean if you don't give a bearded dragon
that it's abuse or neglect?
This is hard because I'm tempted to say in the wild,
they wouldn't have human interaction,
so like why would they need it in captivity?
But you could also say if you don't give your dog attention,
I would say that's a form of neglect
because they are so social
and really need that human interaction.
But dogs don't like,
wolves and stuff don't get human interaction.
They have each other, I guess,
but also dogs are domesticated
so can we even talk about that
since they're not even in the same ballpark?
I don't know.
That's another hard one.
I would say I would feel more guilty
not giving a bearded dragon time
than I do a leopard gecko
simply because of how different they are socially
and personality wise.
But of course, it comes down to the individual as well.
And then there's stuff like the iguana
where as far as I know,
one person can get super social with it
and be perfect with it
and as soon as it's in a new home,
it's just gonna mentally reset and you have to start over.
Now, depending on how far along the iguana is,
I'm sure this is not always the case,
but I've been told this a lot.
That's what our experience was like
which is literally one experience
so don't take that as like all iguanas.
But based on research
and more experienced keepers I've talked to,
it sounds like that's often the case,
especially with younger ones
or those that are not very established
with humans in general.
And then there's stuff like what about aquatic stuff
like aquatic turtles?
I mean, I like to take Franklin out, my turtle.
He just likes to run around.
He really enjoys human activity.
He'll climb on you.
He'll like follow you around.
He'll do whatever and he most certainly enjoys it,
which he didn't really get a ton of interaction
before I had him.
He was like 10 when I got him so he's like 12 now.
And I think for the first like year,
the family was interested,
but after that,
they just got bored of the turtle
and he just kind of existed
and they fed him and stuff.
And did he care that he wasn't getting that interaction?
I don't know,
but I think he certainly gets something out of it.
Not to say you have to take your aquatic turtle out,
but even just stuff like feeding and being near it,
I don't know.
It's really probably not necessary though.
Even like ax, it's out of shot right now,
but like axolotls,
they are way more interactive than I expected.
Now, you can't just go in and start petting it.
I guess you could, but you probably shouldn't.
I always wondered if you could swim with them.
Like think about if you had a big tub
and it was just axolotls and you just jumped in.
What would that be like?
But when like the (mumbles) was always watching.
She's always in the back seeing what's going on.
If you go up, she's ready for food.
She'll kind of follow you around.
She'll recognize you.
She's probably one of the smartest animals in the room.
Is that interaction required?
That's also a hard one.
Axolotls are a more social animal.
Some people said I should not get a single axolotl.
Other people say that two is great, but not required.
There's obviously a spectrum for this
as we do with everything.
Why do I have to keep saying it?
We all know there's a spectrum for everything.
We should all know this by now.
But again, I don't think an axolotl is an animal
that someone's gonna tell you you have to rehome
if you don't sit in front of its enclosure
and talk to it for 10 minutes a day
because it really doesn't matter that much.
So should you feel guilty for not handling a reptile?
I don't think guilt's the right word,
but you should feel concerned
if you think you might have a change of heart in the future
because it's going to become increasingly difficult
as you don't handle or work with them.
Even if they are already adults,
just the more time they get without interactions with you,
the less comfortable they're gonna be
once you try and go in for it.
But I would think for the most part,
the majority of snakes and lizards
and maybe even turtles do not need that.
Again, there's nothing wrong with (mumbles) interaction.
A lot of them seem to really enjoy the enrichment,
like even look at certain monitors and tegus.
They're like as people say,
you can even teach them to do things
like recognize certain signals or whatever.
But even though you can do that
doesn't mean it's a requirement.
And they won't be missing out
on some important life experience as a lizard
if they don't get that.
So I guess I don't have an exact answer.
I'm sorry if I disappointed you.
I'm just really curious to kind of bring this up,
see what you have to say in the comments.
(mumbles) a part two
talking about what your opinions are on this,
but I think it's really interesting
because people do often rehome their animals
out of guilt simply 'cause they aren't
quote giving their ball python enough time
even though all the husbandry's covered.
They just feel bad 'cause they're not taking it out
when it probably doesn't even need it in the first place.
Now, that's not to say if you don't want the animal,
like yeah, it's great to rehome it,
definitely find someone that is excited to do it
'cause you should be excited to keep an animal
'cause that's a pretty big investment to make
both like emotionally, physically, and financially.
So don't feel bad for rehoming,
but also don't feel required to
just because you don't take it out all of the time
if it's an animal that really doesn't need it.
So I don't know, I think that's a cool topic.
I'll kinda add this to the morality playlist or something.
I think it's fun to do,
fun to just bring these topics up and sprinkle my opinion,
and even if it's unpopular,
but I think my opinion's pretty mainstream on this,
but the comment section shall tell me if that's not true.
So that's gonna be it for this video.
I'm Alex and thanks for watching.
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