How to provide enrichment for reptiles

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How to provide enrichment for reptiles

Reptiles are fascinating animals with complex needs. Reptiles display unique behaviours that vary according to their natural habitats, which range from tropical rainforests to arid deserts. Safeguarding and optimising the welfare of your reptile requires creating an environment that meets their physical and mental needs, encourages natural behaviours, and prevents stress. Read on to learn key components of environmental enrichment to provide opportunities for your reptile to experience good welfare.

RSPCA Australia
Monday, 9 December 2024

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Reptiles are fascinating animals with complex needs. Reptiles display unique behaviours that vary according to their natural habitats, which range from tropical rainforests to arid deserts. Safeguarding and optimising the welfare of your reptile requires creating an environment that meets their physical and mental needs, encourages natural behaviours, and prevents stress. Read on to learn key components of environmental enrichment to provide opportunities for your reptile to experience good welfare.

Understanding natural reptile behaviour

In the wild, reptiles occupy diverse ecological niches, including desert landscapes, lush forests, and marine areas. They may be aquatic, terrestrial, arboreal (living in trees), or even subterranean (living underground), with behaviours adapted to these conditions. This means reptiles have adapted to thrive in specific environmental conditions, making it essential to mimic important aspects of their natural world in captivity.

Environmental enrichment is a way to replicate natural stimuli within a contained habitat to provide opportunities for your captive reptile to display behaviours like the normal behaviour of reptiles in the wild.

Key components of environmental enrichment

Foraging enrichment

Reptiles are natural hunters and foragers. Creating conditions to encourage this in captivity can keep their minds engaged and bodies active. Some strategies include:

Scent trails: Dragging a food item around the enclosure then hiding it under substrate such as leaves or enclosure furniture creates a scent trail, encouraging your reptile to track down food.

‘Browse’ for herbivorous reptiles: adding non-toxic plants or leaves for the reptile to forage mimics natural browsing behaviours. The plants can also be used as temporary perching while the reptile feeds.

Varied feeding schedules: Introducing a variety of food items at a range of times can increase overall activity.

Physical enrichment

Physical structures and activities that engage your reptile's physical abilities are essential and should be designed to meet their species-specific needs. Examples include:

Perches and climbing structures: Perches can be positioned to allow for basking sites with thermal gradients. They also provide arboreal access and encourage climbing.
Natural substrates (e.g., soil, moss, leaf litter, and sand): encourage behaviours like burrowing and nest-building.
Water features and misting: For species from humid environments, misting and shallow pools can make their surroundings more inviting, increase activity, and support skin shedding.
Shelter: Help your reptile feel protected while still being visible. Providing them with more than one sheltered location across different temperatures (e.g., one near a heat source and one in a cool place) or moisture gradients

Sensory enrichment

Reptiles use various senses to explore their environment. Simple additions can stimulate their sight, smell, and touch:

Chemosensory stimulation: For snakes, adding a shed skin from another (healthy, parasite-free) snake can encourage olfactory investigation, triggering natural "tongue flicking" and scent-trailing.
Visual barriers and textured surfaces: Changes in enclosure setup or new textures, like smooth stones or rough bark, provide new sensory experiences.

Social enrichment

Many reptiles are solitary creatures, meeting others of their kind mainly during mating seasons. Housing multiple reptiles together requires research and care to select species that will tolerate each other and avoid aggressive or predatory behaviours. Some species, like Cunningham skinks, enjoy social interaction while other species may become stressed by cohabitation. It is important to monitor interactions closely to keep animals safe.

Occupational enrichment

Offering your reptile choices within their enclosure allows them to select preferred spots:

An enclosure large enough to move around freely without becoming ‘lost’.
Providing climbing perches and basking spots.
Using thermal gradients to allow your reptile to regulate their temperature and be comfortable.
The provision of shelter to allow not only a hiding spot, but also for thermoregulation.

Safety considerations

Safety should always be a priority when designing enrichment activities:

Prevent escapes and injuries: Ensure any enclosure addition does open an escape route and avoid placing perches too close to the enclosure’s mesh or heat sources, as this can lead to abrasions or burns.
Balanced humidity: Be cautious with misting and water features, as overly humid environments can cause skin issues in certain desert-dwelling reptiles.
Substrate: Different species have specific substrate needs. The frequency with which the substrate needs to be changed to maintain hygienic conditions depends on the type of substrate, the species, and husbandry.
Health precautions: Reptiles frequently carry Salmonella (and sometimes other transmissible pathogens) which can pose a risk to both humans and other reptile species. Therefore, precautions should be taken when cleaning or rearranging an enclosure or handling a reptile.

It can be very challenging to keep some types of reptiles at home in a way that safeguards their physical and mental health and provides them with the opportunity for positive experiences and good welfare; and they should only be kept if this can be achieved (see our policy for more information).

Reptiles must never be taken from the wild to be kept as companion animals. To help people better understand their animals and the care they need, the RSPCA Knowledgebase has a range of articles for people who keep reptiles as companions.

Creating a stimulating environment for your reptile requires understanding their natural behaviour and providing options that cater to their instincts and habits. By thoughtfully designing a habitat with this information in mind, you’re putting your reptile in the best position to live a healthy and enriched life.

For more information visit the RSPCA Knowledgebase

This piece was originally published in Australian Community Media newspapers.

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