Training Snakes

[snakeguy101]

Snakes are generally considered to be either psychologically impossible or impossibly difficult to train to do anything other than what they want to do but I have seen videos of a trained gold fish that will jump through a hoop which seems to prove that anything can be trained with time and effort.

Since I am going to be picking up a cobra or two at the next reptile show, I am going to attempt to train them to go into their hide/ trap box on command so that I can access the cage without having to have any contact with this venomous snake.
I am going to do this at the same time that I am learning to train ocelots, otters, porcupines and Galapagos torts. in my zoo class so I will know how to do it and what sort of things to look for.

What do you guys think? can it be done? has anyone here done anything like this?

 

[rudukai13]

You'll probably have to create some sort of incentive to go to the hide box, like a special treat or something. Think about training a dog to sit - you start by giving it a treat when it does the command correctly, and it will eventually learn to perform the command without the treat. I may be entirely off though...

 

[snakeguy101]

I don't think that the treat will work with snakes though since they really don't need to be eating much so I think I am going to try a sound cue if they are in the hide box followed by closing the door of the box and then placing food in the enclosure. If the snake comes out of the box at any point during this, I would walk out of the room and try again later. I am hoping that eventually, the snake will learn that it does not get fed unless it is in the hide/trap box.

the down side to this however is that I run the risk of having the snake learn this and then not want to come out of its box. I am hoping that the sound cue will alert the snake that it needs to go into its box and that it won't stay there indefinitely but i can not be sure until I try it...

 

[Sarah88]

i personally dont think this will work, it worked with the gold fish because its very food motivated, since snakes arent big eaters you cant really give them treats or even food often enough for them to associate the two things, maybe you could try using pinkies with each feeding so that you can do it several times, so like when he goes into the box do the sound cue and throw in a pinky, then repeat until he has eaten enough pinkies to constitute as a meal so you have 4-5 repetitions per feeding instead of just the one with a bigger mouse, you could also do this with just 2pinkies and do it like every day or every other day so that the training sessions are closer together and not spaced a week apart, its all about food conditioning with these types of animals since they cant really rationalize like something "smarter" like a parrot can so the more often you can practice it and he gets food reward then the more chance of success, in the beginning you have to have a food reward associated with the sound cue otherwise the sound cue wont mean anything to him at all (so you could start with just clicking and then throwing in pinkie, then once he associates click with food then start training to go in hide box, but i think your chances of success with this type of animal is VERY slim but GOOD LUCK

oh and to begin with the getting him to go in the box you will have to watch and see when he goes in there on his own and then hurry and click and throw in food so he associates going into the box with the sound and getting food so then once he learns this he should theoretically go into the box when he hears the click

 

[snakeguy101]

i personally dont think this will work, it worked with the gold fish because its very food motivated, since snakes arent big eaters you cant really give them treats or even food often enough for them to associate the two things, maybe you could try using pinkies with each feeding so that you can do it several times, so like when he goes into the box do the sound cue and throw in a pinky, then repeat until he has eaten enough pinkies to constitute as a meal so you have 4-5 repetitions per feeding instead of just the one with a bigger mouse, you could also do this with just 2pinkies and do it like every day or every other day so that the training sessions are closer together and not spaced a week apart, its all about food conditioning with these types of animals since they cant really rationalize like something "smarter" like a parrot can so the more often you can practice it and he gets food reward then the more chance of success, in the beginning you have to have a food reward associated with the sound cue otherwise the sound cue wont mean anything to him at all (so you could start with just clicking and then throwing in pinkie, then once he associates click with food then start training to go in hide box, but i think your chances of success with this type of animal is VERY slim but GOOD LUCK

oh and to begin with the getting him to go in the box you will have to watch and see when he goes in there on his own and then hurry and click and throw in food so he associates going into the box with the sound and getting food so then once he learns this he should theoretically go into the box when he hears the click

That is exactly what I was planning on. You did give me the good idea of using pinkies though, I think I will try it that way. thanks.

 

[Sarah88]

yeah no problem, n GOOD LUCK make sure to keep us updated if you make any progress, the key is to STAY PATIENT lol

 

[davo]

what cobras you going for? They're intelligent snakes, I imagine if what you are trying to do could work, it would work with these. To be honest, I doubt it would need a "treat" every time. Sometimes it may be disappointed but if it associates it with food and it's hungry then...

One problem would be if you ever had to do anything with it that wasn't involving food and were still using the box you'd have a "spastic" snake on your hands thats only thought is to strike. If you were getting something like a king... you could just work with it normally I'm sure, they are pretty intelligent and understand routines and you anyway.

 

[Sarah88]

yeah but then how could you get it to understand whether what it is doing is what you want or not, i mean a snake doesn't exactly understand "good boy" not meaning to be facetious just genuinely interested in the specifics of how you would "work with it normally" and get it to want to do what your wanting?

 

[Gearhead]

I've heard that the forest cobras of africa are the smartest of the cobras. I've also heard of someone training a boa to go to its cage, It was a long time ago though.

 

[Nabbig2]

I doubt a food motivation is going to work, especially considering it might have adverse effects in terms of feeding. It would probably expect a meal every time. I would go for training it with a hook.