Ellie Hills, an animal welfare specialist joins the podcast to discuss her experience in animal welfare and what welfare means for reptile keepers. She discusses her viewpoints on controversial topics such as euthanasia, reinforcement training, and incorrect ways to enrich an animal in captivity. Ellie highlights her work in a ball python study that she and her colleagues are working on, which will discover the captive behaviors of ball pythons and how they interact with their respective environments.

SHOW NOTES: https://www.animalsathomenetwork.com/206-hills-herptiles/

00:00 Coming Up - ZooMed + The BioDude

0:57 Introducing Ellie Hills - Hill’s Herptiles

2:28 Welcome Ellie - Her Animal and Reptile Experiences

7:00 Beginnings in Animal Welfare

10:30 Care and Welfare

16:16 Thoughts on Euthanasia and Suffering

21:42 How To Begin Positive Welfare

25:07 Ellie’s Experience In Training

26:10 The Right & Wrong Way To Enrich an Animal

28:29 Stress in Reptiles

30:14 The Four Quadrants of Training + Stimulating Food Responses

39:10 ZooMed Dragon Food

40:06 How To Build a Relationship with Your Reptiles & Learned Experiences

44:44 Target Training in Reptiles

46:54 The BioDude Substrates + Bug Grub

47:55 Reading Your Reptile’s Behavior

48:47 Ellie’s Feeding Routines, Frustration Tolerance & Force

54:09 Ellie’s Ball Python Behavior Study

1:05:29 Closing Thoughts