Happier Reptiles are Healthier: What is Enrichment and Why Matters
By: Jeffrey Hess, DVM
What is enrichment?
Enrichment is defined by the AZA Behavior Scientific Advisory Group as “a dynamic process for enhancing animal environments within the context of the animal's behavioral biology and natural history. Environmental changes are made with the goal of increasing the animal’s behavioral choices and drawing out their species-appropriate behaviors, thus enhancing animal welfare.” This means that enrichment isn’t simply adding interactive toys to a reptile’s environment. It is meant to improve overall animal welfare in captivity by allowing for more naturalistic behaviors as well as giving them choice in how they interact with their environment (Association of Zoos and Aquariums). This idea focuses on animal welfare in captivity stemming from the five opportunities to thrive, a modern framework used by the AZA to guide its animal care to promote thriving in captivity as opposed to simply surviving. The tenets that make up these opportunities are as follows:
1. Opportunity for a well-balanced diet: Provide a varied complete diet that allows for appropriate hydration, food item choice based on nutritional needs, and promoting natural foraging or hunting behavior
2. Opportunity to self-maintain: Provide a comfortable environment based on the natural history of a species allowing them to care for themselves as closely as they would to a natural environment
3. Opportunity to be in optimal health condition: Provide access to preventative care and medical care as needed for any disease or injury through necessary veterinary care
4. Opportunity to express species-specific behaviors: Provide through environmental management, feeding, social interaction, etc. the ability for an animal to express natural behavior
5. Opportunity for choice and control: Provide a diverse environment setup that allows animals to make choices to mitigate stress
Do reptiles really need enrichment?
Traditionally reptiles and amphibians have been thought of as relatively simplistic animals incapable of expressing emotions or thought. Recently, scientific studies have shown evidence that reptiles can express mood states indicating a more complex cognitive capacity in reptiles than previously thought possible (Hoehfurtner et al, 2025). As evidence builds indicating reptiles have a more complex interpretation of their surroundings, the importance of providing appropriate enrichment becomes a more prominent component of their welfare.
How can we provide enrichment?
Naturalistic habitat recreation
The idea behind naturalistic habitat recreation focuses on mimicking a reptile’s natural habitat as closely as possible. This is achieved through control of a variety of variables including thermoregulation throughout the environment, variation of appropriate humidity levels, a variety of substrates and materials making up an environment, and many more. All these factors play in recreating the natural environment of a reptile to allow them to live as close to a typical life as possible. As reptile husbandry advances, we continue to see even more advanced forms of environmental control as well such as light dimmers to allow a gentler gradient of light exposure throughout the day and controlled fans within terrariums that allow for better airflow and creating environmental factors typically expected of an outdoor environment. More recent scientific evidence suggests that reptiles prefer environments that more closely mimic their natural environment, thus improving their overall captive welfare (Nagabaskaran et al, 2022).
Artificial habitat components
While recreation of a natural environment is one of the better enrichment options we have for our pet reptiles, adding artificial forms of enrichment can also promote opportunities for natural behavior. Such examples of this form of enrichment include providing dig boxes for fossorial species to investigate and utilize but may be filled with unnatural substrates such as a paper bedding mix. We also see reptiles that will interact with non-natural items in their environment such as bearded dragons playing with plastic balls in their enclosure or large tortoise species that seem to enjoy pushing around large horse toys.
Training
Training can be achieved through various methods with target training being one of the more popular methods of training. Training as a form of enrichment can offer significant benefits to both reptiles and their owners. Not only does this activity serve to strengthen the bond between a reptile and the keeper, but training also serves as a mentally stimulating form of enrichment. This also allows for training of behaviors that can facilitate better care interactions allowing for better medical care with reduced stress long term. This application can be especially useful in significantly larger reptiles such as sulcata tortoises or reptiles that run a higher risk when interacting with such as crocodile monitors (Ruoff 2023).
Diet
Dietary enrichment can be classified into what you offer and how you offer. A varied diet depends on the natural diet type of a species. While true replication of natural diets is often difficult, if not impossible, a varied diet in captivity allows animals to select food items based on dietary needs as well as gives choice for more natural behavior expression (Warwick et al, 2023). A good example of this would be offering snails as a dietary component for species of leaf-tailed geckos that will consume them naturally (Gehring, 2020).
The way you offer food can be just as impactful as the varied diet itself. This can be done both with naturalistic intent and with unnatural methods meant to provide an additional layer of enrichment to an animal. Naturalistic food offerings mimic how a reptile may find their food normally in the wild. We see this behavior with tree monitors offered insect prey in long tubes. This requires them to fish out these items from small nooks with their long slender arms as they would naturally. A more unnaturalistic example is offering greens to a tortoise held within a hanging rubber dog toy. This allows a novel presentation of a food item that these herbivores must navigate. We also see some prey items offered in puzzle feeders to reptiles that stimulate a more natural foraging behavior.
As we embrace the idea that reptiles are far more complex animals than traditionally thought, it is important to remember that enrichment is not one-size fits all. Besides the variation we see in different species, we can see variation in the behavior of individuals within that species. While some animals may benefit from new interactive toys in their environment or new food items, others may find them stressful. It is important to remember that each animal can have individual traits that influence how we adjust their care.
While this focus on enrichment can certainly add a complicating layer to reptile husbandry, it also expands not only our ability to enjoy them as companions through viewing naturalistic behaviors but also serves as a sentinel observation on their long-term health. Reptiles and amphibians do not have the same traditional expressions of pain and stress that we may see in mammals. As our knowledge of captive reptile welfare grows, providing appropriate enrichment improves our ability to monitor their health as we monitor what behaviors we expect to see vs what behaviors these reptiles are exhibiting.
References
“AZA Enrichment Guiding Principles.” Behavior Scientific Advisory Group. (n.d.). Www.Aza.Org. Retrieved September 23, 2026, from https://www.aza.org/behavior scientific-advisory-group
GEHRING, P.-S. (2020). LEAF-TAILED GECKOS- THE COMPLETE UROPLATUS.
Hoehfurtner, T., Wilkinson, A., Moszuti, S. A., & Burman, O. H. P. (2025). Evidence of mood states in reptiles. Animal Cognition, 28(1), 52. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10071-025-01973-y
Nagabaskaran, G., Skinner, M., & Miller, N. (2022). Western Hognose Snakes (Heterodon nasicus) Prefer Environmental Enrichment. Animals, 12(23), 3347.
https://doi.org/10.3390/ani12233347
Ruoff, A.-M. (2023, April 13). Reptile Enrichment and Training. ARAV Rounds.
Warwick, C., Arena, P. C., & Burghardt, G. M. (2022). Health and Welfare of Captive Reptiles. Springer.