A survey of reptile owners within the UK

[t-bo]

Hi all

Ive has this request from Alison at Bristol Uni. Anyone wishing to help, the link is provided below. The questionaire is anonymous.

https://www.survey.bris.ac.uk/awb/reptile2009 (updated)

I am a third year student studying Animal Behaviour and Welfare (BSc) at the University of Bristol.

The title of my dissertation for this year is ‘A survey of reptile-owners within the UK’. Part of my project involves me creating a web-based questionnaire to be accessed and completed by reptile-owners in the UK. This questionnaire will include questions about the housing, husbandry, behaviour and health of captive reptiles, as well as some questions on human attitudes towards reptile species. Basic details about the owners themselves, such as age, sex and reptile-owning experience will also be asked.

I am hoping that the information gained from these questionnaires will help to identify any common issues/patterns in the keeping of captive reptiles, both successes and failures, as there has been little scientific research on this topic to date. As I am sure you will already know there are now around 8 million reptiles being kept as pets within the UK, exceeding the 6.5 million dog population. If such a large number of reptiles are to be kept in captivity, it is vital that any potential successes and failures in the way in which captive reptiles are kept are formally identified so that these can be investigated further, with the ultimate goal of maximising captive reptile welfare.

Obviously a key part of this project is to gain access to as many reptile-owners as possible and so I would like to ask whether it would be possible for me to include a link to my questionnaire on your forum. I would, of course, send you a copy of the completed questionnaire for you to see before posting the link, all details of completed questionnaires would be entirely anonymous, and feedback after the study is completed would be made available.

Thank you for your help and I look forward to hearing from you.

Yours sincerely,

Alison

[freekygeeky]

finally did it . took AGES

[Corsetts]

I completed it as best I could but it was very frustrating as the survey hadn't been trialled properly.

For example, I answered No to "do you use a heatmat" and then had to enter number of heatmats used to finish the survey. There were lots of examples like this I wanted to leave blank but couldn't.

Cheers,

Chris

EDIT: I don't know if this will get back to the student but I would suggest obtaining feedback from this forum first as to how effective it is and to iron out all the glitches first.

Surveys are powerful tools but if they're not set up properly, there is a risk of collating inaccurate data.

IMHO anyway

[freekygeeky]

same with the spot light..
dont own one.. but you still had to answer questions about it!! hehe

[spend_day]

i assume this is only for reptiles and dosnt inculde amphibains

[t-bo]

Ive made Alison aware of your comments.

Cheers

[Ali]

Thank you to everyone who has filled in my questionnaire so far! I do not know why it is still asking you to answer questions such as how many heat mats do you use when you have answered that you do not use a heat mat in the question before. These questions were set as Mandatory only if the previous answer is yes and during the trial, they faded when No was selected, meaning follow on questions did not need to be answered. I am sorry about this and will try and get this sorted asap, so that if you wouldn't mind, you could do the questionnaire again as the previous data will be invalid if you do not own a heat mat etc.

I am so sorry once again and really value your time spent helping to improve the welfare of captive reptiles.

Thank you.

Ali

p.s. I will write here again as soon as I have got the questionnaire sorted.

[Ali]

Originally Posted by spend_day

i assume this is only for reptiles and dosnt inculde amphibains

Yes, it is only for reptiles, sorry.

[t-bo]

Ali will be making some changes after the feedback shes been given and we will re add the questionaire when shes done.

[neep_neep]

I also completed it but got 'had' by the questions that became mandatory - i.e. basking bulb questions and heat mat question!

The other thing I struggled with, was where it asked where you purchased the animal. Pretty much all of mine have come from breeders/hobbyists, which wasn't an option on the survey.