Shane:

I hope that anyone who has done actual experimental work with brumation will chime in. For myself I can only speak to the species I've had success with.

Vulpina has been notorious for difficulty in breeding. I attribute this to the majority of commercial breeders being down in Florida. With the warmer climate and lack of basements they'd be hard put to consistently keep the temperature below 60 degrees without air conditioning. I've managed to get offspring when the basement temps only got as low as 50 degrees. Above that I believe it would be hit or miss. I think they would easily tolerate low forties. As far as cycling temps I'm not sure of how long you'd need to be down low to accomplish cycling but one thing that I would be worried about would be too rapid temperature change. Bringing it up and down should be done gradually over the course of days. I think rapid temperature changes are stressful.

I hadn't heard about the average temp theory. I'll have to look into that.

I'm sure that darkness is important but I wonder if by itself it can cycle these animals. I don't know the answer but I am skeptical.

As far as keeping wild caughts, I have noticed that they are more likely to stop feeding when the tempratures get too high in the summer and when the days get too short in the winter. But I believe that even if the brumation temperatures were higher than optimal the snake's survival would not be at risk. But the reproductive cycling might not occur.

I don't know the details of w/c conspic mortality. We could ask K-D Schulz (or possibly Rex) if there are major issues. I'm assuming (and this is an assumption) that if the wild caughts are fresh from the wild they will be much more likely to survive captivity than the Chinese food market snakes that we import. Most people believe that the mortality of those animals involves gross neglect before they even reach the exporter (lack of water, over-crowding, rough handling and wide temperature swings). Mandarins don't die in captivity because they aren't feeding. Acclimating these snakes is more important than feeding. Cool temps, moisture, shelter and darkness is what they usually lack when they end up in a pet dealer in the US. Some knowledgable people have told me that de-parasitizing the snakes should wait until after they've had a chance to stabilize. That part I'm not sure about. I'll see what I can find out about conspic w/c mortality.

Best regards
John

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