Welcome to the Alterna forum and I do recommend you do some research here regarding cooling milks and kings. Enough scolding though....

I'll assume your Alterna is a young (hatchling) approx a year old and as such is not likely to be aware that it's time to brumate--my 2005s are still up and plowing through weekly meals--I won't cool them until they're either needed for breeding in 2008 or they just quit feeding on their own (maybe 2006/7). So I usually advise to not cool a juvie unless the snake refuses 2-3 meals and you're sure it's not a health issue.

Temps: 88 is a tad high. I'd target 80 /- 2 degrees year round, day and night for most kings and milks. Some will swear by night time cooling or radiant vs belly heat etc...do what works for you but let's drop the temp a bit.

I cool my Alterna right down to 55 for 4 months. This effectively stops their activity and they'll not use calories wandering around the cage. Your enemies in brumation are an active snake burning calories, too wet a cage, and too dry a cage.

55 is a stressful temp for some (tropical especially) snakes, 65 would likely work also but you'll have to experiment with your stock a bit and find what works.

Keep records on temps, feeding, activity for next year.

Good luck, Alterna are very cool little snakes (when the bas##ards feed)!! Jeff

[ Hide Replies ]

• brumation and temp. question - Dfrieden, Mon Oct 9 20:16:06 2006
• RE: brumation and temp. question - MikeRusso, Mon Oct 9 22:30:51 2006
• RE: brumation and temp. question - Dfrieden, Mon Oct 9 22:58:06 2006
• I'll take this one.... - Jeff Hardwick, Tue Oct 10 20:44:07 2006
• RE: I'll take this one.... - MikeRusso, Wed Oct 11 07:11:41 2006
• don't stress....... - Jeff Hardwick, Wed Oct 11 20:25:53 2006
• Mine is doing this... - wpglaeser, Thu Oct 12 12:00:22 2006
• RE: Mine is doing this... - Jeff Hardwick, Sat Oct 14 17:09:26 2006
• Thanks, Jeff ... one more question - wpglaeser, Sun Oct 15 21:03:37 2006