What king of milks, from warm Mexico or cold North America?



I'll tell you what I did, and it was awesome. For milks from Mexico (Sinaloans), I put them in a big plywood box, and I put a heat pad inside at one end, and let the other end get real cold. Then I put a whole group of Sinaloans in there. Then I checked them to see what they did. It was fascinating. And no, not all of them stayed on the cold side all the time. Some even fed. All bred just fine. I think they copulated in there before Spring.



I think a wide temp range in Winter is better, a large cage mostly cool but a small basking area on one side. Then see what they do. Your picky eater might benefit from it.



Anything else is guesswork on your part. You and I cannot tell what the snakes want at a glance. Give them the choice and see what they do. Some might choose the cold all season (older snakes often do this), some might stick to the warmth for a longer period (babies, reproductive females). Not all do the exact same thing.



BTW, temperature may play some role in reproduction, but brumation as is done in captive collections is not all that necessary. Male sperm can't be too warm or too cold for optimum motility, but it doesn't need "55 deg for 8 weeks" necessarily. Male snakes know better than you how to control that as long as you give them the choice of temps. And reproductive females simply do not need 8 weeks of cold. Give them the choice of some warmth in an otherwise cool cage. This works better when the cage is big, even if it is just a Winter cage.



If you really want sucessfull reproduction, keep males and females together as described all Winter. That works better than the "place male in females cage for 10.5 seconds, etc etc at 80.5 degrees, etc etc).



Ever wonder why reptiles kept outdoors breed so darn well compared to indoors?



Now, for milks from parts of the country where it is darn cold (Eastern milks for example), I know nothing.
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Mark

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