Much depends on the natural range of the various subspecies of beauty snakes. Some are tropical and some are temperate zone animals.

Blues and Caves should not need much cooling, as they are fairly tropical subs - maybe a month or so of darkness with your natural Florida winter temps. I might try to cool the Yunnans a bit more - depends on your situation. I would probably treat them like Chinese beauties.

I keep Chinese beauties, and I live in south Texas which is not much cooler than Florida. I have brumated my beauties, diones and bimaculata in a refrigerator at about 55 - 47 degrees F for 2 - 3 months, for the last few years and have had good breeding results with the beauties and diones. I have also used a window unit air conditioner before with some success, but this is costly.

This year will be different because I don't plan to use the refrigeration method any more, and will simply cool them the way I do my New World subtropicals (corns, kings, green rats). Meaning, I will just keep them in the snake room with the heat turned off and the window open slightly. This causes a wide range of temps, due to cold fronts and warm ups. So - this year will be experimental as far as the temperate zone Asians, and I will not be surprised if they do not have good fertility or even possibly not breed or produce eggs at all. We'll see...

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-Toby Brock
Southwestern Center for Herpetological Research

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