Thanks for the info, Mike. I may get some one of these days - or a local friend might get some before me, and I'll visit them...

Not arguing with you, but I have read / heard different about their brumation requirements from others, and in literature - but I know different methods work for different folks and in different situations. What part of the country are you located in (if I am not imposing)? My ambient room temps may be different from floor temps in any given season - either hotter or cooler. Hotter than hell here (south Texas) from about end of May - mid October, and sporadically cool / warm for the rest of the year, with one or two light freezes during the winter usually...

I used to keep Elaphe dione (gave them all to my friend, Rob, this year), which never produced for me until I started brumating them in a refrigerator at mid 40's - mid 50's F for 3 months or so. They and my Chinese beauties (which I also used to refrigerate) did not produce for me for the first time in years this year, mainly due to not being refrigerated, I think. All other conditions, husbandry, feeding were the same - just that they all got cooled in my snake room at unheated south Texas room temps which fluctuate from the 70's - the high 50's, but most of the time it is in the mid 60's. I also use a window unit a/c to keep temps as low as possible during our frequent winter warm spells. This works great for bairdi, corns, emoryi, and Senticolis - but it doesn't seem to be enough for dione - and I have always thought of Mandarins as pretty typical temperate zone Asians with a need for a real brumation. I am still experimenting with the Chinese beauties and bimaculata - hoping they will produce good eggs with a milder brumation than what I used to give them...

There are all kinds of exceptions to everything though. I had always heard / read that situla need a long, cold brumation also - so I always cooled mine in the fridge but still never got any eggs from them. Then, I heard that some folks breed them easily after a corn snake type of brumation. This difference may be due to the locality that the snake originates from also, with those from northern parts of the range (Croatia, in this case) being somewhat more difficult than southern (Greek locality) specimens. My friend, John, has been keeping them for the last couple years - brumated them in his mountain king brumation room this winter and finally got two good eggs from them. I could probably get him to cool a few pairs of snakes for me, if I wanted.

Then there is the possibility of just having the perfect conditions for whatever species you are keeping, or maybe just being lucky and having perfect animals. Green rats have a rep for being a LOT of trouble in captivity, but my LTC Santa Ritas locality adults have been some of the easiest snakes I have ever kept and bred, aside from them only wanting live mice that is. Maybe I have lucked out somehow with them or they really like the conditions in my snake room, or I am doing all the right things for them. I do treat them a little different from my other snakes - mostly following Gerold Merker's (aka T. Cranston) old article on them, with a few slight differences. Whatever is going right for them I got two good clutches from the female last year and one (so far) this year...


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-Toby Brock
Southwestern Center for Herpetological Research

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