This is my third year experimenting with the choices and bonding methods. Those of you who have been following know that the first two years were abysmal failures. Failures have been attributed to the snakes needing to adjust to the new environment, a perceived lack of interest on my part based on the fact that I really didn’t think maximum production was a good thing when the demand was down due to the economy and the males not being fertile due to staying on the heat too much.
Out of the gate I lost a prime male to his cage mate of three years. These animals had been together since yearlings. Breeding wise year three isn’t shaping up much better. Three of four thayeri clutches have been laid and I now have a total of 7 good eggs in the incubator. The last clutch of 11 slugs was from long term breeders who in past years were very reliable. Fertility from the other two clutches was well below 50%.
The one pair of temporalis I raised with this method did well and gave me a good though small clutch of six eggs. Relative to thayeri, temporalis seem to do fairly well on this regimen. A pair of first time breeder goini gave me 8 fertile eggs and a pair of first time breeder Okettee corns gave me 3 good eggs out of a clutch of 20. The up side is that this is much better production than the first two years however I also re-instituted a brief hibernation period. My emerging thoughts are that this method might work better with some species than with others.
I feel like the prime flaw in the method is that given high levels of inputs the males spend too much time on the heat. This is either because they’re failing to switch interest from feeding to breeding or are on the heat with the females as they digest their food. In either case I think they choose to be on the heat too much and as a result fertility is cross the board low even among males that have been quite solid breeders in the past.
-----
“Nothing is at last sacred but the integrity of your own mind.” Emmerson

WWW.TDSNAKES.BLOGSPOT.COM

[ Show Entire Thread ]