Posted by:
Tony D
at Fri Jun 1 08:37:48 2012 [ Email Message ] [ Show All Posts by Tony D ]
if you can even call them that are not ALL about bonding. They are about the whole suite of suggestions that have been put forward. These include bonding but also the notions that you don’t need to cycle (hibernate) the animals and power feeding (as in feeding them as much as they’ll eat as often as they’ll eat it).
Taken as a whole these suggestions don’t necessarily reflect what snakes do in the wild as much as what they are capable of doing in captivity. I know that is semantics but the inferred distinctions are important to me. For instance individual animals may not need to be hibernated to cycle but most certainly wild populations rely on season variation in food supplies, temperature and hydraulic regimes to “cycle” together ensuring that across the population males have viable sperm at the same time that females are conditioned to ovulate. This entire discussion about bonding and whether or not snakes do it in the wild completely ignores that fact that “bonding” is a portion of a protocol that, at worst, has no real relevance to what happens in the wild or, at least, consistently fails to recognize that these animals are by and large seasonal breeders in the wild. IMHO manipulating the captive environment so that the conditions and population densities are SO optimal that removal of standard environmental clues is allowed is as extreme a breeding protocol as keeping snake as the system it’s proponents are trying to replace. Given that the success of this method is most frequently gauged by an increase in egg production I can’t help but think of the system as analogous to a puppy mill.
Before anyone rushes to completely abandon the one snake per cage method with its standardized thermal gradient and feeding regime, off feed period and cycling and controlled breeding we should recognize that it does provide some benefits. For those interested in ensuring that they track the lineages of their animals or the genetic make up for morph potential or, as in my case, employ maximum avoidance systems to avoid inbreeding depression the method has great value. I’m not intending to throw stones here but the market for FL king morphs and the contention between the larger players has a lot to do with not really being sure of the genetic background of these animals because they originate from uncontrolled breedings within colonies of multi het and possible het animals.
On the flip side of the coin, the concept of bigger cages with more choices does appeal the desire to give our animals a better life. What I’m looking for is a way to have a bit of both methods, one where I can give my animals a good life and minimize inbreeding in order to sustain the genetic variability of my collection. Frank is going to say that this approach is about me and not about the animals and he will be both right and wrong. This is what I want to do but it’s about maintaining the variability of my collection because I don’t take for granted that we’ll always have the right to go out and get more.
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Nothing is at last sacred but the integrity of your own mind. Emmerson
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 My Experiments - Tony D, Fri Jun 1 08:37:48 2012
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