Posted by:
tspuckler
at Fri Jun 18 09:41:13 2004 [ Email Message ] [ Show All Posts by tspuckler ]
Terry, Tom and Paul -
I supposed we'd all agree that unless actual scientific experiments take place with "controls" and "variables," we'll never really know for sure about the kinked spine thing. And it's unlikely that most breeders would want to conduct such an experiment. I can say that I stopped using an incubator for colubrids years ago, due to the fact that when summer temperatures hit the 90s (I have no air conditioning) I often experienced babies with kinked spines, most often occuring just above the vent. This was when the incubator was set at 82 degrees, with no way to reduce the temperature if it got higher than that. I have since let the eggs sit at "room temperature" with daytime highs and nighttime lows being whatever they may be (I'm located in Cleveland). It usually takes a week longer for the eggs to hatch, but the number of deformities has gone way down. I truly believe that in most cases this condition in environmental, not genetic - although I cannot prove it.
Terry, about my maximum length theory: I should probably take into consideration that most people would say that snakes in the wild don't get as big on average as they used to. I was camping with Norm Damm (among others) last weekend and he was telling me how he used to catch 4-foot garter snakes in PA. We only found 2-footers on the trip in Maryland. Is it inbreeding? I suppose genetic testing might hold the answer. It would be mighty interesting if there wasn't a heck of a lot of inbreeding in the wild and average sizes are still getting smaller. I'm not sure what that would mean, but it sure is intriguing to think about. Is the average size of all snakes, whether captive bred or in the wild, getting smaller? It sure seems that way.
Tim
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RE: Facts or Myths Concerning Breeding Snakes in Captivity, please give thi - tspuckler, Fri Jun 18 09:41:13 2004