>>"Your experience breeding kinked snakes and not getting kinked babies is a powerful anecdotal argument against the inbreeding=kinked babies theory."

>>

>>OR...

>>

>>it could mean that there is more than once cause of kinking.

>>

Tony, Tom's experience STILL anecdotally refutes a GENETIC link to kinking, as i suggested, allowing for environmental/nutritional causes instead as your example provides.



Your comments were provocative. In Australia Gouldian Finches' breeding activity is triggered by rain, which produces sprouted seeds and seed heads roughly concurrent with the hatching of Gould eggs. The theory is that in addition to simply providing the necessary volume of seed for feeding young, those sprouted seeds contain elements of nutritional essence for the hatchlings. In captivity, breeders resort to including sprouted seed in diets of adults feeding young. There's some data showing survival rates of Gouldians (they go through a very trying full moult at around 3 months of age) has increased considerably as breeders have adopted those additional techniques to their care.



So, does anyone know, DO snakes need exposure to light of certain wavelengths to convert calcium? I've read many times they don't need natural light. Certainly a lot of babies have been produced from parents who haven't been exposed to natural light in their lifetimes. On the other hand, just to be safe, i mix my fluorescents to include warm, cool, and the variously-branded "natural" tubes to approximate a natural lighting equivalent. But is there any science saying whether or not that's necessary? (Also in the bird world, canary breeders feed food rich in carotene to "color up" their red-factor canaries, but I've not seen anything suggesting those birds receiving those supplements, in considerable concentrations, are any healthier than green canaries, for example, that wouldn't get the supplements).



peace

terry

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