Hi Everyone,



Does anyone else here have issues regarding their Asian rat snakes and shedding DURING brumation? I have 5 Asian Ratsnakes, including 0.2 Radiated Rats, 1.1 Vietnamese Blue Beauties and 0.1 Ridleyi, and all 5 of them have shed during this current brumation period. Of my 20 corn snakes, not one has.



My question is this:



Is this due in any part to their shed cycles not being as closely related to their reproductive cycles as their NA cousins?



Or rather, is this a cue that their cycles ARE still related, and that this is the beginning of what would be naturally a "during-brumation" mating considering the mild winters in their natural habitat? That being said, I did receive a fertile clutch last year after a "post-brumation" copulation...



Anyways...



I'd like to hear any thoughts on this, and also, pose another issue.



One of the radiated rat snakes this weekend started a shed, and a bad one (I assumed due to the dry cool conditions in the room). I hemmed and hawwed whether I should take her out, warm her a little and risk upsetting her system to help the shed, or just leave her be and take care of it in a few weeks when I warmed them on schedule. My concern won, and I took her out, to notice a nasty wheeze, a few mouth sores (not rot, just sores) and an upper chest "rattle". So she's being warmed, and I'm concerned with why this happened. My other radiated is fine. Any thoughts are welcome, and also, other than keeping her warm and humid for a while to see if it clears up on its own, any other steps I should be taking?



Brumation temps have been fluctuating about 58-68 degrees... averaging around 63 most of the time.



Sorry for the long post,

Thanks for any help,

Kris

(enduring a long cold winter in Montreal... -34F this morning... go ahead... laugh it up...brr)

[ Hide Replies ]

• Radiated rat snakes and other Asians and brumation... (long) - Krisg, Tue Jan 18 09:31:51 2005
• Kris, let me make a start on this... - jfirneno, Tue Jan 18 19:09:23 2005
• Let me make a little jab here.... - Terry Cox, Wed Jan 19 05:03:08 2005
• Thanks guys...(more) - krisg, Wed Jan 19 07:49:42 2005
• Hey Terry, glad to hear it's starting to warm up out west... - jfirneno, Wed Jan 19 09:34:01 2005