OK Frank, a good friend of mine whose advice is always taken as good advice asked me to try and breed some of my snakes towards the end of summer, snakes which I felt were too small in spring. He told me he had snakes which appeared to be swollen,...as in ovulating swollen and I checked some of mine and I thought the same thing. My friend is a little more impatient than I am, and I decided to wait....mostly for fear of jeopardising these females for the following season.

Now for the sake of seeing what would happen I paired two of these snakes. I gave them 15 minutes which I observed...and these are young snakes which have never seen a snake of the opposite sex. The male was flicking his tounge nonstop and seemed very interested...the female was very motionless...as every time she moved the male would become extremely alert. I chickened out and removed the male. The snakes had me thinking they may have bred, but I felt there was too much to risk. Things like slugs, egg binding, the female carrying eggs too late in the year to have adequate time recover for next season were a few of my worries.

Now as gross and silly as it sounds I believe I witnessed the "release" of pheremones. That is, I introduced a male to a female...who then gaped her cloaca and literally farted an audible hiss out her tail end. The male reacted immediately and those snakes were breeding minutes later.

I have always thought of pheremones being a spring time thing unless we are talking about snakes who routinely breed late in the year like Subocs. I had not given this much thought as the snakes that bred for me this year were all proven breeders, and it is the younger snakes which grew up so damn fast that got me thinking do I wait or not wait to introduce them? It is apparent the obvious answers to many questions on this forum are cook book style. Each snake has a recipe that usually consists of timing for cooling, warming, ovulation..pheremones blah blah blah.... I simply never gave this any thought. What I specifically mean is if a snake known to breed in spring can succesfully breed in summer. Especially when the timing would be past the time of when I would usually not even attempt to double clutch a snake.

Please keep in mind my snake room is not that big, and it seems when even one female is most likely releaseing that pheremone most of my males go off feed and are trying to escape their cages. I see most of my snakes...Kings, Milks, Corns and Pits...all the males seem to get restless at once. BUT....always a but, some of those horny males are introduced to females and are rejected. So, seeing it takes two too tango I chose not to pair my huge, but young snakes this summer. I saw no reaction, as many of my males were feeding heavily and seemed content to lay around. The young pair I put together, that female was swelling. She looked like she may have been ovulating. So, I gave it a shot. That 1000 gram Brooksi I just posted. She is as big as my proven female. I considered her as well....but did not want to possibly lose a year by gaining a small clutch this year and not much next season.

So honestly I do not know what to think about pheremones and when they are released. I know in Pythons the introduction of a male to a female is part of captive breeding as it can trigger the female to ovulate. I thought that since some of the snakes I had considered were Speckled Kings I may have succesfully produced a small clutch or two from them this spring but chose to give them time to grow instead. They are smaller than most snakes I work with, and have never worked with them in the past so I chickened out. I was under the impression the female had to be releaseing pheremones to tell a male she is willing to produce? I also thought pheremones were a seasonal thing and that there is a window of opportunity captive breeders must be aware of or else your chances of producing form that female is unlikely. I especially hear about this when frustrated breeders are on here asking if others have witnessed copulation yet as their snakes have not, and they fear they will not produce for them this year. So I am guilty of thinking that if I was going to breed my Specks, the time had long passed. I was also worried the snakes were not cooled. Seems like I can't get on here without writing a novel but I think this explains things sufficiently. Looking forward to a reply Thanks Tom Stevens

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