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Hi Zach, lets look at this, you said

Posted by: zach_whitman at Fri Sep 22 00:14:17 2006 [ Report Abuse ] [ Email Message ]

But are you saying that there is no difference between a properly cared for snake in captivity and a wild snake? Because I beg to differ on many levels. You said it youself somewhere else in this long post that a wild snake may be several years old and still only 18 inches long. How many of your three year old calis are 18 inches??????

The type, quantity, and regularity of even the best captive diet promotes a different metabolism then snakes in the wild eating lean lizards on a more sporadic basis.

About the red above. Is it not the goal in captivity to achieve equal or better health in captivity. If you have not, then your husbandry needs adjusting.

ALso its a wonder to me why you think its about how many or how common, SIR that is not the question. The question is and was, it happens and it happens successfully. As Kerby stated, As Bluerosy stated, and as I stated, we do not have eggbinding or infertility.

Also I have seen it in nature, again we are not talking about it being average. I only stated that is occurs and is within the realm of normal. Consider, normal is always a range. For instance, in every snake book you have ever read, when addressing size, the book gives an average size. Some give maximum size as well. What the book did not give you was minimum size. So for a sexually mature calking female to average 3 feet, and they do. It means there are larger and equally smaller. That has to occur to get an average. You can figure that if there are four foot females, then you need two foot female to make 3 foot an average.

About your blue paragraph. How do you know what wild snakes are feeding on. You pick an extreme and use it as an example. I would guess that the average wild cal king feeds mostly on mice as most are found in ag fields or roadsides or areas between houses. Where there is a lack of natural reptiles and an abundance of mice attacted by human waste.

Even if your statement about less healthy wild lizard feeding kingsnakes is true, that makes it worse on you. That now indicates that unhealthy wild snakes are more capable then healthy captive snakes. That sir is confusing considering the difinition of health is to be more capable. Cheers

Frank,

I believe you about the whole 18 inch thing! period. Like I said I have never had one go that small, but wouldn't be surprised or concerned if it did. Lets not talk about that any more.

All I asked was if you thought that a smaller snake in the wild might be DIFFERENTLY able to handle reproduction at a small size. I didn't presume for better or for worse. A simple "no, i think properly cared for captive snakes should be comprable to healthy wild ones" would be fine.

And to change focus yet again...

What about all of the kingsnakes that existed for hundreds of years before people grew crops and attracted unnatural amounts of mice? I just used an example to make a point, cuz obviously kingsnakes eat all sorts of prey in the wild, at all sorts of intervals, under all sorts of conditions. They will obviously take advantage of human induced food sources, but is that natural? To me a cal king that lives out in the desert doing what hes meant to do, is MORE fit than the fat one that lives under the barn, even if the one in the desert is thinner and smaller.

And I am NOT saying that thats what we should go for with our captives. I agree with you, that as keepers we should aim to give our snakes better lives and better health then they would have in the wild. But when comparing captive animals to wild ones, is the snake on the farm really wild???

about.

Zach, your best served to make a point and stick to it. Try to learn from it. You can simply "what about" for the rest of your life, but will that serve you????

The point is simple, If wild kings can do it for whatever reason, then captive kings also should. That is, they should not fail, as some here think they are suppose to do.

Husbandry is a bit like those CSI shows. Everything a snake does is telling you something.

For instance, if a 18 to 20 inch cal king cycles(enters a reproductive cycle) Then you have to assume it had the ability to do so, as it DID. If it fails after begining and trying to complete a reproductive cycle, then you can only blame the support system. AS in YOU. you stopped it. In captivity you are the support system.

Of cousre in nature, they can fail as well, that is, if nature does not support them. This is very commonplace.

Over all, I have no idea why you want to keep bringing up that a sick/fat/weak/whatever captive does not compare to a strong healthy wild king. You would be better off comparing the abilities of a wild strong healthy king, to a captive strong healthy king. Do you get that. Healthy captives do exsist. (SEE KERBY)

That you somehow want to compare a weakling to a strong animal is silly. You should try and figure out how the weakling came about.

Logically, captives should be much healthier then their wild brothers. After all, the captives have us to give them everything they need. So why aren't they healthier??? simple, because your not giving them what they need. Cheers

Frank

Once again, I don't have fat unhealthy snakes. I am quite happy with mine, and I am comparing HEALTHY snakes in captivity to HEALTHY snakes in the wild.

But since in every post you write you make it a point to compare captive snakes to wild ones, it would be nice to know what wild really is. I just don't think that a snake that lives under a barn with a constant supply of mice is nessecerily representative of what "wild" cal kings do.

let me first say that i dont have much experience when it comes to kings.for that matter i only have about 7 years of breeding experience with snakes.
the only thing i can really give you is my opinion on "what wild is".
imho "wild" is any animal not under constant care of another animal(us). so imho a king under a barn with a constant supply of food is wild, (as long as the snake is not in a cage under the barn lol) any snake will try to find a constant supply of food, do to the fact that they want the best for themselves, in order to be best prepared incase that food supply dissapears or competition becomes to strong, and to be best suited for the rigors of reproduction.
adam
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1.1 kenyan sand boas
1.1 mbk
1.1 butter corns
0.1 striped albino corn
0.1 childrens python
0.1 albino nelsons
0.1 milksnake phase
0.1 anery motley
0.1 bone white cross
0.1 albino banded cal king
0.1. normal corn het hypo,anery
1.0. snow corn het hypo,anery,amel
1.0. amel corn unknown hets(4ft 8inch long)
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1.0 blizzard leo gecko
0.2 normal leo geckos
1.0 3 lined mud turtle

Wild snakes cover a range from dead to extremely healthy. In all reality, most die very quickly and from all types of causes.

So to understand wild snakes fail in hundreds of ways, you must also understand they also succeed in as many ways. That is, some are barely strong enough to reproduce, some are so strong they multiclutch and grow while doing it. So do that and grow to their maximum potential, So stay dwarfed and still reproduce.

Not only does this very from individual to individual, but from year to year, and decade to decade.

To figure out what is normal, is to find out, what part of the populaton consistantly contributes the most to recruitment. Biologically speaking, to contribute to recruitment is the only important statistic. The reason is, without successful recruitment, there is no animal. They will cease to exsist. To not recruit, ends in exstintion.

To understand what part is more important or in this case, achieves more neonates that successfully grow up, is not an easy task. In fact, in my opinion, is mostly ignored by science. They dwell on other things like you would, you know, diet and such. They dwell of food source and while prey type and availability and while that is important, its also somewhat flexible(depending on species) What is not so flexible is survival of the young. This is very much controlled by BEHAVIOR. But I wander.

In most populations, the young adults contribute by far the largest number of offspring and include a huge numbers advantage. This also is related to the health of the population, is it expanding, shrinking, static, etc.

For instance, expanding has more younger individuals. Shrinking is from under recruitment. Static, producing only enough to replace loss.

But, and this is a huge BUT, snakes include a odd behavior of older adults gathering in groups. Such things like dens(I call them hubs). These congregations of breeding adults, while outnumbered by the rest of the population, somehow contribute more successful offspring. That is, a higher percentage of their offspring survive.

So its plain to see, that this two fold approach to recruitment is important. Young individual wander and colonize a much larger territory, but sadly most often meet their demise at a much younger age. Also, most of their offspring do not survive. As these animals live mostly in marginal habitat.

These older adults, found exactly the right conditions to exsist to a much older age(the reason why they are older) and have also found the right conditions to allow their offspring to survive.

You see, it takes far less support of allow small females to reproduce. It also takes far less stress to kill them off. So changing conditions quickly educate this part of the population. Such education is, fire, floods, droughts, etc. You can also understand why its important that females reproduce quickly.(they most likely will not live long)

The larger animals surely take for more support to reproduce, but have been around long enough to know where the best places for their offspring to survive.

In a simple sense, the young are range extenters, and the older larger individuals are range holders.

This reproductive stradgy is one of many, but it does apply to kingsnakes.

Now, how would you compare your captives to this??????? what part of the population would captives compare to?

About your animals, If you would check back, your the one who mentioned the fat weak individuals in captivity, it does not matter what you have, that was the example you used.

The responce to that would be the same, whatever keeper has fat weak individuals, should improve their husbandry. At least to a point of having charges at least as strong was wild ones. I would think that would be a common captive goal. You know, to at least equal what a very harsh nature as to offer. Cheers.

Thanks for throwing some illuminating ideas my way. I don't get out to CA to see western kings in the wild very often.

> The point is simple, If wild kings can do it for whatever reason,
> then captive kings also should.

There I'm not sure I agree with that logic. Can and should are two different things. I can go to McDonalds for dinner every night. That is not something I should do.

In the wild, natural selection is very active. Some snakes die doing what they can do. They are deselected. In captivity, we try to avoid the death of snakes by not placing them at such risks. We try to take natural selection out of the equation as much as possible.

You clearly are a master at the husbandry involved with egg laying. This is demonstratable by your results of females laying much much closer to their shed than what is typically described in documentation on breeding. I also do not think you would put animals in danger.

But until a new breeder has that skill mastered, would it not be better to wait until the reptile has a better chance of succesful laying in conditions that are not as ideal as what you are able to provide?
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3.0 WC; 0.3 CB L. getula californiae
0.1.1 WC; 0.0.3 CH Elgaria multicarinata multicarinata