Has anyone ever bred Eastern parents that are both feeding on a non- scented mouse diet? The reason I ask is this, I have noticed that in most snakes (unless specialized feeders that prey on one type of diet when young and switch their diets on their own as adults to another type of food in the wild) what the parents feeds on directly influences what the neonates will feed on (innate). For example as an experiment I fed Northern pine snakes as adults a diet of mice,rats,and chicks. Out of 7 neonates each baby had a preference for one of those prey items, if one wouldn't eat one they would eat one of the other two. There was one who would not feed on either mice or rats (live or thawed). I took a rat pink slimed it up with the innards of a chick and it gobbled it up. So if one transferred an Eastern to non-scented mice for a period of time I believe a % of their offspring would take non-scented pinks easily right of the bat with no scenting. Just curios because many innate traits help animal survive in the wild and could be mimicked in the captive environment.
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Frank Roberts
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Question for eastern hog breeders.......
Replies (30)
Well, I have not breed mine as of yet, but have a wrench for your theory. I have 4 neo easterns. All WC from different locals (more like rescues that I took in) Of the four, 1 took unscented f/t pinks right off the bat. The parents were wild, and had probably never eaten mice, but this little on had no problem with it. The others take scented, they seem to be triggered more by the movement than the smell. When they get excited by the smell of a tree frog, they go after what ever is moving, weither scented or not.
I have not found that your sceniero really applies to my Tricolors either. The parents are only fed mice, but the percentage of babies that will eat unscented at first is pretty low.
Just aome of my observations from my own animals. Sorry I did not have specifics on ther easterns though.
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Jenea
2:3:1 Tricolor Hognose (plus babies)
4:2 Eastern Hognose
1:2 Western Hognose
0:2 Southern Hognose
0:0:3 Florida Redbelly Snakes
0:1 Gulf Coast Box Turtle
1:1 Red-eared Slider
1:2 Eastern Fence Lizards
2:0 Cats
1:1 Kids
1:0 Spouse
why they are not LAW, but thanks for the info. Think then speak when it comes to theories is my MOTTO!
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Frank Roberts
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the reason I asked is certain snake are "prey species specific", pines and most colubrids feed on a wide variety of prey and are not specialized feeders, which may not apply to my "theory" on these types of feeders "prey species specific" are the animals I need to study, so your information is valuable to me. I was wondering if the chain in specialized feeder could be broken
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Frank Roberts
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this is not a theory, its a hypothesis lol.
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Frank Roberts
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you where not "thinking"
"The others take scented, they seem to be triggered more by the movement than the smell. When they get excited by the smell of a tree frog, they go after what ever is moving, weither scented or not. "
Obviously it is from what they are "smelling", if I defrost rats two rooms away, my snakes will consider me a food source with my movements and try to attack me as if I am a food source, it's almost all Chemosensory with these vertabrates. Chemosenory is vital, what I am questioning if innate responces passed on from the parentss can be manipulated.
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Frank Roberts
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I guess I did not clarify. If there is smell and no movement, they do not eat. Sometimes just movement gets them going with no smell. The smell and movement combo works the best.
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Jenea
2:3:1 Tricolor Hognose (plus babies)
4:2 Eastern Hognose
1:2 Western Hognose
0:2 Southern Hognose
0:0:3 Florida Redbelly Snakes
0:1 Gulf Coast Box Turtle
1:1 Red-eared Slider
1:2 Eastern Fence Lizards
2:0 Cats
1:1 Kids
1:0 Spouse
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Frank Roberts
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Well,in my experience breeding c.b.,not wildcaught eastern hogs,kingsnakes,rattlesnakes,and pituophis it has never made one bit of difference with the babies when it comes to taking non-scented items. They either take non-scented or you have to work with them which is easy,just my experience anyway. Kevin Fisher
Forgot to mention the adult easterns I bred were feeding on a non-scented diet of hairless mice. Kevin Fisher
do you remember what percentage of the hogs took not scented, and does anyone have any knowledge of the wild feeding habits of neonate eastern's (besides amphibians), they may be opportunist feeders as neonates.
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Frank Roberts
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Three out of 23 took non-scented brained pinks. Kevin Fisher
Is it unusual for neonates to take pinks, or do other breeders you know of get similar results? I also am interested in neonates taking pinks whos parents feed exclusively on amphibian prey.
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Frank Roberts
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Is it unusual for neonates to take pinks, or do other breeders you know of get similar results? I also am interested in neonates taking pinks whos parents feed exclusively on amphibian prey.
I've never known any breeders personally that have had baby easterns take unscented pinks really. Your always going to have the survivor one or two babies that would probably eat a door knob if you put it in their cage,lol,but most require scenting. Off the subject of easterns,the best food item in the world in my experience for colubrids or any other rodent eating snake that might require scenting is captive bred baby deer mice,they can't resist them. Kevin Fisher
your right about the deer mice, I used to breed them as a kid for my "wild caught" eastern milk snakes, also another tid bit, non feeding Brazilian rainbow bows or stubborn feeders have a hard time turning down chicks or rats scented with them, I have been using scent transfer for over 20 years, right down to my garters eating goldfish scented pinkies, I am interested in possibly breaking the hereditary feeding response which is obviously passed on from the parents.
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Frank Roberts
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also if you could put these snakes (the ones that will eat a door knob (lol) as a pair their babies may follow suit. YOU GOT MY ATTENTION!!!!!
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Frank Roberts
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I forgot to mention the captive bred adult easterns I bred were eating non-scented hairless mice. Kevin Fisher
Sorry for the double post there. Kevin Fisher
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Frank Roberts
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Thanks. Heres another. Kevin Fisher
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Frank Roberts
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entire thread and post an opinion, I am very scientifically orientated and have non problem with scent transfer to mice, I have further interests in evolutionary biology and genetics and innate characteristics passed on to offspring, by age 10 I was using scent transfer to feed my garter snakes my over populated mouse collection lol
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Frank Roberts
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Sorry for the late reply, Frank. Things have been busy and I have been trying to formulate a response in my head before writing it out. Unfortunately I really have not come up with much since most of my research has been done on diet and other captive husbandry type issues. I can provide the following for thought...
-Honeybees can learn the smell of their beekeeper as a familiar, nonthreatening entity, and they can pass down this information to subsequent generations. Honeybees are being born on a continuous basis, and somehow they know that the beekeeper is not a threat despite a complete lack of personal exposure to the beekeeper. I learned this when I was the beekeeper about 20 years ago, and at the time they did not have a mechanism for the scent to be passed down to other generations. Admittedly, there are not too many parallels between honeybees and hognoses, but it does show that this phenomenon is present in animal systems.
- There would be a huge evolutionary advantage to plastic diet specialization. For instance, if a snake were a diet generalist but happened to be in an area with dense amphibian concentrations and subsequently thrived off of the abundance of amphibians, it stands to reason that if that snake's progeny also had an affinity for amphibians, then the next generation would also benefit from the amphibian diet. Perhaps a specialized diet turns on specific genes that predisposes its progeny to the same specialized diet. This would not require a mutation or change in the genotype, but merely a turning on and off of particular genes that enables an individual to take full advantage of local resources. I would like to point out that during embryonic development, the young would positively be exposed to the metabolic byproducts of a specialized diet in the bloodstream feeding the embryo. ****
Although it is not quite the same, it reminds me of the advantages of asexual reproduction in plants. Many plants clone themselves which has a huge advantage if the particular habitat of the parent is growing in is ideal. Because the habitat is ideal, the parent plant obviously has the right combination of genes to take advantage of the resources in the habitat. Why waste energy on sexual reproduction and different combinations of genes that may actually reduce the fitness of the progeny? Of course habitats change, so sexual reproduction is still necessary for the long-term success of the species. But in the short-term, when a particular resource is abundant, being as close as possible to the parent would increase the chances of survival.
**** The above is just a wild conjecture on my part. I may have gotten an A in genetics, it doesn't mean my name is Watson or Crick!!!
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Virginia Herping
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/VaHS
Virginia Herpetological Society online store
http://www.cafepress.com/vaherpsociety
"The irrational fear of snakes is the only excuse a grown man has... to act like a complete sissy" - Colchicine
Thanks, very interesting post, gives me stuff to think about lol
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Frank Roberts
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The diet of parent animals will in no way effect the diet of the offspring; the only parental "teaching" that I know of in snakes is with timber rattlesnakes and rookery rock to den movements, which is a stretch at the very least. in short, If I were to remove one of your arms, your children would still be born with two arms...
perhaps over many generations (several thousand years, at the absolute least) dietary preferences could be changed, but even then the parent's dietary preferences would have little impact on the offspring. One generation simply isn't enough.
It's certainly possible that some lines of easterns are more apt to take rodents than others - changes in the environment where the founding stock came from could influence dietary vaguery, but there is no way for us to really change that in a snake's evolutionary path...at least, not in our lifetimes. If you only bred mouse-eaters to mouse-eaters over 10,000 generations, i'm sure that SOME of that preference would be hereditary, but i would imagine that amphibian eaters would STILL hatch in every clutch.
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Erik Williams
fattailed geckos, western hognoses, and a bunch of postage stamps.
Contact me
www.chicagoherp.org
Chicago Herpetological Society
Thanks for the information.
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Frank Roberts
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how do know feeding is not AN "innate" property? which by the way doesn't require "teaching" link below. I have studied aggression in pythons for 20 years and it's an "innate" behavior, those retics got "tame" in a few generations?????? hummm not a million years or sooooo, I can give too many more examples, even when bred to highly aggressive parents, also I had retics that where voracious and so where their neonates, but once they tamed down all of a sudden so did their progeny, 6 years involved not a million and what a snake eats is passed on from the parents for certain, so it may work, survival isn't fixed, adaption has helped these animals be around for millions of years to entertain what you term evolution.
http://news.ucanr.org/newsstorymain.cfm?story=828
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Frank Roberts
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http://www.bioedonline.org/slides/slide01.cfm?q=%22innate%22&dpg=1
Please enlighten me some more please????
http://www.bioedonline.org/slides/slide01.cfm?q="innate"&dpg=1
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Frank Roberts
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If I were to remove one of your arms, your children would still be born with two arms...
redundant as a comparison, what I speak of is not a "physical" attribute, its albino or het or not that's solid genetics attributes, WELL ALMOST LOL ,this is a different kind of thing TOTALLY DIFFERENT KIND OF THING
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Frank Roberts
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what I meant by this, if you follow the boa forum, there are things going on there that are just mind blowing genetics wise. you are taking physical attributes and comparing them to things which adaption allowed evolution to take place, I agree a "physical change" would take millions of years, these changes I am not so certain about and so are millions of professional and amateur scientists alike, can you provide me with solid scientific evidence this is not possible??? I WILL NOT HOLD MY BREATH, cause I would perish waiting.
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Frank Roberts
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by this i mean skeletol changes, or perhaps changing from lizards to snakes, not het poss het, etc...
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Frank Roberts
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