Reptile & Amphibian Forums

I will try ot keep this short.....
Anyone who knows me knows I feed the bejeezus out of my females. I have had great success doing things the way I do them and would not even consider changing anything, unless an indivdual snake simply won't feed as much as I would guess she should. This example is a 10 year old virgin Cal King.

She is quite large, probably close too 4 foot but very thin, not emaciated...just not thick. I bred her anyway. She was receptive and I was a little shocked because she regurged a few times even when offered small meals of 2 to 3 mice. So I did not have much confidence in her producing.

I saw her refuse food after her last shed but she barely looked any different than usual, I thought at most she was ovulating. Today I found 8 eggs in the cage, there was no nest box isnide as I didn't think she was gravid.

There is talk about snakes in the wild on here, and how they do not eat much at all and yet produce eggs all the time. Now I can say for at leats this one time, I saw it happen here too. A thin, regurging 10 year old snake that barely ate since warming this spring gave me what appears to be a fertile clutch.

Frank Retes has been a big influence on me in the way of confidence. A lot of what he has discussed with me had been things I suspected would be true as far as what goes on in the snake room. I'd like to think my husbandry is playing a large role in my success, but I am glad Frank and a few others on here were there to support me when the critics voiced their opinions. So now I have seen for myself that though my regular way of getting females primed for the season works fine, the complete opposite may also in some cases do just fine. You just never know unless you experiment. I bred just about eveyr female I have this year regardless of age or size.....and look forward to seeing how things pan out. Keep an open mind and let your snakes do what they wanna do. regardless of what happens, it is all a learning experience
Tom Stevens
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TomsSnakes.com

heres the deal(deal or no deal, hahahahaha) snakes have a season. The breeders breed during that season. They have no need to feed as they have conserved the energy and do not lose it needlessly. The non feeders attempt to reach breeding condition at all times of the year(weather permitting) Once they do, or reach maturity, then stop feeding and conserve. During feeding season, breeders and non breeders feed. Again they build up condition to reproduce.

In between, they conserve energy as to not lose what they have gained. This is a wonderful quality reptiles have.

In nature, four feedings will be enough to reproduce without problem. Again consider, the time between meals is spend conserving energy. That is, they lower their metabolism as to not burn energy unnecessarily.

To think of this in our misguided terms. They actually hibernate/brumate at all seasons between feeding, breeding, shedding, growing. All you have to do is allow them to have brumating conditions all year and include a hot spot to allow the other stuff. Thats what reptiles do.

In captivity we do not allow much choice. So they eat and burn up fuel and eat some more and burm more fuel. We keepers make it a race, will the female burn up fuel before she has a chance to reproduce. So we feed them tons of food. If we actually used our brains and thought about what reptiles are, we would remember they have the ability to lower their metabolism and conserve energy. With that in mind, if we gave them a choice of temps where they could get as warm as THEY wanted, not as warm as we wanted, and as cool as they wanted. That would give them their natural ability to have the best of both worlds. They would eat very little and produce a lot more. Hmmmmmmmmm sounds like a win win to me.

By the way, I have woma eggs, many gravid colubrid snakes, turtle and tort eggs, monitors hatching, breeding, nesting and incubating.

Oh yea, those Calking/thayeri I hatched are breeding. I bred them to eachother and back to thayeri. I am thinking on breeding them to spotted turtles. hahahahahahahahaha.

This year, I did not have as much time as normal, but I did observe some neat events. photograghed rattlesnakes breeding. Which is kinda common as they breed for hours. But his time they were not together then came together while I was there. Also I went to a spot where I photographed a female gila ovulating, and thermoregulating, and there was a whole clutch of babies. Kinda cool. Oh and I finally got attacked(chased) by a large diamondback. hahahahahahaha. It was very interesting. I have heard of such stories but in all the years I have been in the field I never experience it. hahahahahahaha. I think its used a bluff behavior they use for "normal" larger animals. It lunged, mouth closed, over and over, while coming at me. But once it got near me, it realized I was a human, and backed away and to its shelter, in a very defensive manner. IT was a big fella for here(not texas) approaching 6 foot.

Congrats of the great results of your hard work. I do from time to time read your posts. Cheers

Happy Mother's Day Frank, lol! Great to hear from you, always good to get a tidbit from your neck of the world. If you have time, some of us would like to hear from you on the FieldNotes forum. You certainly have the touch and much to share.
Todd Hughes

""To think of this in our misguided terms. They actually hibernate/brumate at all seasons between feeding, breeding, shedding, growing. All you have to do is allow them to have brumating conditions all year and include a hot spot to allow the other stuff. Thats what reptiles do.""

For my 74 qt containers I have about a 12-15 inch strip of 3 inch heat tape. The boxes are close to 4 foot long and I think 18-20 inches wide. My room has an AC unit on almost all the time. I do see snakes using different spots in the cage all the time. For now I think I am on the right track. This week I will finally begin building my second snake room. I may expirement with leaving heat tape on [very low] during winter in a few cages to see what happens.

This year I have tried a few different things as well. One was old faithful, my breeder MBK who is goin on 8 years old had a RI that would not quit last season. Baytril did not do the trick so I kept her awake and probably hotter than she is used too most of the winter. She had been cooled since she was an adult every year before this past year. She laid a perfect clutch already and is probably gravid again. Oh yeah,......and the RI went away.

I had a few other females that were 3 years old but still quite small. I kept them awake too and did not cool them but cooled their male mates. They bred too, matter of fact one did not want to eat much but when I picked her to inspect her I could feel lumps in her. I put a male in and they bred. We'll see if I get good clutches and snakes that recover well after laying the eggs. You really can't be sure what the snakes want until you give them a chance to show you.......that is my FR influence showing. Thanks for writing Frank. We all like to hear from you.
Tom Stevens
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TomsSnakes.com