Reptile & Amphibian Forums

Now before anyone starts huffing and puffing please save it. This is just some info about 3 females in my collection. I experimented with a few things this season, and trying small females as we discussed a lot over winter of 06 was something I tried. The same goes for to cool or not too cool....and these were not cooled.

The 3 snakes were 2 Honduran Milks and 1 Hybrid Milk X King cross.
The snakes were 2004s but growing slow as can be. Fussy feeders and just a royal pain. One Milk has a stub tail, the other was perfect, both were about as thick as the snake pictured n this post and about 30 inches or so when winter approached last year.
The Hybrid was even smaller, she only started taking small adult sized mice about that time.

So I left them in the snake room with heat, but a lot less heat then they're used too and I fed them a bit during winter. In 2006 I noticed that some snakes that were a bit fussy at feeding time snapped out of it after introduction to a male. So for the sake of experimenting I paired up these 3 snakes with mates and 2 were instantly receptive, the other started eating more first and then was willing to breed.

So... the Hybrid became a voracious feeder, the stub tail Honduran ate more but bred the most and the other Milk developed easily noticeable follicles and bred but still didn't eat much?
One thing did happen that I did predict, and that is they all hit a growth spurt and grew several inches longer and put on weight. The end result was
Snow project Honduran, laid 6 perfect eggs
Vanishing Pattern Ghost project Honduran laid 5 perfect eggs
Hybrid laid 2 outrageously huge eggs!
The pics are of the Hybrid and her eggs. She grew SO MUCH this spring, unbelieveable really. But the thing I saw for myself was that size did not matter for these snakes. They did awesome and I am considering double clutching them.

I always recommended the 40 inches and 400 gram rule of thumb for most females, but honestly I have to think differently now. Many of us tend to get caught up in listening to people who swear they know the right thing to do for their [and your!]snakes. Though much sound advice is given on here someone I really respect was met with much disbelief and talked down too about "the poor snakes" and why do this n that when you may risk the health of the snake. My final thoughts are that these 3 snakes would not have bred regardless of anything I did if they weren't ready. I didn't think they were, apparently I was wrong. Live n learn
Here's the pic of the Hybrid, notice she is about the thickness of my finger.


The screw in the pic is for size reference, it's two inches long.

If these results are not typical, fine....... I won't argue. But don't always assume you must wait for your females to be a specific size before they're ready to breed. These three were totally receptive and completed the mission just fine. I need to see if I have any pics of the Hybrid before winter came....she was so small most of us would never have considered breeding her........just look at her now!
Tom Stevens

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TomsSnakes.com

In my experience (I've been breeding snakes since 1972), animals that are "ready to breed" (i.e. have sufficient nutritional stores to produce healthy offspring) will attempt to do so, whether we choose to help facilitate them or not. This is why we so often see small females produce infertile clutches when not provided with a male. This is very stressful on a female, as infertile clutches are more difficult for her to deposit successfully, and egg binding is a frequent result.

If a female is large enough that I can conceivably imagine that she might ovulate, I always provide her with a male-the worst that can happen is that she fails to produce a clutch. I'm often pleasantly surprised, and I've had no higher incidence of egg binding than with older females.

In one extreme case, a friend got a very small clutch from a goini that couldn't have been more than 24 inches total! This animal is now a healthy, normal sized adult.

Brad Chambers

Hey Brad, do you happen to have a web site??? Tom Stevens
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TomsSnakes.com

no post

I'm Commented to you on this topic off the forum but i'll comment here...

You're right a female will breed when she's ready to breed!

This season i bred one female that some may consider "small" and she gave me TEN (10) perfect eggs all of which are still healthy and due to hatch the 2nd week of july!

Also i bred i bred about six (6) females this season that were NEVER brumated! all of which produced healthy/ fertile eggs

Lastly i do have one female in my collection that has never bred, she is HUGE, feeds great AND was brumated but she's never been receptive to ANY of the males in my collection... all the above being said there's is no way to force a female to breed (in my opinion) she won't breed if she's not willing/ready.

Good luck to all this season with breeding / keeping / raising

~Z

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***All New Updated Pix in Gallery***


Royal ReptileZ
Home of Bklyn's Finest Brooksi

Great information. If you do not cool the female, how do you know when to introduce the male? I would typically introduce the male after the first shed following brumation.

Thanks,
Michael

1st: Don't get me wrong I do brumated my males and some females, thing is this season there were females I wanted to pump up during the winter so I didn't cool them... when I was introducing pairs those same females looked like they were ovulating so I put them with a male and THEY BRED!

2nd: There were females I did the "text book" introduction with ( after the 1st shed) and they didn't breed till their 2nd or 3rd sheds...

if you take a good look at your females you'll notice them getting a bit plump (ovulating) you can even run your thumb down their bellies (with a little pressure) and you'd be able to feel the ova .

also I keep pairs together for a while few weeks if needed...

~ZF
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***All New Updated Pix in Gallery***


Royal ReptileZ
Home of Bklyn's Finest Brooksi

Thanks for the info.

Another question...Do you worry about them eating each other when you leave them in together? I was really concerned about this with my Pinellas Co. Getula this year and I think this is why I didn't end up with eggs...just didn't give them enough time. A good friend of mine recommended to leave them in together for a while to give the male time to work his magic, but I was afraid of losing one of them. Have you ever lost any snakes from leaving them in together?

Thanks again.

Michael

Hey Mike, long time no talk. I have left Kings and Milks together for days on end numerous times. I have even seen them try to eat each other during the first few minutes of introduction, sometimes as many as 3 times....and then they come to their senses and breed.
Tom Stevens
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TomsSnakes.com

I hear that Zenny. I also had a small Brooksi that I could not even tell was gravid drop 15 eggs. I think our best bet as breeders is to look at all snakes as individuals, and look for signs that they do indeed want to breed
Tom Stevens
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TomsSnakes.com

both of my young females grew during brumation.

One of them was actually sick last year and underweight. She had been treated but vet wanted me to keep her warm. She stopped feeding and I decided if she wants to go down, who am I to disagree? She went in about 30 inches and came out about 34 inches. She's just about 36" now - and a healthy weight.

Obviously she did not gain weight over brumation - but she gained several inches, and woke up in a feeding frenzy. I tried to breed her but I don't think she even ovulated. Males were initially interested but lost interest very quickly. Next year, she'll be healthy going into brumation and should hopefully breed - I want to test her genes.

Other young female was healthy and also grew over brumation. She went in a few inches shy of 36" and came out about 37". Laid 5 nice looking eggs.

I have a young female '06 MBK that is just over 24 inches now. I'm hoping to get her big enough to breed with my 4' male next season, and I suspect she'll make it - but it isn't the end of the world if she doesn't. My two very late (end nov/beg dec) '06 Cal Kings are both just about 18 inches now - I'm going to brumate them this winter (save on feeding bill) but won't try breeding them until '09. I plan on accurately measuring those three females and seeing if they grow over winter.

But anyway - I was amazed at how much those young females grew. My young males interestingly didn't grow much. Too small a sample size to mean anything conclusive, but it seems their bodies wanted extra length possibly preparing for breeding - even though one of them didn't (I think because she was underweight from the hookworm).
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3.6 L. getula californiae - 16 eggs (Cal. King)
1.1 L. getula nigrita (MBK)
1.0 Pantherophis guttatus guttatus (Corn)
0.1 Pituophis catenifer catenifer (Pacific gopher)
3.3 Elgaria multicarinata multicarinata - 14 eggs (Cal. Alligator Lizard)

Just curious.........are you not going to introduce the male anymore this season??? Tom Stevens
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TomsSnakes.com

No.
If they double clutch with infertile eggs than I will next season, but I don't want to encourage more production this season.

I may try the female that didn't mate again, I've been doing so after every shed - but nothing has resulted. At this point the males aren't even courting, so I think the previous courtship were in response to phermones they smelled from the other females.
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3.6 L. getula californiae - 16 eggs (Cal. King)
1.1 L. getula nigrita (MBK)
1.0 Pantherophis guttatus guttatus (Corn)
0.1 Pituophis catenifer catenifer (Pacific gopher)
3.3 Elgaria multicarinata multicarinata - 14 eggs (Cal. Alligator Lizard)

but then again, when has a line toe-ing poop snoot ever made progress in any field? ride on!
daveb

I wanted to get some more opinions after reading this thread should I not brumate sub adults or even at all? This is my first time breeding and I only have a pair and wanted to get the best results possible.

At my place I only cool adults. I want them to grow as much as possible for the first 18 months of life. I have on occasion cooled borderline breeding size snakes at the very end of winter for a quick cooling but I usually like to leave them cool for 3 months. Seems to make them more predictable and gives me a much needed break from all the maintenance.
Tom Stevens
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TomsSnakes.com

Is there anything to the idea that instead of thinking about brummating as a mimic of natural seasons, perhaps it is the stress cycle that inspires the enzyme for a snake to want to pass on it’s genes. The natural instinct for preservation of the species might kick in when a snake gets the biological notion that it is time to create more of it’s kind. A fat happy lazy captive pet might not be inclined to get that feeling. Perhaps a snake that feels the end might be near has a stronger urge to replicate. When we brummate, we are just inducing the stress factor that inspires the natural tendancy of snakes in distress to reproduce and preserve their own. Maybe inducing a stress cycle (like cooling them and withholding food) is actually what is causing them to reproduce?

feel like copulating when I'm under stress .....

Brad Chambers

I don't think so, mainly because if you do or do not cool your snakes I think they react to the changing of the seasons wether they're are exposed to them or not. How they know this? That I can not tell you.
I will always cool mine, I do think it helps insure fertility in males, and I also think the warm up after the cooling triggers the females to ovulate. I have never had a set up that allowed me to try and get snakes to breed outside of their normal seasons. Jim from Home Grown Herps does and he consistently gets all his snakes to breed way earlier than anyone else I know.
Tom Stevens
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TomsSnakes.com