Reptile & Amphibian Forums

What are your night and day temps during cycling/courtship? I have heard different things..

This is a plan I wrote prior to breeding in 2006.

Both the male and female will be kept at 92 belly heat with a gradient to 78-82 during the year. In September the female will be fed a meal slightly larger than normal each week. The male will be fed his normal size meal weekly instead of the 3-4 week norm. The last Sunday in September will be their last meal. After they have both cleared their systems following their last meal, the male's heat will be turned down to 82 degrees. His entire cage will then be a range of 82-78 during the day and 82-75 at night. The female will have her temp dropped to 87 belly, with the same cool temps as the male. I will leave them at this temperature through October. October 29th the female is offered a small meal (this is optional, but keep in mind the female will not eat until partuation). The male will then be introduced into her cage on the 31st. If the female ate, wait a couple more days. Reduce the female's heat to 85 degrees. Keep a close eye on them at first to make sure the female does not act negatively to the male's presence, or vise versa. Leave them at this reduced temperature until Thanksgiving. At this time breeding should be well under way, and the cage temperature will be slightly raised weekly through December back to 90 degrees by the end of the month. The pair will remain together until a definite ovulation is observed, at this point wait a few days before pulling him. The male will try and get out and be very active when breeding is done. Up to this point they have never been separated nor fed. This helps ensure success. If the male is not stressing out the female you can leave them together until POS. Keep in mind that both the male and female will normally shed once during the breeding trials, do not note this shed as a POS, this is usually before ovulation.

This plan was written for boas being kept in a climate similar to Pittsburgh, PA in a house kept at a 70 degrees year round.

If you have lights on your cages modify the cycle to fit the day period in your area. If you don't have lights on your cages that is ok.
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http://www.GilbertBoas.com/
http://www.BoaList.com/

Nice plan and write-up Chris. How'd it work out? Is it different from what you did in previous years? Do you feel you had any more or less success, if it is different? Love to hear more!

Thanks,

Mark
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uncommonboa.com

That was my first attempt at breeding Boa constrictors. I got babies, so I'd consider it a success. I did end up with a couple of stillborns and 3 kinked babies, but I attribute that to the female's age. She delivered before she was 3 years old, and in other animals female's age, either too young or old can cause problems. Also, at least 2 other breeders this past season who bred sisters to my female had similar results. I know fertility was good, the major reason behind cooling, because I only got one slug.

This year I will be trying that temp cycle with many more pairs, and of different types of boas. I may also try night drops, especially with my Amarali.

I will be doing 4-5 breedings, and my dad will be doing 3-4 breedings this year, all of which will follow the same plan. Last year my dad tried the no cooling method, got 4 stills the rest were slugs, so obviously the fertility was not as good.

I don't think drastic cooling is needed, I do think that it can lead to health concerns with the animals, as well as added stress that can be avoided. I do think, and I feel with good evidence, that cycling is important, at least at my latitudes and climate. Different breeders employ different methods depending where they are in the country, as well as the exact type of boa they have. For example, my Amarali I do not think will do as well with the same cycle as Imperator.

This is another issue people should consider when buying animals, and more so a reason to start with babies. Buying an older boa, especially a proven breeder from a vastly different region may take some time to get used to the way another person breeds their animals. A boa that has bred for years in Arizona may not breed with a similarly experienced keeper in New York.

I will continue to keep track of what I do with each of my pairs, and the results.
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http://www.GilbertBoas.com/
http://www.BoaList.com/

Chris,

Thanks for the info. Congrats on the litter and best of luck in the upcoming season!

Cooling is a question I am interested in, and would like to pose a question to the group.

In Daytona this year, during his presentation on the mechanics of boa breeding, I believe Dave Barker made the comment that cooling was not necessary with BCI, the males were fertile throughout the year, with a possible seasonal increase in sperm production. Did anyone else hear the presentation, and what are your thoughts on that? I have heard of many off-season successful breeding attempts (usually unplanned, but none the less successful). Has anyone here experienced this, and if so, did you experience fertility issues that may have been attributable to lack of cooling? I need to write Dave about this. If I remember, this year he and Tracy delivered a clutch of T pos in January, so the bredding must have been off-season. Interesting....

(And if Dave or Tracy are reading this, please correct anything I have said if it is incorrect. And I'd love to hear more of your thoughts on the topic!)

Your thoughts?

Thanks,

Mark
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uncommonboa.com

I missed the symposium. Was there any mention of cycles for other subspecies? If anyone has a video of the symposium I'd love to see it.
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http://www.GilbertBoas.com/
http://www.BoaList.com/

I don't think he mentioned other species. Since most of his pictures were of his T pos, which are BCI, I assumed the talk was primarily geared towards BCI...hope I didn't assume incorrectly...
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uncommonboa.com

and I think I saw Jeff Ronne running a video camera...not sure if there is a video avaiable...but we know who to ask!
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uncommonboa.com

Thanks a lot for the help Chris, this is my first breeding attempt. One thing you mentioned was birth defects on offspring produced by females under 3 years. One female I wanted to try this season is an 05 and is currently 5.5ft and 9lbs. I was going to start cycling her in late November just to get her and the male a bit larger beforehand. The male right now is an 06 and is almost 3ft and feeding every 4 days to gain some size) Do you suggest I hold off on this attempt until next season? I have been looking forward for this pairing for a while but wouldnt want to hurt the female and/or offspring if this is risky..

Thanks,

Mat

I would wait on that pair. Both seem young. Last year I had a similar scenario, '04 female and '05 male. I decided to wait till this year and the female has grown an added 2 feet and 10lbs more since last year. So I am glad I waited. The breeding last year were CA BCI which are known to breed sooner than other boas. If you are breeding Colombians you may want to wait. Though it really depends on the individual animals. I had a 3 year old Bolivian female I didn't even consider breeding this year, but was fine with the 2 year old CA. Some boas mature faster than others.

The deformed babies I attribute to age of the female since other breeders who had sisters to mine had similar problems. And they used a variety of males. Though I do have two other possible reasons, one the babies born were F3, which means that 3 generations of inbred lines occurred. Filial generations are often used incorrectly but a REAL F3, or F4, or F5 means there has been no outside unrelated blood introduced to the bloodline since the P pairing. In my case Rich Ihle did the P breeding, Tom Burke bought F1s from this litter, bred them, I got my F2, bred them and produced the F3. If I had bought an F2 female from Tom and an F2 male from someone else, and bred them together I would have been back at F1 with my babies. The last possibility may be temps while the female was gravid, though I think this is least likely as she had a gradient range from 93-82. So she could cool back down if need be, and she did. Incubation temps have been attributed to kinks in some Ball Pythons, granted in that scenario there is a fixed temperature. Also, those deformities could be part of the mutation I was working towards, Blood boas have not been outcrossed much, because doing so introduces traits that are not appealing.
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http://www.GilbertBoas.com/
http://www.BoaList.com/

I have raised Boas for 14 years, and been breeding fo 12yrs. I go strictly by light cycle and do not cool my cages at all. I'm not a huge breeder but I've produced litters 11 out of the 12 years that I've tried. In my experience, every gravid female of 3 1/2 years or older and 10 lbs has produced healthy full term litters. Once I had 3 slugs, but the norm was 0-1 slug, and never more than 2 stillborn. Now I have had females slug out on me three times and they were all females that were 2 1/2 years and 9-10 lbs.
My buddy across town breeds Boas as well, and he's cooled them in the past with perfect results, and he's also just used the light cycle method with great results. He's the only guy that I know that hasn't ever had a female slug out ever with 10 years of breeding . He always uses females of good age/weight.
Chris G. had great results cooling, and probably will many more times, but with only one breeding under his belt isn't enough to say that the cooling is the best way for the success. He obviously keeps careful records and temp readings, plus I believe him to be a major asset in this community and a huge source for Boa info. I'm not "putting you down" Chris.
To me, the main factors for good healthy litters are:

- Good healthy females age/weight.
- accurate notes on dates, feedings, sheds, etc.
- Having the cage in a low traffic area - don't pester them too much. No room lights at night, check them with a low flashlight.
- Slowing their feeding prior to introduction, then stop feeding during courtship. Let them focus on breeding, not feeding.
- mature males. they can breed at a younger age - yes. But they may not be as verile. You won't know until parturition.
- lean males tend to be more aggresive courters than heavy ones. My males are eating every 2-3 weeks this month and next month, and also smaller meals half the normal size.
- Leaving the males in up to, and thru ovulation.

And know that different females do different things during courtship, and during pregnancy. Some stay coiled, some stretchout from time to time. Some are always on the hot side, some switch hot to cool. Some have a post-shed, some don't. Some never eat while gravid, some will. Keep good notes and you can know how each female acts from the previous years.
Once again, I want Chris G to know that I think his way works well for him and many other people, and I wouldn't say that following his method is wrong. It may be the best way - I can't say. I haven't had to cool them though, I just put a curtain over the window, and tape newspaper over the cooler half of the cage windows. I do drop the hot spot by 4 degrees, but the ambient temps are the same year around, day and night. It works good for me because I don't have to mess with the thermostats all of the time.
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I'm just the snake room janitor

Thanks. What are your ambient temps kept at year round? And when do you lower and raise the four degrees?

my temps are usually around 84-86 in most parts of the cages. When I drop the hot spot, the rest of the cage still stays 82-85. I keep the snake room around 77-80. On their last meal, I draw the miniblinds to half, after 2 weeks I draw them closed and lower the hot spot and wait another week befor introducing the males. If I see courtship, I tape newspaper to much of the window so that I can attend to other cages without disturbing them any more than I have to.
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I'm just the snake room janitor

One small detail Chris left out was that my pairing was also with a 2.5 yr old female.

I don't believe temps are as important as light cycles. I got my first boa back in 1974, and started producing babies in 1976. Back then we didn,t have fancy thermostates with night drops. I've learned through many trial and errors. What works best for me is daylight time. I do drop temps a little, but I think the trigger is when day light time drops to ten hours or less.