Reptile & Amphibian Forums

Hey John, Or anybody else with some helpful input, how long do you normally hibernate your chucks for? What the routine? When do you bring them out? Do they breed every year or every other year? I hatched a few 2 years ago and thought that I better prepared them this last year and had no success. Now I have them cooled but not quite hibernating and wondering what the best approach would be for the upcoming season. You and others obviously have had great success so any info would help. Thanks....Travis

P.S. I have commons, redbacks, and carrot tails. And I still havent got this picture to go away. Sorry about that.

Nevermind the pic is gone! YAH!

Hi Travis,
I usually try for at least two months but when our
Xmas day temps were in the low to mid 80s it's
really hard for them to stay down. This season I
decided to wake them a little earlier since I could
hear most of them stirring around so last week I
brought them all out for some mild sun and good
wake up temps. After a week some are picking
at their salads while a few are out for a few hours
of mild midday sun.

I usually begin fasting them starting in mid Nov and
by Thanksgiving they're ready for a cool down.
Since they're outdoors for most of the year I simply
roll their cages into the garage for the next 2 months.
It really depends on the weather if I leave them down
for the duration or bring them up earlier as I did last
week at only six weeks of cooling.

Last season most of my females produced eggs only
to reabsorb them. Not sure if the males actually bred
them or if they simply produced non viable eggs on
their own. Probably the latter. Hopefully things will
go better this season.

Hey, goood to hear you got rid of that funky photo,

John

Thanks for the info. Hopefully I will have some better results this year. What species of chucks do you breed?

Doug Dix has a featured article in the March issue of REPTILES Magazine on his Redtail chuck breeding projects. I herping bud just called to tell me about it.