Reptile & Amphibian Forums

This seems to be hot topic here, so I figured I'd create a new thread about where you got your mice from and how your eggs did this season. Any results we gleam from here may point to something, which could help clear up any speculation. They may show no pattern at all too. This will address just one portion of the entire aspect of breeding snakes. If you breed your own explain what you used for food.

Keep your responses short to make the data easy to navigate through.

I'll start with a fresh response to the thread...I'm just bored at work so I figured what the heck....
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Tom

"The more people I meet, the more I like my snakes"

My mice came from Big Cheese Rodent supply last year.

I had 12 good eggs from the only female I bred this year.
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Tom

"The more people I meet, the more I like my snakes"

you bred one snake that you fed bigcheese rodents and it laid good eggs CONGRATS but it had NOTHING to do w/the rodents. its a BIG stretch to ASSUME egg binding is from malnourished rodents or even that rodents fed dogfood are malnourished. i raise alot of my own rodents i make my rodent chow the primary ingredient is DOG FOOD mixed w/cereals, oats & various seeds i also buy from bigcheese,rodentpro,and others. have i had binding issues? not generally, the ones ive had(years ago)i would not attribute to poorly fed rodents so much as dehydration, lack of adequate laying spot, stress, etc. if you wanna see a snake thats deprived get a baby and raise it on pinky mice(lil to no calcium) its doubtful it will make it to adulthood much less ever breed. calcium deffecient snakes develop kinks if dogfood fed rodents were the problem this faux problem would have raised its head a long time ago,,,,,,,,,,thomas davis
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Morphs... just like baseball cards BUT ALIVE, how cool is that???

my website www.barmollysplace.com

He didn't make any assumptions.

I know Tom personally and he is trying to "clear the air" here.

Anyone who has any experience with snakes figures that this is not a causation, but that's exactly what he's trying to prove out.

Re-read the post.

Chris

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"All the fancy names in the world will be of no help if you do not know the difference between chocolate pudding and pig poop." -Frank Retes

Where did I say my food was the only reason for my successful breeding?
Get off your horse and re-read what I said. Thanks for starting this thread off with a bang.

I said - "This will address just one portion of the entire aspect of breeding snakes."

My purpose for this thread was simply to collect info and let everyone else make their own decisions on whether it's relevant at all or not. I'm not trying to prove anything.

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Tom

"The more people I meet, the more I like my snakes"

If the mice were the problem, why haven't that nice posters other snakes suffered the same problem? If it was the mice, then calicum deficency would be across the board, would it not?

Because its noticed in one reproductive female, means its most likely a reproductive problem.

And because it resulted in death, the focus is ON that one animal.

The truth is, compared to growth, where the entire skeleton can be doubled in size every week or two. Reproduction uses very little calicum and can easily be taken for normal stores. In fact, if the female is deficent, its absorbed from the skeleton and shows up as lumps along the backbone.

Which means, they do not need to eat to gain this added need for calicum. Again, growth uses so much calicum, its REQUIRED to be gained for active feeding. Of course, it would show up here first and fastest.

Because its a reproductive event, and the owner/keepers, wants to believe he did everything he could, HE HAS TO, blame something other then their own self. I am sure, after the emoton wears off, and this occurs over and over, this nice person will learn to avoid this problem or get out of reproducing snakes.

The actual truth is, its more about maintenance. More mistakes are made after we know how to do something. After years and numbers, we tend to become lax and do not pay the same attention we did when it was new and exciting. This is a far bigger problem then any mouse deal. Or even learning better ways to nest.

Also, I only come here to needle copycat husbandry. that is, lets do the minimum and thats it. Tupperware can be made to work, but its the minimum, not the maximum. There are so many easy ways to increase the quality of keeping and nesting. Why not explore these options too.

Such as, there are to darn many misguided paradigns. For instance, the nest box has to be smaller then the cage. Hmmmmmmmmmm the reason is, it goes in the cage?????? The reality is, our cages are way to small and are again commonly the minimum. With that in mind, who says you cannot make a nesting cage thats far bigger then the actual cage(this is what I do) I do not produce thousands of clutches anymore, so I only need a few nesting cages, that are bigger and deeper and darker then what I keep my snakes in. After egglaying I store the boxes away. How simple is that? I place the females in these larger cages with many times deeper substrate, around their pre-egglaying shed. Then take them out after they lay. Heck in most cases thats only a few days.

No offense, but that is not all that much work to prevent eggbinding or even prevent undue stress, even if it does not kill them.

What we found was, the females lost much less weight, they almost appeared to NOT have laid, they often went on to lay two or even three clutches(an added benefit if your into that type of thing)

Oh and like others, I learned this from the same events the original poster had. From experiencing eggbinding many years ago.

Which leads to this, is that not our duty to express what has worked for us, even if its not what the person having problems thinks is the problem?????? Is that not why there are forums, you know, so we can learn from others who have already gone thru the same types of bad events????? I get the feeling, this IS the actual task of forums(problem solving) and not so much a social event where everyone pats eachother on the back. Oh Willis, it will be alright, your such a good caring fella. I am sure that poster was a good caring fella, but patting him on the back is of NO VALUE to preventing more eggbound snakes. Cheers

Why couldn't the mice be only part of the problem? Maybe not feeding enough, or the fact that some captive bred snakes are not as strong as wild ones. A wild snake gets exercise all day and night. Anything they do they are moving around and building muscle. Most captive bred snakes are kept in small tubs and basically sit there and look pretty. I believe in feeding live smaller prey items to my snakes for a couple reasons. I think they stay more active, will eat more often, get a little extra fat content, and they are exercising by constricting. I believe this is helping them to build muscles to lay eggs. Do they need a good egg laying area , of course they do. I also supplement my rodents with calcium. Only a little every couple feedings. I think this helps with the fact that I like to use younger rodents that do not have mature bones. I do think it is wrong to blame the snake egg binding on only one thing. Dehydration, calcium deficency, bad choice for a nesting area, maybe she needed a few exra mice, or just maybe she was a weak snake. We will never know but we can argue huh?
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i'm not over weight i'm under tall

I actually like your post, it reveals lots of misconceptions and in a very normal way.

For instance, I do agree, captives are normally much weaker then wild snakes. And lets apply that apples to apples. A normal wild snake vs. a normal healthy captive. Yes, wild ones are stronger.

And yes, in most cases they are stronger for the reasons you mentioned. Now lets disagree, I do not blame the captive snake for being weaker, I blame us for keeping them in conditions that make them weaker. We do not have to keep them in tiny tupperware or sterlite boxes, we could give them things to burrow in, or climb on, or swim in, or whatever they would normally do. There is no law that says we are suppose to take that away and keep them in with the least. That is a choice people make. We choose to keep them in liuttle boxes that do not allow them to exercise. The captive snakes did not pick those cages. You see, its not the snake thats weaker, its our choice of husbandry thats weaker.

Also, there are other reasons they are weaker. Some of these other reasons are conditional. Snakes are ectotherms, which means two real basic things, One we all understand that is, they control their metobolism(with heat) gained outside the body. That is, they use their enviornment to control their temps. And of course visa versa. But in the case of these types of reptiles, it also means they use a range of normal temps, not one like us. Hmmmmm we actually run on 98.6(normal average) but use higher or lower conditionally, that is to control bacteria with fevers and cooling. Which is also normal to us.

Snakes pick a relatively wide range compared to us, depending on need and conditions. For instance, wild snakes decrease their body temps to rest and increase to become active. They increase their body temps under certain conditions such as shedding, digesting prey items, and to allow faster growth and building, the immune system(healing injuries, desease etc).

If you take the digestion of prey items, the temps they pick are directly related to the size of the item, large items take higher temps for a short period, smaller items may not even need an increase in body temps. The range between these is fairly wide, high 70's to high 90's, this includes both captives and wild snakes.

Yet in captivity, we again "choose" to offer the least amount of choices and some keepers take it to an extreme, like 82.7 for kings, and 84.3 for pits, and 81.404 for greenrats, Get it, how funny is that. The reality is, yes, these snakes do choose slighly different temps, but in reality, they all pick from the exact same range of temps. Say if you offerred 65F to 95F, all these snakes would function much better and incur far less problems then their averaged out brothers. In fact, such things as fat snakes would not become a problem or the weak captive syndrome would start to disappear.

So I agree, captives are weak and that is exactly why I offer the thoughts I do. I hope some fine folks like you will question and then think. Then try something other then caresheet husbandry. You know, follow the leader, particularly when the leader should actually be the snakes and not the keeper.

The thought thats often missed is, once success is reached, then it becomes level of success. Mere success is the actual bottom rung of the ladder, not the top. Mere success is where we start as decent keepers, not the end goal. Nature judges species by the quality of recruitment, not simple making babies, but how many and how many survive is what is important.

And a thought missed here is, in nature, they are stronger even when every meal they consume is full of parasites. Imagine that, our captives would be DEAD. hahahahahahaha give them choices please. Thanks

Frank, you could not help trying to disagree huh? I did not blame captive snakes for being weak any where in my post. I just stated they are and gave a couple examples why I thought this way. Haveyou ever thought why snakes are kept in such small enclosures? Maybe greed, addiction, space, and economic reasons. I mean how could someone stuff 200 snakes in an apartment these days without all these nice economical racks and tubs being made and with these small tubs how could one vary the temps so much? Instead of telling everyone how dumb they are and how wrong they are why don't you ask how they are doing things and then give your answer/opinion. Why don't you show everyone what a good enclosure looks like and offer advice on how to vary the temps so much. This would be more useful then pompus rants about how stupid we all are and how wrong we all are. I know my snakes would be better off in bigger cages, I think everyone does but it just doesn't fit in with our greed and addiction. Why don't you be the guy that designs the rack system that we all could afford and fit in our houses that would better house the snake. I was just a little curious because you say you know an awful lot about how they should but it seems you don't care to indulge the rest of us. Do you want our snakes to suffer at the hands of the keeper that doesn't know right from wrong, well if not then correct us.
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i'm not over weight i'm under tall

NO!,....I didn't make a post here, as it would only give more fuel for needless argument!..hahaha!!

Later Charlie!, ~Doug
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"Better to be silent and thought a fool, than to open mouth and remove any doubt!"

About the small cages, I do not think its about greed. Of course mass producers should indeed keep them in such a way. But private keepers have no reason to keep them in shoe or sweater boxes. But they still do.

In fact, a better survey would be to have everyone respond with what kind of caging do they use. That would be interesting.

Also, greed could be taken another way, as in, not the keepers greed, but instead the commerical businesses may be promoting greed. But then I am not sure of that either because you can indeed purchase custom caging or rack systems. The keeper has a choice or build their own.

My bet is, most purchase rack systems because they are cheap and they work to some extent. The drawback is quality of observation, whether for a better understanding of these snakes biology or for simple aesthetics.

No sir, its not always about greed, its probably more about addictive behavior, many of us tend to keep more snakes then we should, so we pack them into smaller cages. I guess thats some sort of greed or something.

Again none of that is important anyway, the truth is, we have choices and we make those choices. The snakes are not making those choices for us. The reality is, they the snakes, do not care what reason we have for putting them in small boxes. It doesn't matter if it is greed or stupidity for that matter, the outcome is the same, its still a small box.

Without question, small cages restrict the type and quality of behaviors we will see. It will also limit the abilities of the animals themselves.

You did mention having pretty snakes is what may be important, and I totally agree with you. But wouldn't it be better to have cages where you can actually SEE those pretty snakes??? Why not keep them in large cages that show off their beauty? This often baffles me. But then as you know, I am often baffled by humans and their behaviors. Cheers

A huge advantage to rack systems is the ease of cleaning them.
It is much much much easier to clean a tub than any other type of enclosure.
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I decided my old sig was too big.

But that has nothing to do with the snake and its ability to behave in any natural way. Its only a convience for you, not the snake. Cheers

"If the mice were the problem, why haven't that nice posters other snakes suffered the same problem? If it was the mice, then calicum deficency would be across the board, would it not?"

Right. In my mind, I had a pretty good idea it was not the food, but since the concept seemed to be debated rather than obvious, it made sense to have everyone just lay all their data out on the floor in a semi-organized fashion and then stand back and look at the big picture. Some people just need their info displayed differently to them before it clicks.

This thread may go over or has already gone over like a turd in a punchbowl. I was just trying to help clarify an issue.

And now, for something completely different...

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Tom

"The more people I meet, the more I like my snakes"

I understand what your saying, Of course your right in many ways. In this case, the problem is much greater then comparing clutches. As you will see success and failure will caused by many things.

You know, If A B C=G then if changing the value of A has no effect on G, then A equals zero. The problem was not A to start with. You see, the chances of it being calicum mice is illogical, I could see a calicum deficent individual mouse. But as mentioned, if a commerical mouse breeder uses a food source that does not produce strong mice, his production drops or stops, which is not a good thing for a mouse breeder. Mice are kinda picky like that. hahahahahahahahahaha In otherwords, as a mouse breeder, we must produce at a high level in order to stay in business.

Also the "coulda beens" are useless conversational tools. Heck yes, you coulda been a mini meteorite that caused the problem. Heck it coulda been a zillion things. The truth is, there is a history and pattern of this kinda of failure. So that should be addressed first, not last. As I mentioned, the most common cause of eggbinding is dehydration. Next, we could have explored the many reasons for that. But of course, the poor mouse and raising food costs have nothing to do with that. Cheers

Lets look at this from a different perspective.

Snakes occasionally have infertile and or poorly calcified eggs and these occasionally cause problems for laying female, which can result in their death. This has always been the case as death is an integral part of life. Now there are husbandry practices that can cause these background occurrences to increase in frequency and severity and practices that can minimize the frequency and severity.

Each of us has a level at which we'll see these "background occurrence" as acceptable losses. As losses rise above this level we'll increasingly look to make changes. If those changes provide the desired relief we'll relax and think, "problem solved". This however does not mean that EVERYTHING is now optimal or that the "background occurrence" cannot be driven lower still through further measures. If you only looked at nesting and hydration, food quality and temperatures and could still be factors. If you only looked at diet and hydration, nesting could still be a factor. I could go on but I hope you get the point.

I have a corn that lays a healthy clutch of eggs every year. Like clockwork she lays them 6-7 days after her pre-lay shed but, she lays them outside of the nest boxes I provide her. This doesn't mean that providing proper nesting opportunities is not important. Likewise just because most of the time we have acceptable results without regard to the quality of our feeders does not mean that it isn't a factor when an individual snake becomes egg bound or throws some poorly or less than perfectly calcified eggs. In the case posted down forum, nesting did not seem to be the issue as the snake laid the first 8 eggs on time in the nest box provided. In cases such as these inquiring into other possible causes, including diet, is perfectly legitimate. It is not silly and it does it reflect on the keepers insecurities.

" If the mice were the problem, why haven't that nice posters other snakes suffered the same problem? If it was the mice, then calicum deficency would be across the board, would it not? "

I completely agree with Frank on this one. I do not feel that the mice were any part of the problem.
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Genesis 1:1

Are you insinuating that all snakes react to the same conditions in the same manner? I think its well established that given the same diet some snake will get fat and some will stay slim, some will grow slow and others fast. If we can accept this why would it be impossible to think that some can reproduce reliably on a particular diet while others could not?

If you question the application of any one factor against any one case you're going to come up short on the information you need. Individual animals are going to have problems no matter what you do.

>>>.. "Individual animals are going to have problems no matter what you do".

EXACTLY Tony!!!!, and something that would no doubt HAVE to be expected to occur from time to time. THAT is also a BIG part of nature that affects every single animal on this planet, and was something I also mentioned in my above post.

Of course that's NOT to say the other problems mentioned aren't, or can't be strong contributors to the problem.

~Doug
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"Better to be silent and thought a fool, than to open mouth and remove any doubt!"

" Are you insinuating that all snakes react to the same conditions in the same manner? "

Nope. I was just agreeing with Frank on that point about the food supply/mice not being the problem with the egg binding incident.
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Genesis 1:1

Billy,....

Yes, I also agree with that. There are too many other factors that go hand in hand with this egg-laying issue, nutrition deficient rodents are the very LEAST likely in my opinion as well. Proper hydration and lack of muscle tone however, I think have the highest probability of being strong contributors to the problem. Definitely not "rocket science" here,....just some educated common sense.

Oh,....and let's not forget the many other factors that we have absolutely NO control over that can also contribute to this and other problems,...as I mentioned before, some things just happen regardless of anything, this also has to be expected from time to time no matter HOW optimum the environment, or diet might be, but of course, when this happens, it can only be speculated as to "why", and can NEVER be proved one way, or the other.

I would tend to think that more room for a snake to exercise in, and gain more muscle tone, in conjunction with staying fully hydrated, could very well equal less problems with egg-binding.

Of course this is also just my opinion, but it also seems to make much more sense than a few of the other possibilities brought up regarding this.

~Doug
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"Better to be silent and thought a fool, than to open mouth and remove any doubt!"

If the mice were the problem, why haven't that nice posters other snakes suffered the same problem?

Several corn breeders I know have noticed increased problems this year.

It's anectdotal, sure, but that's why I thought there might be a nutrition problem.

And please note that things like kinks are an extreme and may not happen with an animal that is marginally deficient.
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I decided my old sig was too big.

I order about a two months supply at a time from Rodent Pro. I feed the largest size my animals will take and I suppliment males and females every other feeding during the breeding season and once a month outside of the breeding season.

So far this year I have experienced no egg binding, good fertility and good calcification on all but one clutch from a first time female that threw some of the largest thayeri eggs I've ever seen! They were easily double the length of the other three clutches. Of these eggs 5 of 7 were fertile but not perfectly calcified.

I also have a female coastal milk, usually a bomber feeder, who has refused all but pinks this year. She too laid a pretty poor clutch with about 50% being infertile. Had I known she was going to have an off year feeding I wouldn't have bred her anyway.

Thanks for playing Tony.
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Tom

"The more people I meet, the more I like my snakes"

If this was in response to my thread - I did a little more research yesterday.

Unfortunately it seems that very little scientific research has actually been done on egg binding in snakes.

However - in Kathy Love's book, it is noted that in their experience larger caging reduces incidence - and they mention that when Joe Hiduke switched from f/t to live prey, his frequency of dystocia dropped dramatically.

In the case of my female - she was raised on f/t but I fed her live mostly when I first acquired her as I didn't at that point have quantity to justify bulk orders and local pet store was often out of frozen. I acquired her in early September '06 and she got live food through November and didn't get f/t until March '07 when I bred her. After her breeding she went back to f/t. So it's possible she gained muscle tone or the clutch was small enough her first year, and she lost that muscle tone and/or larger clutch is what gave her problem this year.

I have an '06 MBK that only eats live and an '06 Cal King that's only a few inches smaller that eats f/t - the MBK is stronger.

Live prey is a little more difficult to deal with as you have to monitor the feeding a lot more closely, but I think I may make of point of using live prey for females I intend to breed, maybe not for every meal but certainly for many of them.
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I decided my old sig was too big.

>>>... "in Kathy Love's book, it is noted that in their experience larger caging reduces incidence - and they mention that when Joe Hiduke switched from f/t to live prey, his frequency of dystocia dropped dramatically"

Yes,....as I mentioned before, again giving merit to exercise, and adequate room to be ABLE to exercise and keep well toned and in better shape than those that don't get enough from their keepers......I see a pattern developing!..LOL!

~Doug
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"Better to be silent and thought a fool, than to open mouth and remove any doubt!"

Yep, it was referring to your thread.
Like I said, I just wanted everyone to lay out all their data for others to see. That was why I asked it be concise. My prediction at the time was that lots of people would lay out their data and there'd be no pattern whatsoever connecting the food source to the issues, but if I took the "I already know the answer" attitude, I'd just be another drop in the argument bucket going nowhere. Working in tech support, I've adopted the "let the data speak for itself" attitude, even if it contradicts what I think. The facts are the facts, and I'm willing to learn from them. Yay me.

These are complicated animals. They live outdoors, where they dont have access to waterbowls and lay-boxes. Life is a struggle for them and they're able to cope with lots of adversity. The list of factors could be as long as 25 which affect egg laying issues from nutrition to hydration to nervousness and extended voluntary retention at the laying site and maybe even recovery from last years egg production health. Who knows. No one would want to test it out and TRY to egg bind their females, so we'll all just have to trudge on with what we hope is best for the animals.

End Transmission
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Tom

"The more people I meet, the more I like my snakes"

The data is kind of meaningless as there are far too many different husbandry factors involved.

I find it really odd though that some people blow off the nutrition of the mice and then say that captive snakes are so different than wild snakes ...

I think FR completely misunderstood my post as trying to "pass the blame". In my opening post of that thread - I very specifically stated "I have to wonder if"

I was trying to understand the cause of the problem.
When I first posted that she had binding issues, I was contacted by several other people who breed far more snakes than I do that said they also had several binding problems this year and had none last year.

That's why I thought maybe (note the maybe) there was an issue in issue in the food supply, possibly due to the corn price hike, that was potentially increasing the occurrences of egg binding.

And while I have respect for the guy - some of things FR said were way out in left field.

If the nutritional value of mice is only recently decreased, it is highly unlikely the female would have developed kinks. And the statement about rodent breeders needing to keep up quality of feed in order to produce - I guess he's never heard of a puppy mill or been to inner city, where the people are generally malnourished yet have lots of kids.

Poor nutrition can mean a shorter life and thus an increased desire to breed to pass on their genes.

A rat that is fed a well balanced diet can live 5 years. A rat on poor diet may only live 2 years. Both are longer than the reproductive life of a female, and both can produce many offspring in their reproductive life.
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I decided my old sig was too big.

I agree that it's in the best interest of snakefood breeders to keep their animals healthy, otherwise they lose out on production big time.

I have to disgaree with you on this - The data is kind of meaningless as there are far too many different husbandry factors involved.

Yes, there are lots of factors, but it'd be stupid to try and manage all the factors at once to try and figure out what IS or IS NOT causing the issue. We're trying to solve a problem, no? I'm just saying you have to start somewhere. Also in my defense, once again I must point out that I've said this is just one of the many factors involved with husbandry and breeding health. I'm not arguing with you here per se, just pointing out that I think my point has been taken differently than I intended it to be.

If experienced breeders with lots of snakes are suddenly having breeding issues and it seems to be much higher than any other typical year, something is obviously the cause, and you cant blame anyone for at least considering the items that are variable within each year. Cages are the same, snakes are the same, we'll assume temps are the same, cleaning and feeding schedules are the same, but other factors come in from the outside that may been an affect like food, bedding, water, etc.

It's a complicated and unfortunate issue, period.
I dont have anything else to say about this issue, and probably shouldnt anyway since I have so little experience in actual breeding. I'd like to think my 2 cents is at least worth a little since I've always had about a dozen snakes or more in my collection for the past 17 years or so. I just hope next year is better for everyone.
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Tom

"The more people I meet, the more I like my snakes"

Yes, there are lots of factors, but it'd be stupid to try and manage all the factors at once to try and figure out what IS or IS NOT causing the issue. We're trying to solve a problem, no?

The problem is there are different rodent breeders who use different feeds.

Some f/t suppliers may use quality feed and some live suppliers may use junk feed. Suppliers of rodents also sometimes buy from each other and sell to each other depending upon their current supply and demand.

There just is no way to get meaningful data from it.

Also - some breeders are going to be hesitant to come forward with egg binding data, as it will undoubtedly be suggested that the problem is their husbandry - and whether or not it is, they don't want public suggestion that they have bad husbandry on the same website they later will try to sell some of the young from.
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I decided my old sig was too big.

Chris
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"All the fancy names in the world will be of no help if you do not know the difference between chocolate pudding and pig poop." -Frank Retes

As I stated in my first response to this thread - I'm inclined to agree, I suspect it was a big clutch and lack of physical tone.

Nutrition certainly is a factor for physical condition, no doubt about it, but I suspect if I switch to live with the females, they may end up in better physical condition reducing the chances of a fatal occurrence in the future.
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I decided my old sig was too big.

Blame the keeper. The first time I bred corn snakes years ago I used a nest box and my 3 year old female got egg bound. After that I never put a nest box in, never had another issue. I bred several generations of Fla kings, corns, a lot of various pine snakes for about 12 years. A lot of my adults were in sterilite sweater boxes. They laid their eggs under the newspaper.