Reptile & Amphibian Forums

hello, i was wondering the minimum size and age that you all would recomend for breeding brooksi. thanks....

jonathan

the minimum size I have seen reported on here is somewhere around 24", which is easily reached within a year. The typical recommended size is around 40" which can be reached by 18 months or so with a reasonable diet consisting of "small" frequent meals approximately every 3-10 days. Smaller prey items are generally believed to digest quicker resulting in less stress/possibility of regurgitation, providing the environment is correct.
Aside from that, at any size, if they are ready to breed, they will breed. If either one takes off like a shot to get away from the other they aren't quite ready yet, give it a week. It might help to introduce the pair to each other early by placing a recent shed in the enclosures, let them check out a poop from the other animal, move some substrate from cage to cage...anything to let them know they aren't the only snake around.
brooksi are a lot of fun, enjoy it.

daveb

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in the light, you will find the road...

thanks for the feedback dave. that is just the kind of info i was looking for plus some.

they are my first pair of brooksi. they are about a year and a half old and just under 4ft apiece. i've had them since they were small hatchlings. they are w.s. with the female axantic and the male het for ax. the male is a bit of spazz. so much so, that is what i named him. the female is laid back, unless the scent of mice is in the air they are nice i.m.o. once i figure out how to downsize pics i will share.

yes, i also like the smaller items more often feeding schedule. i found it works nicely for my pits and have adapted it for my brooksi as well. they seem to be thriving.

you gave some good hints for breeding. do you brumate yours or have you had success without cooling them? if you do, what temps and how long? thanks again....

jonathan

I'm up in NY, I used to brumate them for about 10 weeks. Not necessarily because they needed it but I couldn't keep most of them feeding. No matter what I did, probably 80% stopped feeding in Nov or Dec, so it just became the routine, right or wrong. The temp was usually between 50 and 55 degrees F. It would be interesting to hear from other breeders that don't brumate their brooksi, what their breeding routine is.

daveb
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in the light, you will find the road...