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Dave,
...Can you post your BRB Breeding 101 write up again?
TIA,
Jeff

Re-post of my BRB Breeding 101 (really need to update it)....

BRB breeding 101, not to be used as gospel, only documenting how I did it.

My recipe for BRB breeding. Not sure what is working, this season (2005) from 2.7 adults I had 6 viable litters and one slug/still born. Total of 136 babies. This is what I did.

Cage:

I made this cage to be expandable. It has 8 roughly 2' x 2' x18" sections. There is 4" PVC that connects all the sections together, one vertical run on each side and a pass through between the top two and the bottom two cage sections. All these pipes have threaded ends and can be closed off as required.

Please note these are old pics. Not of the 2005 breeding season. The small boxes on the left were some babies on hold and there were even a pair of Ball Pythons housed on the right.

Typical setups are on the right side, top and third down, now all 8 sections are set up the same.

Normally all sections are blocked off and I house each individual in it's own section.

Substrate/water/hides:
I was using newspaper and just recently (mid breeding season) switched to indented craft paper. Each cage gets a sweater box for hide/moss. The box gets about an inch of peat moss well dampened and another inch of green moss also nice and damp. There is also a two gallon squat water bowl with about 1 to 2 inches of water I place on top of the hide.

Heating:
I heat the cage they bred in this year with 60 Watt light bulbs. I've heard this is not optimal and have heard stories about snakes getting burned but I've never had any problem. Still my new second cage has underneath heat with no light bulbs. My cage thermostat is set to 80 degrees and the whole room ends up this temp ( I know, no temp gradient but it is working ). Also the thermostat is on a timer and shuts off at night for nighttime cooling. The downstairs room they occupy was built as a guest bedroom and has full insulation so it does cool off but does not get cold.

Feeding/Cleaning.
I usually feed on a two week, give or take, schedule. I feed F/K as I raise my own feeders. Also sometimes feast/famine as I raise my own feeders. I usually check the cages daily and clean as necessary. More so during "eating" season. The hide boxes get checked/changed frequently as they like to poop in the moss maybe to wipe their butt?

Breeding cycle:
Around Thanksgiving I started dropping my daytime temps over a week or so from 80 to 75. Still keeping all snakes separate. (BTW, I am in San Jose CA, does not get real cold here so I have to use the middle of the winter as my cooling time) Kept this way still feeding cleaning etc. until Valentines day. On 02/14 I cranked the thermostat back up to 80 and arranged my breeding colonies. For this year, I opened up both of the vertical runs on the sides but kept the pass through blocked. In effect, had two four cage sections. On one Side I put my male M5 along with 4 females and the other got my male Porky along with the remaining 3 adult females. Within days I saw evidence of breeding but did not observe any actual copulation. Left it that way for some time during which all the snakes stopped eating. Not sure when, may have been April, after all breeding activity had stopped I closed off all the pipes, isolated all the females and prepared for the long wait.

Birthing:
As soon as I find/notice babies I remove them from the mothers cage. Their next care depends on the state of the litter. For example this year:

One litter was found all out cruising the cage none still attached to yolk or umbilical. I put these babies directly into shoe boxes.

Three litters were found in the hide, full term with minimal or no yolks. I let the babies work them selves free of the egg sacks and umbilical then place each baby in it's shoe box.

Note: one baby was a "preemie" with large yolk and was not coming out of sack. I transferred this baby sack and all to it's shoe box, kept it VERY damp and let it finish the yolk off over two days.

One litter was laid in the water bowl. I strained the water out and dumped the whole slime pile with babies into a sweater box and kept them in there for a day till I was ready to transfer them into shoe boxes.

In the past I have had litters with some yolk still, those are best to just leave alone and let the babies absorb as much yolk as they can.

Vacation:
Thought I'd mention that when I'm planning on being gone, I stop feeding two weeks prior to leaving and don't feed again until I return. This helps keep the mess to a minimum while I'm not there to clean it up.
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Thanks,

Dave Colling

www.rainbows-r-us-reptiles.com

0.1 Wife (WC and still very fiesty)
0.2 kids (CBB, a big part of our selective breeding program)

LOL, to many snakes to list, last count:
26.49 BRB
20.21 BCI
And those are only the breeders

lots.lots.lots feeder mice and rats

when you opened up each of the 4 cages, and they acted as one, did you find that the male just cruised between all the 3 other cages via the vertical plastic tubing? could the females all change cages aswell? or was the male locked off in each cage once he was in there?
You seemed to have changed the cages a bit over the last few years, light tubing and radiant heat panels instead of light bulbs. Have you temperatures changed at all from the 80 degrees you specified? ie is there more of a gradient now or?
You said that the whole room pretty much stays the same temperature, when you lowered the heat in the cages, did you find the heat from the room, still kept the temp up? or did you play with the heat for the whole room? if this was the case, do you let all your other snakes, have this lower temp over the breeding season, within reason?
Do these breeding cages of yours, have any ventilation as all, or just from when you open up the cage?
And what are the dimension of them, and do you feel its enough room for adults, especially when there is a pair trying to breed in there?

sorry usual too many questions from me
cheers
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Dave

13.19 brbs

Once the vertical tubes are open, all occupants have access to all levels. Unless one decided the tube is a really nice hide spot and plugs it up.

Yeah, I have upgraded / evolved the cages and breeding plan over the years. Tossed the light bulb heat in favor of radient heat panels. I do go a couple of degrees warmer at 82 and this year have switched over to latteral connection of two cage sections for a 1.2 trio of animals. The problem I keep running into with the vertical runs (which were altered to only connect two cages) is they tend to use them as a hide. Really sucks and can take days to lock them all out of the tubes in prepo for a feeding. I still feed all seperate!!!

Managed to lower temps in the room by splitting the colection into two rooms. The warmer BCI collection in the new garage room and the cooler BRB collection still in the house. This helped a lot when cooling the BRB's as the room wouold simply lower as well with less heat load. The room itself is NOT heated, just well insulated. When the house was built thjis room had a "guest quarters" option which mainly was full insulation all around. More for sound proofing but works great for temps. The subadults do not get their temps lowered.

There is a 2" round vent in each cage section, not a lot of ventilation but enough. Again, can't stress the point strong enough, excessive ventilation KILLS humidity. Unless the roiom itself is humid. My room with all the occupants does have higher humidity levels, I can feel it when I walk in.

The cage sections are 2' x 2' x 18" - ish, plenty of room for them to breed. Quite often they will breed in the fishbowl or hide box anyways. Keeping them in smaller sections does increase the need for husbandry.

Only time there is not enough room is when two males are in the same section. But then again, no cage would be large enough in that scenario

One clear advantage with my setup is with two cage sections there are two water bowls, two hide boxes and two floor areas. Works very well with 1.2 trio's as no matter which female the male is courting at the time and where, the other female has an entire cage section to retreat to. Including another water bowl for her to use. Quite often I will see a male with one female in one water bowl and the other female in the other water bowl.
-----
Thanks,

Dave Colling

www.rainbows-r-us-reptiles.com

0.1 Wife (WC and still very fiesty)
0.2 kids (CBB, a big part of our selective breeding program)

LOL, to many snakes to list, last count:
26.49 BRB
20.21 BCI
And those are only the breeders

lots.lots.lots feeder mice and rats

>>Dave,
>>...Can you post your BRB Breeding 101 write up again?
>>TIA,
>>Jeff