Reptile & Amphibian Forums

After adjusting my husbandry from the past years I have never seen such feeding response.....Mexicana usually take 2.5 years to reach 30 inches......The two Hypo-E Mex Mex in the pics are 1.5 years old and nearly 3 feet......
They are growing as fast as the getula now.....It's amazing what options/choices can do......It will make snakes thrive rather than just live.....

All these are over 30 inches and hatched in the Summer/Fall of 2008......




















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John Lassiter
Poor planning and procrastination on your part does not constitute an emergency on my part...
www.coastalbendcaptivebreeding.com

John, If you don't mind me asking, specifically what kind of changes have you made?

Thanks,
Bob.

>>John, If you don't mind me asking, specifically what kind of changes have you made?

Specifically Bob I don't have snakes in tubs with a water bowl and some newspaper at a warm room temp like I used to years ago.....

For hatchling snakes I use a showbox rack.....Each tub has 2 or more inches of aspen and a water bowl on the hot side (back heated with heat cable. The aspen is covered with a paper towel or newspaper.....It seems the neonates thrive in humidity and with the deep aspen will always find a comfortable temperature and humidity level......The feeding response has been outstanding compared to years past.......

The sub adults and adult snakes I have are in the Applegate or Retes (whoever you ask) enclosures.....

So I guess the main changes I have made would be Cooler cool temps, Hotter hot temps, Elevated humidity, moist hides and more food because they want to eat more when provided these options.....
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John Lassiter
Poor planning and procrastination on your part does not constitute an emergency on my part...
www.coastalbendcaptivebreeding.com

np

The black ones look like MBKs, if you breed a black phase to another that is not a black phase what will you get???

>>The black ones look like MBKs, if you breed a black phase to another that is not a black phase what will you get???

Those black ones are MBKs....sorry I pictured a hodge-podge of snakes......lol

And the melanistic thayeri debate happens all the time over on the mexicana forum.....
Some breeders swear that even when two black thayeri are bred together not all of the offspring will be black......And if you breed a black to a non-black you will get normals that have lots of melanin (in betweeners)......

But I believe there are stronger strains of the melanistic thayeri that will breed pure recessive....We'll see this year I hope....
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John Lassiter
Poor planning and procrastination on your part does not constitute an emergency on my part...
www.coastalbendcaptivebreeding.com

"""And the melanistic thayeri debate happens all the time over on the mexicana forum..... """
Its basically the same debates over and over on all the forums. This is why I do not waste my time.

I am surprised no one complained you are "growing them too fast" haha!

Good looking snakes John. We got 2 inches of snow yesterday. Supposed ot be in the 50s later. I bet a snake or two comes out looking for some sun at the end of the afternoon.
Tom Stevens
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TomsSnakes.com
twitter.com/TomsSnakes

Nice, and I bet they will become your best breeders. At least that has been my experience.

About choices, I was out last week at my study site and took temps of my diamondbacks and gilas in the field.

Both the gilas and diamondbacks in shelters and their temps ranged from 49F to 61F. The individuals that would out, in this case basking, were between 65F and 75F, but they remained out and would most likely go higher.

Whats of interest is, the individuals in their shelters had been out and moving due to the presences of tracks. So, temps from 49 to 61F were active shelter temps, not hibernation temps.

This also included a really nice hypo lyresnake who was crawling in a crevice with a temp of 59F.

I got crappy pics of most of the above. There was one pair of gilas together, two singles, one single diamondback and a pile of a dozen or more. The lyresnake was also a single.

Oh the hottest surface temps of that mourning was in the high ninties. Two days later it snowed there, but today its nice. Maybe tomorrow I will check on them again. Cheers