I have a couple questions about breeding san diego gophers:
1. How much should a female san diego weight before being bred?
2. What schedule do you use for placing the female with the male? every (blank) days, for how long? or do you just keep them together?
3. At which point is it okay to keep the pair in the same enclosure? from beginning of breeding season? after breeding season? after eggs are layed?
4. What is a good temperature and humidity range for incubation? what vermiculite:water ratio do you use?
would love to see pics/descriptions of peoples nesting boxes, and incubation set ups also.
Can't give weights for SD gophers as I haven't bred those yet. For the Pits I do breed I use the 3 year rule for females. Although some may be able to go after 2 years I feel safer with waiting the extra year.
I keep my Pits together all the time. They seem to be more oriented towards being together and while field herping it's not at all uncommon to find several coiled together under the same hide. Unlike Kings, Milks and Corns there has never been an incident of cannabalism.
For nest boxes I use adequately sized sterilite boxes filled with moist sphagnum moss. I soak the moss in hot water then squeeze out as much as I can so it is moist but not wet and clumpy. I use a 3" hole saw in a cordless drill and cut 2 holes in the lid and place in their enclosure. During egg laying is the only time I've had to remove cage mates and only if I see the males using the egg laying chamber.
For incubation I use the smaller sterilite shoe boxes. I prefer perlite to vermiculite or moss as a medium. The larger, coarser grains give better air circulation around the eggs. I mix it with 1 part water to 10 parts perlite by volume. That would be like 1 cup hot water to 10 cups perlite. You can use any size container to measure just maintain the ratio. No holes in the shoeboxes just the mix and eggs. I also like to incubate at lower temps 75-80 degrees. It takes a little longer but it seems I develop larger neonates by going slowly. I check the boxes weekly for dimpling, molding slug eggs etc. More frequently when I feel they are getting close to hatching. If I notice any dimpling I mist the sides of the box to add moisture, never directly on the eggs. With the ratio I use I have never had drowned eggs. Although I am going to try using the egg crates in my boxes filled with the perlite mix in the future.
Here are some pics of my red bulls. As you can see they are very stressed at being kept together. LOL
Hope this helps,
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BigT
There is a difference between ignorance and stupidity. The ignorant can be taught, stupidity is beyond our control.
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