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I have two male Pacific gopher males (08 and 09) who have not wanted to eat since March 2 and 5 respectively. All my females are eating enthusiastically, and my 09 male bull snake is also eating a lot. All my younger pyros are also eating well. Its just these two pits who are being stubborn. The 09 just wants to hole up in his moist sphagnum moss hide most of the time and is not acting horny. The 08 is more restless.

I have recently completed a breeding cycle with a trio of pyro king snakes, and have put my male pyro out in the mouse barn a few days ago to completely remove him from any female pheromone smells. Finally got him to resume feeding yesterday by rubbing his nose in a brained pink. He will be in his bachelor quarters in the mouse barn for several weeks to get him to fatten back up.

My question is can the Pacifics be influenced by the female pyro smells even though they are a totally different species? I also have female Pacifics and bulls, but none of them are making pheromones that I can tell. I admit I could be wrong on that,being as I am not a male snake! LOL! I am about ready to put the 08 Pacific who is restless in the mouse barn, too, and see if that doesn't help.
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Bob
Pyromaniac AKA Greatballzofire
Keeping cats allows man to cohabitate with tigers. Keeping reptiles allows man to cohabitate with dinosaurs.

Great question. My observations lead me to suspect that there is likely a dimishing response roughly in proportion to the separation of cladistic nodes.

My rats don't show any indication of attraction to pits and vice versa. My Baird's male seems only marginally interested in obsoletus. My P. d. deppei is somewhat responsive to P. c. melanolueca, etc.

...something like that
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See all my snakes at SerpenTrack.com

Great question. My observations lead me to suspect that there is likely a dimishing response roughly in proportion to the separation of cladistic nodes.

Cladistic nodes! Cool! I learned a new thing today!

Pyros are pretty far removed from pituophis on the genetic tree, so I don't think the pits will interest my male pyro. He hated being in the mouse barn, so I have brought him back in the house, and he has settled down. No adult pyro females are releasing pheromones now, having already bred, although I think maybe my big female 08 Pacific might be, as my 08 Pacific male seems restless of late.
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Bob
Pyromaniac AKA Greatballzofire
Keeping cats allows man to cohabitate with tigers. Keeping reptiles allows man to cohabitate with dinosaurs.

...as a colleague and I learned last year with a breeding that was unexpected, unintended, and totally accidental. I had loaned him one of my Northerns and he successfully bred with the female he had; with cage space at something of a premium he later put a female Black Rat in the same cage with him, not for breeding purposes, but to separate the Rat Snake fromm the others he had, a number of locals, and this snake was from a different locale. In short he felt the Rat Snake would be "safe" from breeding with the local animals; she was, but as it turns out, she was not "safe" from the male Pine. Clearly there was a pheromonal attraction in this case.

A probable cross between a California Kingsnake and a Pacific Gophersnake
www.californiaherps.com/snakes/pages/p.c.catenifer.html

This is why I thought the pheromones might be attractive to different species.
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Bob
Pyromaniac AKA Greatballzofire
Keeping cats allows man to cohabitate with tigers. Keeping reptiles allows man to cohabitate with dinosaurs.