Reptile & Amphibian Forums

I usuall frequent the hognose and grayband forums, but thought I would share some pics of my wild caught NM pyros. I hope you all enjoy them.
Male

Female 1

Female 2

Kyle

**edit - last pic is the male**

kyle,

Thaose are wildcaughts? They are super nice!

Would love to here some field collecting stories on how you found them?
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www.Bluerosy.com

nananananananannana-i can't hear you!-nananananananana!

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did you find them as adults? or have you had them since they were babies? Did you have to dose with panicur or anything else? Are they still feeding on lizards or do you have them on mice?
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www.Bluerosy.com

nananananananannana-i can't hear you!-nananananananana!

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I found 1 adult female, 2 sub adult females, and a juvenile male. They all ate f/t right off the bat. They have continued to eat without problems. No scenting involved whatsoever. I have noticed that they want to go off feed in early september though. Not sure why, but all 4 of them seem to be wanting to shut down for the year.

Kyle

Those are fine animals! Have you bred them yet?
Do you have a locale for them; don't need to be too specific, just what Mt. range. My pyros which are mostly Chiricahua, are off feed for the season except for some of the yearlings and babies.
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Bob
Pyromaniac AKA Greatballzofire
Keeping cats allows man to cohabitate with tigers. Keeping reptiles allows man to cohabitate with dinosaurs.

In nature they move from cooler areas warmer areas as needed as the season progresses and continue to feed and progress as long as possible. Which means until they run out of options.

In captivity, you give them no choice, They are just reacting to static conditions. They just run out of options sooner.

What part of NM, they look like northern types.

Frank the problem I've always had with this theory is that the reason wild snakes move is because conditions are not static. If they were there would be no reason to move.

In static captive conditions they should in theory continue to feed regardless of season. Its my guess that the captive conditions here are NOT all quite static. For instance, ambient light my be decreasing, pressure,.... something is making them react by shutting down.

I think there might be relationship to the light cycle and the amount of heat that equates to the "quality" of thermoregulating environment, as perceived by the snakes.

If you think about it snakes have not evolved to static temps as they experience in captive conditions. They have know way of knowing that the heat tape is going to keep providing heat after the sun goes down.

Anyway it might work like this:

A 90 degree hot spot is perceived as high quality regulating potential when there is 14 hours of light or 14 hours of availability.

To take this further, as daylight hours decrease, say to 11 hours the same 90 degrees is perceived as less reliable.

So a wild snake moves to a place where it finds 95 degrees. To the snake 95 degrees for 11 hours might = 90 degrees for 14 hours.

In captivity the snakes doesn't have that option so they shut down but not because heat is static but because light is not.

Any thoughts?
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“Nothing is at last sacred but the integrity of your own mind.” Emmerson

WWW.TDSNAKES.BLOGSPOT.COM

Thanks Tony, I used the wrong wording. Your right, the cage is not static. Its most likely not getting the temps it did earlier in the year, which is why they stop feeding.

Which is very common with those that do not provide a heat source. but use air temps.

In most cases, the air temps are the same, but not the mass temps. The mass temps are whats important to the snakes.

Of course theres a tiny bit more to this. hahahahahaha Thanks

That makes a lot of sense. Thank you for the insight fellas.
Kyle

I think its very difficult to control ambient temps. Even though my room is on central air and heat there are still seasonal fluctuations.

In my limited experience increasing the gradient between ambient and the hot spot will extend the feeding season. From what I've seen its is completely possible to keep them going year round. Whether this is a good thing or bad thing depends on how you adjust other aspects of husbandry.

For my part, I like having a little down time while my snakes hibernate and I like the predictability of their first breedings after they emerge. By increasing the gradient I've been able to add a few extra weeks for my females to get into breeding condition which I hope will be useful females which multi-clutch.
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“Nothing is at last sacred but the integrity of your own mind.” Emmerson

WWW.TDSNAKES.BLOGSPOT.COM

"In my limited experience increasing the gradient between ambient and the hot spot will extend the feeding season."

I agree, this seems to be the case.

What I still do not get is why, when temps are up and nights are not substantially cooler, do snakes shut off? As soon as nights get cool again the snakes will often feed briefly but aggressively before shutting down completely (not talking about montane snakes persay, but kings in general).
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Mark

I'm afraid my observations are not that well tuned but I think it reasonable to suspect that the first cool night might somehow trigger a rush of feeding activity. In any case I tend to think whatever's going on is instinctual because captive condition rarely match these end of season behaviors. If it were learned behavior I think they'd get over it without having to adjust environment.
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“Nothing is at last sacred but the integrity of your own mind.” Emmerson

WWW.TDSNAKES.BLOGSPOT.COM

I think the montane snakes can detect seasonal barometric pressure changes and respond with their feeding accordingly. My pyros do this even though they have heat and light. But I can't control the barometric pressure.
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Bob
Pyromaniac AKA Greatballzofire
Keeping cats allows man to cohabitate with tigers. Keeping reptiles allows man to cohabitate with dinosaurs.

I've had alot of nonfeeders, lizard-eaters and lizard-scented-pinky eaters take their first unscented pinky the day a storm moves in. So yes, I think snakes do respond to barometer.

On a broader scope, relating to all behaviors not just feeding, I think that snakes may respond in different ways to the same stimuli depending upon other factors. For example in the middle of summer when it's been hot and dry for a long time, the sense of an approaching storm might make snakes more active. But in the middle of winter sensing an approaching storm might make them less active. So I think it may be alot more complex than "have heat will eat."
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www.hcu-tx.org/

Its all about the understanding of mass temps, that is temps of the objects, substrate etc.

As a field herper, we have learned air temps are for people and are only very loosely related to snake behavior. Snakes key on mass temps.

As a keeper that did move around some, I noticed air temps were sort of meaningless in cages at times. Those times were spring and fall.

At those times of the year, the cages picked up temps from hard objects, like the shelf, rack, wall, floor etc and were transmitted into the cage. So if the walls, floor etc were cooler then the air, it effected the snakes behavior. Or here in Arizona, in mid summer the hard objects are so much hotter then the cooled air, it also transmitts into the cages.

This also depends of type of temperature control. For those with none, this mass temps condition will indeed effect the animal. Those with heat strips set on a thermostat will also be effected.

This is were we invented, installed, use, came up with a temp range, which worked so much better, in any and all conditions.

As long as they had the choice to work their enviornment, they would stay feeding to some degree year around. Even when part of that choice is hibernation/brumation temps.

Which is also what many snakes, individuals and species, do in nature. They without question work their enviornment to obtain as many active days a year as they can.

What is of interest, not all individuals in a population do this. Mostly the next years breeders engauge in extending the season as long as they can.

The reality is, snakes seek to control their temps with mass temps, not air temps. The sun heats the mass or ground much much hotter then the air temps. Mass hots and desperses these higher temps.

What is odd is how that works in nature. The sun heats mass, that mass transmitts a heat wave that moves through the mass. It moves slow, so it lags behind the sun.

For instance, mass temps are hottest one foot in, somewhere are 3 am. And coolest somewhere around 10 am. of course that depends on where you are in the country. Air temps are coolest around sunup and warmest around 4 pm again, depending on what part of the country and sun exposure. Which also means length of day.

So this effects the actual behavior of the snakes. When the mass temps start to drop below what is needed for the snakes, they move to warmer spots. If that cannot occur in a cage, they can only do whats natural, stop feeding.

most here miss that snakes are reptiles. That is, mammals only have one method to take care of hunger, that is EAT. Reptiles have two, to ate or lower their temps. Which we all should know stops them from wanting to eat. They do this voluntarily in nature when prey is scarce.

it sorta works like this, if snakes sense there are suitable temps and prey to be acquired, they heat up, then get hungry, then seek food. If no prey is available, they seek cool and are no longer hungry. With snakes, cool is the base they work from.

In captivity, we take that away from them and get all manner of unusual behaviors. like extreme hunger and cannibilism. Cheers

I liked and learned from this post. This last sentence I didn't get.

"In captivity, we take that away from them and get all manner of unusual behaviors. like extreme hunger and cannibilism. Cheers"

Are you saying that they don't eat each other in the wild or that they only eat each other in the wild when the conditions are not right?

This is a real question.
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Gerard
www.livebaitclip.com

GONE FISHING!!!

I agree with your view on mass temps vs air temps. Because I am off the grid electrically and have to generate my own electricity, power usage is an issue. What I do for my snakes is give them a hot spot in their cage, so they can go get really warm should they care to. Some of my snakes will eat all year although the older ones do slow down no matter what in the winter. I brumate my adults starting in late October, or whenever the ambient temperature is winter like. I decide who to brumate by whether or not they want to eat even though they always have the hot spot. Of course during brumation they don't have the hot spot. Also I brumate my breeders. I hope this makes sense. Been having sleep deprivation issues lately...wish I could sleep all winter, too!
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Bob
Pyromaniac AKA Greatballzofire
Keeping cats allows man to cohabitate with tigers. Keeping reptiles allows man to cohabitate with dinosaurs.

Kyle,
I sent you a private message about the NM pyros. Did you receive it?
Brad Bauserman

Hey Brad. I didn't receive The PM that you sent. Maybe it would be better to e mail me or shoot me a text?
Allstarlofts@yahoo.com
915-355-8696

Kyle