Your approach is what I am concerned with. You seem to prejudice your thoughts ahead of any understanding you may gain. That is bad science.
For instance, fast growth is not all of what they do, it reveals the potential they naturally have. Multiclutching is a potential. High numbers of offspring is a potential.
In nature, the animals goals is to succeed to a maximum level. Does it always occur, no it does not.
What you have is a range from, death as soon as it hatches, to being fortunate enough to hatch in a time of plenty and grow like a weed and reproduce to a maximum level.
When you and I started to test animals, we Both start with assumptions and prejudices. I guess it boils down to whos assumptions and prejudices are more accurate or sensible.
When I started I rationalized that as long as I only use conditions that these animals have available to them in nature, all results would fall within their genetic potential.
So feeding natural whole foods like other reptiles, birds, rodents, etc. Are natural. using ranges of heat and humidity that occurs in their habitat is NATURAL.
Then supporting that with only heat and humidity(water) will again express what they can do(their natural potential) in nature.
So I considered natural type support and added, natural behavioral support, that is elements like security, places to hide in a manner they use in nature. Etc. Then later added behavioral enrichment. Like what we are discussing now, that is allowing them to work in groups. The possibility of that being natural exsists. If it wasn't as many of you suggest, they have the ability to eat or kill their cage mates. I did not control that. They could if they so desired.
With the above in mind, I tested and tested and tested. As mentioned, and is known, I recieved superior results. That is, a quicker and greater amount of recruitment with record matching longevity. Please, recruitment is what biology use to rate natural animals success. I did not invent that. As in, a growing expanding population is more healthy then a shrinking dwiddling population.
Again in a nutshell, all animals have a range of reproductive ability, of growth, of longevity. Both in nature and in captivity. The combination of those is how we rate success.
Longevity is only a vehicule that supports recruitment. ITs recruitment that allows populations to exsist.
For instance if someone has a cal king and it lays a clutch of 6 eggs. Then compare that to a wild caught gravid cal king that laid 16 eggs. In a comparison like that, one has to wonder why the difference and are these numbers normal.
If clutch size is quantified, that is, lots of clutches are recorded, both wild and captive, you will see that both numbers are well within the range of normal. Again, if you gather numbers, its normal for cal kings to lay clutches in that range from 1 egg to the low twenties. So that can be considered their genetic potential. Which means, no matter what you do, how well the female is supported, you cannot recieve 40 eggs from a cal king. It has not been observed, so it most likely exceeds the genetic potential of that species.
So Tony, I have to wonder why you pick and choose what you consider normal or reflective of a captive snake. I have to ask, is it about the snake or species of snake, genetic potential, or is it about rating your results in comparison to what others recieve? your peers.
Now on to human things. I read these posts from you guys and you say things like, best, ideal, and other superior comments on how you keep your animals(the thinking in terms of best, ideal, etc), Yet, your results, the expressed measurable results do not reflect that. Many times your results are average and often encounter problems. Such problems as nesting, infections, poor feeding responses, etc. Best or ideal is not what you do, its what results from what you do.
Some of you goofballs keep saying FR you think your superior and lets see how you keep your kings. Whats funny is, I never think or thought I did anything best, or ideal or superior. In fact, in all cases I realized and accepted, that I could have done way better, and knew of the many mistakes I made and make. Yet, the results gained were much closer to what these animals potentially can and do achieve.
Seriously in nature 99% of all individuals hatched are dead within a month, why not dupliate that?, see I am reverting to my bad self again.
I choose to explore what expresses the upper areas of their potential.
So Tony, I have to ask, why do you think fast growth and high reproductive effort is not within their natural capabilities.
Then I will have to ask, why do you strive to achieve average or less results from your captives natural POTENTIAL?
What BR and I are saying is, when offerred suitable choices, its very easy to see results that are in the upper areas of these animals POTENTIAL. Say the upper 30% range. That includes growth, reproductive effort and longevity. I would think that would be called very good husbandry.
Then again, if husbandry expressed results that were in the lower 30% range, it could and should be considered, not so good. Of course, its not failure, its just the lower part of their potential. Then of course you have average results that can be considered average.
Sir, those are hard, real numbers. And a real way to measure your individual husbandry.
The problem is, people are people and do not want to actually be rated. You want your words to be important, by using words like best, ideal, etc, you feel good. Which is fine, only its about you and not the animals.
So FR being the donkey he is, asks you to rate your results in a realistic way. By actual results, then compare them to actual potential. Not rate them by the average amougst you keepers. Which is what you do and why you HATE BR and I. hahahahahahahahahahaha
You do not like us because we report multicluching, large individuals, huge clutches, and all while not having to manipulate snakes forth and back. And not occurring the numbers of mundane problems that you folks see.
That has to be true because BR and I are yummy love muffins and really are nice guys. WE are.
I would think and surely I have been proved WRONG, that all caring keepers would want their charges to express results in the upper half their their potential. That seems logical to me. So why do you guys fight it so so so very hard. Don't you care?
Now about your experiments, they are judged by expressed successes not your failures. If we report X results and your experiments do not reveal those numbers we reported, it only means you did your experiments wrong. it has nothing to do with the animals. Or what we did. Its your support that was in error. After all, it did not match what others have expressed.
this is where name calling comes in, if your results did not match reported results, then its simple, you did something wrong. Often you folks talk about egos, sir, its "that" I question, how is your ego so strong as to think you will get something right on, the first time, JUST BECAUSE YOU DID IT. AFter all, you folks claim BR and I have ego problems and it took us decades to develop, test, retest, add, subtract and do it again and again, to get to the level of success we saw/see, we failed time and time again. I fail to understand that mentality.
You see, you guys act as if we theorized this method, then did it the first time. Well your wrong and its that mentality that keeps you from any actual understanding. Again, this is to the all of yousesss not just you Tony, Cheers
