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I have a red female 66% het for albino x extreme red albino male that has been cooling for 3 weeks now but just laid 10 perfect eggs and some with visual blood vessels.
Anybody had this before or heard of it? The temps are 15 degrees celcius so cool enough , just can't understand why she has laid now when it was end of January that I saw them lock?!

Did you keep them together all year?

Hi Gregg, no I didn't , the male locked twice so was removed first week in February. It will be interesting to see if the eggs last. Thanks

Hi, Are you in a warm climate part of the country and using air conditioning to brumate? Thanks

Hi and thanks for your time in trying to help , I'm in south of England and the temperature outside is around 7degrees celcius , inside the snake room it's a natural 14/15 celcius , she was paired last week in January and locked twice , separated first week in February but has only just laid eggs after 3 weeks of being at 14/15 celcius. I have a small incubator that I have the eggs in now and all look good ATM.
Thanks again
Richard

Thats very interesting, and would be even more interesting if the eggs hatched.

The question of sperm storage or pathnogentic reproduction comes to mind. Not sure you can tell with these morphs. It would be nice to know if she is indeed het for albino, then you will know.

If some of the offspring are albino, then its sperm storage. If they are all normal, that means nothing.

I am new to keeping hogs, I did some 30 years ago. But it appears from reading these forums and talking to some of my hog keeping friends that hognose are a tad different.

That is, they are a little loose when it comes to standard methods of keeping colubrids. That is, the need for forced brumation(hibernate)

To me they are a perfect case for understanding that hibernation is not needed or required. So if you understood that, then what you just witnessed would not be a surprise.

It also appears, remember I am new to this forum, that folks do not have a handle on palpating snakes to "know" whats going on inside them.

I do field work with herps and palpating is normal procedure. Its easy to do and easy on the snakes.

You can tell when ovum forms(string of pearls), you can tell when they enlarge and you can tell when they move back. Once they move back, you know they will be laying soon.

In the old days, some of us carried a silk hanky when we visited other collections. Place it in your hands and let whateversnake you want crawl thru your hand and fingers, keeping your fingers a fixed distance so the snake will crawl between them, like in a crack or burrow, which they do on a daily basis naturally.

Doing that tells you so much, much more then if there are ovum or eggs.

Once you know how to do this, surprises like yours are eliminated.

I have hogs now and I palpate to see who ate what. I keep my pairs together and just toss in live fuzzies. They eat when they want.

I am one of the founders of the hibernation method, but its been taken to a point of convienence for keepers and not about the snakes any longer. Snakes do require cool temps, they do year around, Cool temps are key. Hibernation is not what the vast majority of snakes do. In fact, most of the species being hibernated(brumated) do not naturally do that. Cheers

Thank you for the message , yes if the eggs hatch it will be a great surprise but they are all looking good at the moment.

Sperm retention is not uncommon at all in hognose. I have had them go 18 months after a lock up before laying. David Turcotte has had one go more than two years.
What stimulates them is an interesting phenomena. It is usually caused by changes in heat and light.
Many will attest on these forums to hognose they purchased as sterile snakes or worn out breeders that after being shipped bred and produced viable babies. Somehow a night in a dark box with a cold pack has often done the trick.
In relation to your hog laying while brumating, I believe that the first superconda came from a gravid anaconda that Bumgardner noticed gravid while in brumation.
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Thank you,
Kevin Rhodes

http://s212.photobucket.com/albums/cc314/lifesciences/?action=view�t=09-09hognose001.jpg

Thanks Kevin. So it seems not so uncommon then , will be an added bonus if the eggs turn out to be good and hatch.

Hi Kevin,

Is there evidence of sperm retention, or did they lay eggs that hatched?

I say this because, In the distant past, sperm retention was attributed to "virgin" births(fertile eggs). In most cases it turned out to be parthnogenetic reproduction.

I attempted to publish PR way back in 76, but was shot down. But a number of years ago, Dr. Gordan Shuette publish many many accounts of parthnogenetic reproduction.

In my case it was easy, I had females that never bred males of their own type, and had in the past always produced neonates that were crosses. Except when I did not breed them to a male and the produced clutches of neonates that were exactly like them. Which they had never done before. I did not have genetic work done. Well I gave offspring to a University herper and he was going to have it done but never did.

On the otherhand, Dr. Shuette did have DNA work done and found at least two types of parthnogenetic processes taking place.(If I remember correctly or even close) We did a bit of taking about it in the field. cheers

Frank,
I would be willing to bet that many cases of parthenogenesis are actually cases of sperm retention.

Also,
It is good to know you invented brumating reptiles as well.

Frank,
...
Also, it is good to know you invented brumating reptiles as well.

FR: I am one of the founders of the hibernation method...

And don't forget, he is also one of the founders of keeping reptiles in shoeboxes:

FR: For you shoebox keepers, I have no need to use shoe/sweater boxes, and for several reasons, One is, I am one of the founders of that method.

The ego is such an interesting thing, it makes people say the most insane stuff just to help themselves feel important and liked.

But what else can you expect from a guy who says this?

FR: You guys really are funny, I must be a religion to you.

God complex anyone?

The sad thing is, Frank creates more animosity from his ego than even he realizes or cares to admit. You know you are well received when people "like" you so much that they create a web site about you: www.goannaranch.com.

It's really sad indeed...
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Troy Rexroth
Rextiles

" The ego is such an interesting thing, it makes people say the most insane stuff just to help themselves feel important and liked. "

Great statement Troy.

What is going on is flat out insecurity with ones' self to say such things. What is really ridiculous is using the internet to appear to be bigger than one really is, but then again, the world is full of keyboard commandos all over.
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Genesis 1:1

What is going on is flat out insecurity with ones' self to say such things. What is really ridiculous is using the internet to appear to be bigger than one really is, but then again, the world is full of keyboard commandos all over.

No truer words have been spoken! Unfortunately, I think it's only going to get worse before it ever gets better.
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Troy Rexroth
Rextiles

Amen to that!
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Genesis 1:1

"You know you are well received when people "like" you so much that they create a web site about you: www.goannaranch.com."

I was laughing so hard when I was reading through those posts! it's amazing how he will contradict himself on different forums hoping that no one will see. That's like a child telling their parents two different things and hoping to get away with it. Truly just pitiful and childish. You'd think that after "pioneering" all these different methods he be a bit more professional about things. And for being someone of such high reputations, I never even heard his name before varanus and here. I do believe he is using up all the good air to fill his ego.

Good day gentlemen.

Stop acting like little jealous kids, which is exactly what your doing.

I have my opinions, those are used to show something, that something is call awareness. For instance, what I said indicates that I know the strong points and the weak points of keeping snakes in show/sweaterbox/rack systems. What you doing is not foreign to me. That is all it indicates. That you take it in some other way is WEAK.

If you want to question my opinions on such things as hiberation and shoe boxes(rack systems), that is fine. In order to do that a decent person would would ask questions, something like how did that occur and or, why did that occur. But you do not do that. You act like children. You make silly accusations.

Your naive method of seperating paragraphs to make silly points is not how you carry on civil conversations. That is a method of attack.

As an example, REX SAID, I wash my hands of you. You said that in a previous post. So why are you responding now? Again, this is a simple example of context. You obviously changed your context or you would not have replied now. And your allowed to do so.

The actual point is, before something was done, in most cases, there was no need to do it. Which is the simple case with this subject.

Before two real events occurred, The captive breeding of, Albino corns(Dr. Becktel(sp) and albino kings(me), there was no NEED to Hibernate or house large numbers of snakes. Before they came along, there was no need for constant reproduction or housing of large numbers of adults or offspring. I would tell you what my first attempt at housing large numbers, but you would laugh, and you would be right to laugh, it was funny.

In Dr. Bechtels case, he did not commericalize(sell) snakes. At the time there was no actual value. He produced very few animals and for specific genetic reasons. IT was some folks that got his animals. The Erine Wagners and Glenn skimmers and others, that produced them in numbers to sell. Yet at the time there was still no methods or market. The albino cal kings coupled with the corns changes the landscape. They created what you have today.

If you would actually do some research, and read books that were published pre 70's, they recomended keeping snakes in tanks, at 72F and feeding once a month. And if they were picky and they mostly were, covering the cage with newspaper so the snake would not be to frighened to feed. Thats what we had to start our captive husbandry.

Heres what I question, and I do always question stuff, you guys are going so well, and have such beautiful animals, why on earth are you so insecure?????????

what I do not understand is, how come there cannot be different opinions, or different approaches? In this case, with colubrids, its not about success, its just different ways to achieve success. With snakes, they are friggin easy to keep and breed, anyone can do it(and that is so true) So why can't we discuss or use, different methods of keeping them? Truefully, I could breed them for the rest of my life and not catch up to you. What is your problem?

So I will again ask, what the heck are you afraid of, have you seen the pictures you guys post? Its crazy insane the beautiful animals you guys are producing. Yet, you run around with both hands over your hindies. Could you explain that?

It does not matter what subject we are talking about, would it be, right or wrong, if I saw ways to improve your husbandry?????? If I see a problem what could be fixed and easily and did not offer a solution? should I mention it or just shut up and let your animals suffer???

Its my "opinion" that I should at least make an attempt. What you do its yours to do.

Whether you keep them in sweater boxes or whatever is yours to do. At this time, I choose to go old school. So far, these hogs are fun and entertaining. Cheers

First thats the problem, you said, you would bet. If you said, You have proof, then I would love to hear what that proof is. But you only said, I would bet. We can all bet on something.

What I mentioned above was, there was indeed genetic proof of parthnogenetic reproduction. In my case back in 76, I did not have PROOF, I had very strong evidence that clutches that did not have copulation, were parthnogenetic and not sperm storage. I had that evidence because i had three seperate females lay eggs without copulating. All three were hatched here and all three had never been bred to their own species. All three always produced offspring that were crosses or morphs, when they produced offspring without breeding, all three produced duplicates of themselves. As I said, strong evidence. In Dr. Shuettes case, he did the genetics and had proof.

Now what is your proof or evidence? As we can all bet, betting means nothing. And please understand, I am not ruling out sperm storage, I have just do not have proof that it occured.

ALso over decades of breeding colubrids, I never saw anything that indicated sperm storage. Like, If I bred a female pyro to a greeri, she produced pyro/greeri. Then on that females second clutch, I bred her to a mex mex, I always received pyro/mex mex. etc etc. Over many hundreds of clutches.

The very same was true when I produced Albino cal kings. I had a large collection of cal kings, i was producing many local morphs(striped, banded, desert, newport, L.A. county black morphs, etc) Then I obtained the first albino male. There was no evidence that sperm storage occured, not with a large number of females. When bred to the albino, the hets that I kept, all produced albinos when back bred to the albino. In the early days, I did this with seven types of albinos. AGain, if sperm storarge could occur or did occur, it would show up as hets not producing albinos, that never occurred.

Again, only evidence, not proof, but again, Dr. Shuettes work was proof.

Lastly, what is your problem, yes indeed it was several of us in Tucson that effectively started the current technique of hibernation. If you like to insert words like invented, then go for it, but clearly nature was doing hiberation, when we were still apes.

I would imagine if you did some research, you would find in the very early days of large scale breeding, there where two schools of thought, Hibernation and photoperiod. Cheers

Oh dear Frank, you are a hoot to be sure! Listen closely and carefully because this will be one of those rare times that I am actually addressing you personally.

REX SAID, I wash my hands of you. You said that in a previous post. So why are you responding now? Again, this is a simple example of context. You obviously changed your context or you would not have replied now.

First off, my name is Troy, you should know that by now if you weren't so daft. But I take no offense as I was called that in the Army all the time and sometimes a lot worse, it's all good!

You always keep yammering on about context and yet here is a completely fine example of being taken out of context but it's you that is taking what I said out of context, you ol' hypocrite you! When I said that I wash my hands of you, I meant what I said, that I was no longer going to be bothered with YOU directly. This doesn't mean that I still can't read what you have to say or respond to others about you which is what I did, I was responding to Gregg as you should be able to discern by now from all the thousands of posts you've made on this forum, you should be able to comprehend the layout of posts in whom they are in respondence to. In this case, I was merely responding to Gregg about you, I wasn't talking to you but about you, to another human being. Can you comprehend that? So you are incorrect in stating that I've changed my stance of washing my hands of you, that rule still applies (except for the rare occurrence like now).

Stop acting like little jealous kids, which is exactly what your doing.

Is it really? Pray tell, what on earth could I possibly be jealous about of you or yours? If truth be spoken, it's a conjuring of your egomaniacal mind Frank, it truly is. Perhaps it is you that is projecting your jealousy onto others, that would make more sense than any of us being jealous of you. Seriously though, how did you come to this conclusion? Please entertain me with a well thought out reason that gives you this impression, I would truly love to hear it.

You make silly accusations.

What accusations have I made other than about your clearly witnessed ego? I merely posted quotes of what you said and even gratiously made them links to your entire posts so that others could read them in their full context (see how thoughtful I am?). The sad thing is, your words are more harmful to you than helpful to others when your ego overrides all else. If quoting your own words is so damaging to your ego Frank, then perhaps you should choose your words more wisely!

I'm not claiming that you don't have any knowledge to be shared with others, you do, but you act all high and mighty about it which derides anything worthwhile you might have to offer, you lord your supposed knowledge over everybody which turns a lot of people off. The irony is, what you have in supposed knowledge, you lack in wisdom in how to convey it in any meaningful way that is not passive-aggressive, insulting or above all, fictiously inflated and arrogant. What I am saying are not accusations Frank, it is the truth as has been discovered by seeing how many others, way before I even knew you existed, have been responding to you for quite some time due to your egomaniacal personality. Heck, someone even took the time, energy and money into dedicating a web site in honor of your egotistical words Frank! What does that tell you?

what the heck are you afraid of...?

Since it is a conjuring of your egotistical mind, you tell me what I am afraid of. As others that know me quite well here, I am not afraid of anyone or anything anyone has to say and have shared my time here in many discussions and disagreements as many can attest to. The difference between you and me though is that I never (intend to) belittle the people I am talking to and that's a huge problem with you. It's all about intention Frank.

The bottom line is, Frank, you are nothing for me to be jealous nor afraid of. I do pity you being a slave to your own ego, but that is all. The fact that you are such a hypocrite by saying that I make silly accusations when in fact it is you that is the one making the silly accusations by saying that I am jealous and afraid of you is not lost on me nor the humor of it all.

And you keep calling everyone children Frank, do you realize that? However much older you are to the rest of us, that you love to lord over us, what you make up for in years, you sadly lack in wisdom and maturity. If age hasn't affored you with wisdom and maturity by now, then I'm afraid that a lot of your time on this planet has been wasted!

At the end of the day, no matter how much ridiculous chest thumping claptrap that you vomit, I will only find humor in your words. So thanks for that! Keep on keeping on Frank...
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Troy Rexroth
Rextiles

Yep, good ol' FR is very consistent with laying down the narcissistic BS trail wherever he goes.

~Doug

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"a snake in the grass is a GOOD thing"

serpentinespecialties.webs.com

.......it's about the SNAKES!(blahh-blahh-blahh), not him..LMFAO!!!

yeah,.........sure thing..

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"a snake in the grass is a GOOD thing"

serpentinespecialties.webs.com

In the case of bumgardner, it was in fact sperm retention as the resulting offspring was at least one super conda. I have no idea exactly when the female conda bred the male conda but am guessing it may have been a while since he decided to go ahead and brumate it. That breeding has been done multiple times.
In turcottes case (if i remember correctly)his offspring matched the parents he bred and the siblings from a clutch two years prior.
Mine was similar. The female locked with the male once. I collected her as a baby in 2001. She had never been with another male. She double clutched then put on serious weight , so much so that I actually wondered if she would triple clutch. She did not and actually went off food for a little over a year. She took 3 or 4 mice in november than went off food again. In march I decided to put her into brumation (hoping to trigger a feeding response)and similar to the OPs story,
Noticed her gravid. She was in a tub with heat tape off.(I really think that this small temp change triggered her to ovulate). So was actually warmer than I typically brumated at. She never took even a small meal. Laid 8 perfect eggs then ate a small fuzzy. Within a week she passed the stool normally and then died.
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Thank you,
Kevin Rhodes

http://s212.photobucket.com/albums/cc314/lifesciences/?action=view�t=09-09hognose001.jpg

As always, thanks for sharing your vast knowledge and interesting stories Kevin!

As I haven't brumated my snakes in many years, I have no experience with sperm retention and the possible laying of eggs during brumation.

However, I have experienced sperm retention and subsequent viable egg laying in several of my females for up to 6-7 months after copulation with males.

One recent case was with my Superconda Twix. This was her first year being bred and her initial clutch was 6 very very large eggs. Due to the size of the eggs, she became physically tired after 3 eggs were laid and after 48 hours, I decided to perform a paracentesis (the insertion of a hypodermic needle through the abdomen into the egg in order to syphon out the yolk) to prevent her from becoming eggbound and dying. I drained the 3 eggs inside of her and the next day she was able to pass them, all deflated and dead of course. After that experience, I decided not to reintroduce a male because I wanted her to spend the rest of the year recovering from her traumatic experience, however, she had different plans and within a month, she quickly became gravid again and laid 11 viable (much more normal sized) eggs without any problems and all from sperm retention from her previous pairing.

However, I did have one female that I bred (visually witnessed copulation) and after several months of no indication of her becoming gravid, I gave up and decided not to breed her the next year. Well, about 6 months later she unexpectedly laid a nice healthy clutch of eggs. That snake was kept in a consistent environment, so there was no fluctuation of temps or light that might have caused this. When I originally bred her, her weight was no different than it was just previous to her laying, so I doubt it was a body weight/fat issue, but who knows.

It's definitely a fascinating topic and worthy of more attention!

Thanks to the OP for bringing his question to the forum and all the wonderful and insightful replies!
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Troy Rexroth
Rextiles

Thanks very much for your reply Kevin, exactly my train of thought , rightly or wrongly , and yes Troy a very fascinating topic and one that is very difficult to exactly find the answer. The only thing that has puzzled me big time is the fact that she waited until 3 weeks into her cooling period , I would have understood if it was sooner or if she laid slugs at the end of the cooling period after being warmed up as a friend of mine has experienced.
Appreciate your time and answers.

Hi again. First off, I am not out to show anybody right or wrong or any of that. I stated my interest in hogs, which may or may not be what others are interested in.

Also, I do field work, that is, all the animals(species) I concentrated on, i also researched in the field. What I see in the field tends to take priority over what we see in captivity. I try to use captivity to confirm what I observe in the field.

In this case, people use words like hibernation or brumation, and do not understand what that really means. In this case and others mentioned, you use the word as it the word has meaning, Which sadly it doesn't. What has meaning is what the snake does. In this case, it was not hibernating or it could not have laid eggs.

Again, in my brief experience with hogs, I found them active at 54F and 56F and 58F, and not long ago, one was out and moving in the shade at 45F. Its obviouse that those animals were not in a state of hibernation or inactivity. The last individual had a large food bolus(lizard) and was moving to heat.

These are just examples, python folks call hibernation, 65F yet, I have seen at least five species of pythons moving(crossing roads) between 50 and 60F. And boas, dang, they move at even cooler temps.

We have many many many observations of crots, active and moving at temps just above freezing, including gravid females. Gilas, active and moving at those same low temps.

So to me, cooling is not abnormal and does not stop function. IT merely slows it down. Many of the female crots on our study sites, contain enlarged ovum to embryos, over winter. And winter at 6000ft plus is pretty dang cold.

The kicker is, we tend to use words, wholelistically, like they hibernate or they don't. Well, unfortunately, thats not how it works. On our study sites, those with need, attempt to stay active for as long as they can. Others with no need to stay active, do not, they may hibernate.

If I were to say, what catagory stays active the longest, it would be reproductive pairs/groups/ individuals and neonates.

These two catagories must find ways to increase their temps, and they do.

The problem for us is, we do not understand what these temps are.

Next, I am looking at hogs in captivity, and its clear, while many of you are doing great, there is still a lot of mystery with these animals. As mentioned on these few threads.

Many of these mysteries have explinations, and some don't.

Also some have possible explinations.

For instance, recently mentioned was the retention of large eggs. While that may be possible, its without question, not probable. Normally when eggs are held to long in the female, they swell(absorb water). That normally occurs as they are laid, but if conditions are not suitable, the eggs swell before they can be laid and the female then cannot deposit them. This is easy to determine if you palpate females. If the eggs are small one day, then enlarge and are held, you have some idea what occurred.

Again, I understand that the person that had this occur, has already made their mind up and does not want to consider such things. And thats fine.

Sorry for wandering, so back to this case, If a female laid eggs during the cooling period, then she was not cooled to a point that would prevent that. Which is a very good thing or you would have lost your female. In a human sense, you called it brumation and the female may be calling it, uncomfortably cool. But still could lay her eggs.

And yes, there are some very interesting mysteries, like how in nature they can and do function at temps far lower then they can in captivity. Like digesting food at temps far below what we keep them at. say in the high forties to low fifties.

Now if someone would like to dicuss this, it would be great. It would be a fun discussion. Have a great day