Reptile & Amphibian Forums

How long do you brumate for? I currently brumate for 8 weeks, but have heard of some people brumating for 4 weeks and some not at all.

Thinking of trying 4 weeks this year, but I'm not sure.
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4.4 Western Hognose
1.1 Ball Pythons

When I used to brumate, I would do it between 6-8 weeks and that was dependant on how cold it would get here in the winter time considering that I was then keeping the snakes in the garage for brumation. As long as it stayed above 40 degrees, that's where they stayed. When it got colder, then I pulled them out to keep them from freezing. Naturally I only did practiced brumation at the end of fall or start of winter as that is when the temperatures seem to be in a "good range".

I know that some people actually use refrigerators for brumation, this way they have a more consistent temperature and control. Unfortunately, most refrigerators lack the space required for large collections unless you do a rotation based period to cycle through your collection. It's an interesting thought I've considered doing but it also requires space for an extra appliance that I'm not sure I want to accommodate.

Having said all of that, I stopped brumating my collection and have not noticed any real change in fecundity (fertility and sexual response). Of course that means a lot more maintenance and expense on my part in terms of heating, feeding and cleaning, but that's ok, I have the resources and time.

P.S.
I replied to your message but it got bounced several times so I messaged you through here but am unsure if you received it or not. So if you could email me at troy@rextiles.net and verify whether you received my response and whether your email server is working, that would be peachy.
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Troy Rexroth
Rextiles

"I know that some people actually use refrigerators for brumation, this way they have a more consistent temperature and control. Unfortunately, most refrigerators lack the space required for large collections unless you do a rotation based period to cycle through your collection. "

This is exactly what I do. I only have 8 hogs right now so I brumate a pair at a time in the wine cooler.

I'm wanting to drop down to 4 weeks, but I'm worried that could mess things up, since I did 8 weeks last year.

I don't know if I would be comfortable not brumating. I'd hate to miss the whole thing on accident. Brumating at least gives me a schedule to follow so I can make sure the pairs are together when they need to be. 5 years down the road that could change though.
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4.4 Western Hognose
1.1 Ball Pythons

Troy, I would love to hear more about your practices with regards to breeding without brumation. There is a lot of info out there referencing brumation & breeding, but nothing offering info on breeding without.

Thanks!
Chris

I too would like to hear more.
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4.3.1 Western Hognose
1.1 Ball Pythons
1.0 Everglades Rat Snake

Hi Chris,

Thanks for your question!

To be perfectly honest, there's no real recipe or complexity about what I do in regards to not brumating my snakes.

I normally would keep my snakes in the garage during the fall/winter months for brumating as that was the coldest place I could keep that also seemed fairly stable in temperature and stayed dark for the most part. But the last handful of years we've been doing some remodeling and my garage hasn't been a good place to keep them due to the activity of me working in there and all of the sawdust. Plus, the garage was always a place that I had to monitor as it only maintained a temperature 10-15 degrees above the outside temps, so if there was a cold snap that got into the low 20s or below, then I'd have to either bring the snakes out of brumation early or try to find another cool place to shuffle them off too. I started looking at coolers and other such stable appliances to use in place of the garage but I just never got that far (yet).

So, over the last several years, I would sometimes pair up some snakes during the fall/winter months that I had no luck with breeding during the summer and wasn't brumating and had some success with them, so the last winter season of 2011 I thought I'd ditch the whole brumation attempt and see how I'd do and to my surprise, 2011/2012 was my most successful breeding season to date with more and larger clutches as well as several double clutches; in total, I hatched out 10 clutches out of 13 laid during 2012. Seven clutches in 2012 were laid between January to March and hatched out in March-May and the last 6 clutches were laid October-December with 3 hatching out last month in December, 2 this month in January and the final lucky 13th clutch expected in February. So by the middle of February, I'll have already hatched out 3 clutches for 2013. If you notice, no hatchings occurred during the late spring or summer months of 2012.

With all of that said, choosing to not brumate is an enduring and costly choice considering the sizeable collection I maintain as I have to do all of the normal maintenance throughout the year which of course means having to feed on a regular basis and even though I breed several colonies of mice to help offset my expenses, I used to be able to build up my food stock for the snakes in the winter months when I'd brumate them so I'd have more than adequate enough supplies during the active months, now I'm having to purchase more frozen mice from 3rd party suppliers to ensure that I have enough mice to feed to my collection. So there is that to consider.

Obviously there is a lot of conjecture back and forth about the pros and cons of brumating and especially the reasons why a person might choose to do it or not. All I know is that I've had a lot more success these last couple of seasons by not brumating my collection than I had when I did. That's not to say that I'm still not considering getting a cooler appliance of some sort to see if there might be a more effective and safer way for me to brumate my collection just to see whether it might make a difference versus my old school garage way of brumating which was haphazard at best. Either way, I'm not ruling out the positive effects that some claim brumating their collection might have, I just know it's not seemed necessary for me so far to do so to be successful in breeding and/or maintaining my collection.
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Troy Rexroth
Rextiles

Thanks for the info! Just a couple of follow ups. I know that one of the pros for brumating is to time the pairings. Anything you look for in deciding when to pair up? Any routines you follow?

Thanks again for the info. Please keep us all updated. I'd love to hear if you see any trends from year to year in your breedings w/o brumation.

Thanks!

Chris

Thanks for the info!

You are very welcome!

I know that one of the pros for brumating is to time the pairings.

Well, that is still a tricky thing as after brumation, both males and females will be actively hungry, especially the females as they will need to bulk up prior to mating as developing and laying eggs is very taxing on their bodies. So there's still a lot of guesswork being done as to when to ideally pair up the snakes. Some people might take a month or two for feeding prior to introducing a male while others might introduce the males off and on shortly after brumation until they witness a lock-up.

Anything you look for in deciding when to pair up? Any routines you follow?

For me, I usually only introduce the males if the females are of a decent weight and relatively calm, in other words, aren't in the eating frenzy mode that can result in an accidental cannibalism. It seems that because of the summer months, with the heat and higher metabolism that goes along with it, my females are often times so overly active and hungry that even if they show no signs of being cannibalistic towards the male, they are far too active for the male to even try hooking up with her and most of the times I just find my males hiding or buried somewhere to avoid the female. Those instances rarely yield anything positive.

However, if I do have males that are equally active and especially showing no interest in feeding, then that usually means that they are wanting to seek out a female, so in that case I'll introduce the male and monitor the two for several days. If the female proves to be non-receptive to the male and/or so active that the male loses interest or becomes inactive that he's now hiding, I'll remove him. But some males will be persistent enough despite the female's behavior and will attempt to breed with her which usually does result in successful lock-ups but it doesn't necessarily mean that the male is fertile, has successfully fertilized the female or that the female will lay in a definite timeline if her body has decided to retain the sperm to use at a later time.

Bob Applegate, a long term pioneer and author of many books on the care and breeding of kingsnakes, has an interesting housing system for his kingsnakes that basically allows the kingsnakes to cohabitate together despite the common myth about the dangers of cohabitating, especially of kingsnakes, due to cannibalistic tendencies. He told me that it's the snakes that will determine when they are ready to breed, not by us the keepers who generally toss in a male when we think they are ready to breed. And you know what, he's absolutely correct! His system is an awesome display of ingenuity and genius and maybe one day I can incorporate such a system.

Having mentioned all of that though, I don't have such a system and I'm still one of those guys that puts in a male when I think they are ready to breed. The one thing I do differently than some people do though, is sometimes I will cohabitate certain males with females for 2-3 months at a time and I've never had a single problem, especially if the female is well fed. This way, they can spend enough time together and hopefully breed when it's more convenient/natural to them as it were living in such an artificial environment.

Bottom line is, sometimes it's just a read that you get from long term care of the snakes and other times it's a crap shoot.

Please keep us all updated. I'd love to hear if you see any trends from year to year in your breedings w/o brumation.

Definitely! This year will be more interesting as last year could have been a fluke or perhaps I'm onto something. I've already started pairing some males with females and have witnessed a lot of attempted lock-ups from very actively sexual males, so we'll see what happens.
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Troy Rexroth
Rextiles

Thanks again for the info. I truly appreciate the insight into how you do things. I've been growing up my first group of breeders for the last 2yrs and just put them into brumation 2 weeks ago. It was doable, but like you had mentioned in your previous post, it was somewhat haphazard. They got moved into my attic and I'm hoping the temps maintain at desirable levels. So I was definitely curious about how people go about it w/o brumating. I may give it a try with some of my current grow-ups. All the behaviors you mentioned in your hogs mirror some of the things I've been observing as far as activity level goes. It gives me a clue as to what to look for come breeding time. So it sounds like one of the behaviors you'll watch out for is when the female appears less active/more relaxed? I know hogs that have recently fed well will slow down to digest, would that make for a good introduction point or would a full belly make a female less receptive?

Thanks again!
Chris
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Chris Wainman
Big Bang Reptiles

So it sounds like one of the behaviors you'll watch out for is when the female appears less active/more relaxed? I know hogs that have recently fed well will slow down to digest, would that make for a good introduction point or would a full belly make a female less receptive?

Well, a full bellied female might not be as receptive, but in my opinion and what I practice is that's when I feel it is generally the safest time to introduce a male and to just leave him with the female perhaps for a week until the next feeding time. This way it gives the female time to recognize that the male is present and that he is not a food item. The problem I've had with females that have bitten into males up introduction is because the snakes are conditioned to the fact that when I generally open their tub, it's feeding time, so they often greet me with a gaping mouth ready for me to shove a mouse in their mouth. If this doesn't happen right away, they go after anything that moves, if that happens to be a male, then a bite can easily occur as a hungry female will bite first, ask questions later. But, if a female has a full belly and is relaxed, introduction of a male will elicit an entirely different reaction dependent on the receptiveness of the female, but she should react in a non-threatening I-want-to-eat-you kind of way.

You should also notice receptiveness in a male too. If the male shows interest in the female such as poking, smelling and chasing her, then the chances are good that he'll try to mount her. If he's not interested, he'll just cruise around his new surroundings maybe looking for a place to hide or get out. That doesn't necessarily mean he won't breed with her later, but generally most initally uninterested males won't breed. That's why I keep them together for at least a week, it gives both of them time to acclimate to each other and sometimes initially uninterested males become sexually interested within a few days.
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Troy Rexroth
Rextiles

but she should react in a non-threatening I-want-to-eat-you kind of way.

Should have said:

but she should react in a non-threatening I-don't-want-to-eat-you kind of way.

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Troy Rexroth
Rextiles

Thanks for all of the info Troy! It's given me a lot to think about and consider. It also makes me that much more anxious for my hogs to finish brumation so I can get the breeding season going. Good luck with all of your breedings!
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Chris Wainman
Big Bang Reptiles

Thanks for all of the info Troy!

You are most welcome Chris.

It's given me a lot to think about and consider. It also makes me that much more anxious for my hogs to finish brumation so I can get the breeding season going.

And please let us know of your observations from your own collection. You might get a lot of the same behaviors or you might observe something completely different from my own; it would be interesting to compare the similarities and/or differences, especially based on the possible differences of environment and your techniques of maintaining your collection.

Good luck with all of your breedings!

Thank you and I wish you all the luck with yours as well.
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Troy Rexroth
Rextiles

>>How long do you brumate for? I currently brumate for 8 weeks, but have heard of some people brumating for 4 weeks and some not at all.
>>
>>Thinking of trying 4 weeks this year, but I'm not sure.
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>>4.4 Western Hognose
>>1.1 Ball Pythons
>>

2 to 3 months. I've went as long as 5 months with some females with no ill effects.

I use refrigerators and stand-up freezers to brumate.

I'd personally never NOT brumate.
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Hognose, Sand Boa & Ball Python Morphs

Greg Bennett | www.hognose.com