Reptile & Amphibian Forums

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Me: weekly, day before feeding.
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You ever talk to me like that again...and I'll turn your balls into earrings. Understand?

Go for it.

I do not bother with weights. However, this season I bred a few females who were on the "small" side. Much smaller the the recommended breeding weight. I did this to see what all the weight hype was about. So I did weigh these particular females just to have a record of what went on. The females that were on the small side were 160 grams. All have laid nice sized fertile clutches with no problems at all. In fact the clutches were 100% fertile with no slugs. All the females started feeding the very same day as laying and have been paired up again. Pretty interesting being that according to most people they shoud have become egg bound, dropped infertile eggs, or would not have been able to recover from laying. LOL

In over 50 years of breeding snakes, never. hahahahahahahaha never had a need to. Ok, I think during that time someone asked how much this or that snake weighted. But never as part of normal husbandry.

But then I am older and learned to determine the health of animals, by, oh my god, looking at them. I really do not give a hoot about how much they weight.

Besides, actual weight is meaningless. Whats important is usable energy.

That said, I hate to tell you, but in the field(nature) skinny small females reproduce without problem. As do fat small females, and do large skinny and fat females.

And man do I mean skinny tiny females. hahahahahahahahaha No offense to folks here. ITS WHAT THEY DO. its what they do is street slang for, its what biologically they are designed to accomplish. They are indeed designed to RECRUIT to the worse possilbe conditions, up to the best. This ability is honed over tens of thousands of years. Individuals that fail, are quickly culled out of the genepool.

In captivity, its a problem with husbandry, not the snakes. To husband is to support in a normal fashion. Methods that do not allow the animals to perform in a way thats normal to them(in nature)must be considered, poor. As in poor husbandry. normal husbandry should support the average success the animals see in nature, and good husbandry, should express upper ranges of their genetic potential.

In nature it very very very important that small females recruit. Its an important part of their reproductive stradgy. And heres why. Its takes far less energy for smaller females to reproduce, then larger females
(of the same species in the same population). Therefore on poor years, where theres a lack of food(energy) small females can still reproduce(recruit) and on years of more support(energy), larger females can produce, as well as the smaller females.

The otherside of this coin, the downside, Large females can exsist much longer when conditions are really poor(like now around here, 14 years of drought) then smaller females, because of their lack of mass, cannot withstand long periods of really poor conditions. This two fold stradgy allows for recruitment over a much larger range of conditions, that occur from year to year. Again, its what they do and do naturally.

Cheers and best wishes

p.s. a normal agruement often presented is, well in nature thousands die and thousands live and all manner of things occur. Yup thats true, but I would think we should copy the successful not the failures. As in nature, its the RARE successful that keep the species going. To copy what fails in nature, would indeed refleck a serious intelligence problem. Did I say that!!!!!!! oh oh, I was only suppose to think that. dang

i weigh all my herps on aprox. the 1st of every month. i try to wait a couple days after feeding. i like to be able to look at the weight gain in my critters. although i also keep track of shedding and feeding as well i keep a 3x5 index card with info for each critter.

jonathan