Reptile & Amphibian Forums

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Morphs... just like baseball cards BUT ALIVE, how cool is that???

my website www.barmollysplace.com

Nice! Are those breeding now, in January?
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www.hcu-tx.org/

yes woooohoooo

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Morphs... just like baseball cards BUT ALIVE, how cool is that???

my website www.barmollysplace.com

WOW! Early breeders. Very cool. Were they brumated? If so, how long?

reako45

yeah they are housed together year around.

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Morphs... just like baseball cards BUT ALIVE, how cool is that???

my website www.barmollysplace.com

Thomas... I have a few of mine breeding as well. Several pairs locked up around Jan 15. and it is freezing outside. we had some pretty cold days her lately.

This is why bonding works well and people don't realize they miss the window for more than one clutch per year. My Floridas will breed again in Spring and then again in mid summer making 3 clutches. a few times I have had them breed as late as November and I get Christmas eggs .

Bonding takes the guesswork out of breeding and it is safer since you don't have to worry about cannibalism when you introduce an "unkown" mate into a cage.

I hear so many times how people say "they" breed the snakes. Heck the snakes breed themselves and they know when to breed.

I also hear accounts of cannibalism when introducing a male into a females cage for the first time in Spring. They say the one snake is frantically trying to get out of the cage, well duh!

Bonding works but their is a process and I hope anyone reading this understands it is not as simple as putting any age snakes together and they will bond. No! There is a process and it has been discussed here and most just don't grasp or believe it.
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"So I will end with, your now aware of the problem, what YOU do is entirely up to you. Now if you make THIS mistake, its not because you are ignorant."

Frank Retes

If you put two snakes together for the first time in spring. Like what most budding herpetologists do-

#1 how do you know you didn't miss the ovulation window of that female last week? And now the problem worsens when one mate looks at the other mate as a meal instead.

Second thing is, snakes know what to do!..WHAT!? Yes they do if we allow them choices. Isn't that amazing? They actually know when to breed each other if given choices.

Amongst those choices I keep my snakes in a cold room with the heat tape on all year. This way they can choose the right temps and can be hot, lukewarm, cold ect.

So they basically sit on the hotspot when they are conserving calories . Then they go to the warm side and move back and forth between hot- warm-hot-lukewarm-back to hot and so on. They go through a process of using different temps to digest their bolus meal.
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"So I will end with, your now aware of the problem, what YOU do is entirely up to you. Now if you make THIS mistake, its not because you are ignorant."

Frank Retes

That they sit on the COLD side to conserve calories. Not the hotspot.

So they basically sit on the hotspot( COLDSPOT NOT HOTSPOT) when they are conserving calories . Then they go to the warm side and move back and forth between hot- warm-hot-lukewarm-back to hot and so on. They go through a process of using different temps to digest their bolus meal.

Hi Bluerosy, miss you around here. I actually hatched a few kings, hahahahahahahahahaha Oh yea, bonded ones.
I think the problem is widespread and its not about snakes. Its human behavior. People say, I bred this and that, and they want that responsibility. They want the animals to be helpless so they can do everything for the animals, then feel like they are important. This is across the board with many types of reptiles and pets.
Many keepers don't want it to be easy, they want it to be a challenge. They want that responsibility, they simply don't want the snakes to be able to go on without them. Or do anything without them.
Which is why they take everything natural to the animal away. Everything. As you know, some folks want to feed captive snakes, sausages. You know, like that zoopreme snake diet zoos had for a while.
So Bluerosy, when you give animals credit and individualism, and add terms like bonding and freedom to perform on their schedule, you simply rub many folks the wrong way. As I do. These folks don't want to hear that snakes have abilities. How are you by the way? I hope great.

How are you doing Frank? I have been busy with selling Floridas this year as the high end morphs surged with popularity this season. So good for me

What people who tend to disbelieve what I am doing is they still read over the fine point of what bonding is (and what you started saying here on this forum years ago-ha ha!) and how to do it.

But they don't listen or read. That is why they think it is risky because any kingsnake will eat another at any time..Which is simply not true if the bonding process is followed and not just simply throwing two unknown kingsnakes together during brumation! That is not bonding and that is what I see people saying is risky. And it is.

I have been keeping my Florida kings together for decades and not one act cannibalism. Not one death due to two snakes fighting over a meal..THEY LET GO! Go figure? HA HA, that is what surprised me when I stopped trying to force them apart. . Now for years I just pile in the food and walk away. I have so many snakes I couldn't keep watch even if I wanted to. But what I saw was that bonded snakes do sometimes grab each other due to feeding response (especially when the food is first thrown into their cage). But then they also let go. Yes, if you give them the chance and do not separate them. They will figure it out by themselves.

I can't say that for Florida kings which are not bonded properly or when two unknown adults are introduced at a older age.

What I think these folks are simply not reading or refusing to understand the process. Please correct me if I am wrong here? Also they deny bonding takes place in nature.

This subject has come up so many times and with so much animosity
over making it about people and not the snakes is harmful to herptoculture as a whole, it is like you said it becomes about people and not the snakes. Every little sub group is fight amongst themselves because of hurt egos. That is really the problem is egos? Or is it something else? Please tell me what it is?

Hi Rainer, actually its ethology, with ethology, traits are traits, it doesn't matter what kind of animal it is.

To be social is both inherent and learned. Take any social animal and raise in solitarily and it will have a hard time in a society. This is well known with people and many other kinds of animals.

While people are so smart, or think they are smart, they forget/ignore or dismiss the learning part. Simply put, humans and animals(snakes) must learn how to be social.

Ethology is very loose compared to a hard science. So if you take social, it means living working, existing in groups. It also includes, anti-social with the same animals. Social means, some are in, and some are out. All social species, expel members of its own species from their social groups.

So, what we have is social grouping, and its not about the animals. With some groups, its about control. And I am sure from what I know about you, you fight for freedom, that you understand how we as a society are loosing control. On a daily basis. So what we have here are control freaks(no blame, just is) They can have total control over an animal. And they do. To a point of taking everything and I mean everything natural to the animal away. If you take the standard rack system set up, a plastic cage, totally foreign to snakes in nature. Paper towels, a plastic hide, a water bowl. Non of that has a thing to do with snakes, none, zero, not even close. They strip the animal of all natural behaviors, take away any choices the animal can make. They say how wonderful their husbandry is.
IF you step bask and look at this without bias, the rack system and how a snake lives in nature, are polar opposites. They have nothing to do with eachother. Nothing.
The more are freedoms are taken away, the more folks want to gain control over something else. Sadly these snakes are the victums.

Rainer, you and I have proved that you can keep kings together and have done so for far longer then most of these people have been alive. AS in, its proven, those folks see it, they know it. But its not the point, to give these animals, inherent behavior, abilities to choose, etc. takes away from those folks need to control.
Most of these folks are nice people and if they owned the fact that snakes are also individuals, with snake-aloties(personalities) and actually were social and had a need to be social, it would indeed hurt those people.

So what do they do Rainer, they defend their wishes tooth and claw. They dismiss whats been proven to them. They defy logic and proof. In other words, they want snakes to be nothing more then a mass of cells they can totally control in a way that suits the people and has nothing to do with the animals. Its all about the people and what is natural to them and it is. Rainer, you are fully aware that history has shown that human society has a need to control. Its part of being social. Social is also reason to kill/murder/destroy anything not in the social group, and that includes animals. They are the same, they include individuals and exclude other individuals. End part 2

Well Rainer, all we can do it keep showing these animals or what these animals can do with "a little" freedom. Those that do not want to see it, won't. But they are not the important ones. The important ones are the ones that want to give these captives, some manner of freedom, to give them some manner of life, that's natural to them as kingsnakes

As you know, the past couple of decades I have been working with varanids. Funny thing, varanids resist this type of control and fail if kept that way. They would rather die when kept without the ability to make their own choices. So they do. Which makes it easy. These dang kings are so strong, they don't die, but they don't live either. Which is the sad part. You can keep them in solitary confinement, without anything to do, no choices, nothing to do what feel your own heart beat. WOW, I just bummed me out. Cheers

Very appropriate post in more ways than one.HA HA!

Oh and thanks for clarifying about "ethology"!

hey rainer,
no need to preach to the choir my friend.
all of my keeper breeder getula are bonded and housed together year around. some in groups. I get it.
hope all is well,,,,,,,,,,,,thomas
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Morphs... just like baseball cards BUT ALIVE, how cool is that???

my website www.barmollysplace.com