Reptile & Amphibian Forums

Basically, I have a male and a female. I am supposedly "cooling" them, so they can breed this winter. What I dont get is how cooling can help, and what I can do to make it work. Most of my python books suggest a daytime high of 88 degrees, okay. And they usually say night time low of 70-80. My barrons book says the "dropping the evening temp to around 70f for a period of 6-8 hours and then raising the daytime temp back to normal levels."

What I dont understand is what is the difference between that and its normal temps? How is this going to affect my snake in any way? Maybe someone like jim or yasser can help me as I havent bred my carpets before. Also, my coastal male is about 2000grams and the female is around 2700. Thats fine for size right? Thanks for any help i can get !!

The pic is of my female

...or keep it as a picture book. I collect herp books but mainly for the pictures. There are way too many with crap info but pretty pics. I recommend you pick up "the Reproductive Husbandry of Boas and Pythons" by Ross and Marzec if you can find a copy. It was written a while back but has some timeless info on breeding boids. Read everything and everyone's opinion and devise your own approach through "averaging" all the ideas you compile. There is no one way to do it. Everyone has there own strong feelings as to how to cool.
Here's how we do it.

Drop temps in winter time to 68-74 at night for at least 12-14 hours. Bring the daytime temps up to about 82-84 but provide very little time to bask with a "hotspot"...perhaps only 1-5 hours a day. Try to just vary the ambient temps without using too much of a basking source. I believe that has been the key to our success with our Morelia. Keep these temps for a solid month at least if not up to 2 months. After the first week or two of these cooler temps, begin introducing the pair. They should copulate. Here you can choose to keep them together the entire duration of cooling and warmup or separate them when there is no more activity and reintroduce them after a 3-7 day rest from each other. On and off, on and off. I'd recommend you introduce the male to the females cage...more natural I think (males search out the ladies in the wild by scent and the scent will be all over her cage). We have noticed that when the basking spot is on too long (more than 6-8 hours), males will lose interest in the ladies and end up prefering to bask for all the time they can. If you notice the female starts gluing herself to the heat when the hotspot is on, she may be gravid and it might be time to start extending the basking spot time to perhaps 8 hours a day. Most females that are developing follicles will tend to want to be cooler and avoid the heat, in search of less flucuating cooler temps (sometimes soaking in their water dishes religiously to act as an insulator to the daily fluctuations). If the female has ovulated (huge swelling in the midbody for approx 24 hours) and is therefore officially gravid, she will be glued to any extra heat you offer her like I said before. If she is always on the heat and never leaves, we gradually begin to extend the basking spot time and at the same time also start raising those basking spot temps to 86, then 88, then 90-92 when she is full blown fat and gravid.
Any other questions? Feel free to ask or email.
Good luck....baby snakes are the bestest.
-Yasser
SR

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http://www.moreliapythons.com/Breeding and Neonate Care of Jungle Carpet Pythons.html
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Jim Kuroski

www.moreliapythons.com/Breeding and Neonate Care of Jungle Carpet Pythons.html
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Jim Kuroski

I will take this info to the heart. I have one last question. Would you say it is more important for the male to be cooled than the female, since he is the one who initiates the "breed" so to speek? Just a curious question. I bought the "reproductive husbandry" book a little while ago, expecting to read some stuff about timors. Nothing, just data. No tips. I am following its DTH and LTL temps, just thought I would ask someone who actually did it first hand for a second opinion. Also, if i knew that photo was going to be so large i wouldnt have posted it. Sorry..thanks!
john

Psyiologically speaking, it is equally important to cool both sexes. The females need to cooler temps because the maturing follicles must do so slowly...doing otherwise, we and some other breeders have found you end up with infertile if she ends up ovulating. Warmer temps make this process occur more rapidly.
And males need these cooler temps too....males of other boid species have been found to have altered hormonal levels during these times and this promotes good breeding behavior as well as more motile sperm.
The repro. book is a book to make you think. I personally got tired of reading books that told me what to do for every species. Because, like I said, no one appraoch is correct.
In my opinion, good herp husbandry/breeding books are ones that help you think differently, outside the box so to speak. The Repro. Husb. book did just that for me many years ago. There really hasn't be another book to do that to me since. Read it about 20 more times and you will start looking at everything you do differently, with a more scientific eye if you aren't already in some way.
But like I said, do it how you would like to do it and learn from whatever success or failure you may have. There is always room for learning. Just don't think that because you may end up with fertile eggs without cooling one or both that it is going to happen again or that it is good enough to start preaching to everyone that your methods will work. Too many folks these days feel as if they learned something from one breeding or with one animal. The key to a good theory is plenty of scientific evidence from many specimens over many years. We've hatched several clutches of scrubs/carpets with lots of detailed data collection the whole way and we have yet to feel like we have learned very much. But I am not an old man yet.
Good luck.
-Yasser
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I think you're pretty old!

Jake

np
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To Yasser:
The females need to cooler temps because the maturing follicles must do so slowly...doing otherwise, we and some other breeders have found you end up with infertile if she ends up ovulating. Warmer temps make this process occur more rapidly.

1) With that said, a hypothetical question popped into my mind. 70 degrees is a high enough temp for a Python to live its entire life. If a female carpet was kept at 70-73f all year, would her follicles be matured by winter since they have been at cool temps all year? Wouldnt suggest this, just curious!

To Jim:
a. Male into female’s cage
i. The male may be distracted by his new environment and will not court the female as aggressively.
ii. Possibly best to do later on in the breeding attempt..

2) Your saying if I put the male into the females cage, he might wander around. Thats true, I saw it last year with BPs! What I dont understand is, why wouldnt the female be distracted by a new environment like the male?

To anyone:
3) Is this a correct assumption? Cooling period for males is psychological, and for females, physical?

4) When you are ready to breed, and you introduce the female into the males cage, how should it be set up? Should you remove all decor (branches, water) or leave it in? How about the hide box?
Thanks for any answeres

np
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Many feel that I need to be balanced with equal time. Wrong. I AM equal time.

-Rush Limbaugh, 1992

I say this with the random breeding experince that I do have.. and saying that I do not know if all the statments that I make are going to be correct.....

1) With that said, a hypothetical question popped into my mind. 70 degrees is a high enough temp for a Python to live its entire life. If a female carpet was kept at 70-73f all year, would her follicles be matured by winter since they have been at cool temps all year? Wouldnt suggest this, just curious!

I would think that could be possabe, but would the female be able to digest food being kept at those temps? Rembering that you are "suppose" to stop feeding two weeks prior to cooling to make shure that all (most) food matter is out of the digestive system.. In my experience my snakes choose above normal basking spots a few days after being fed and expecaly after a large meal... I know of a few off season accounts of breeding by perpose and accdental cooling periods.

2) Your saying if I put the male into the females cage, he might wander around. Thats true, I saw it last year with BPs! What I dont understand is, why wouldnt the female be distracted by a new environment like the male?

personaly I have no experience here I would think that it is "more natural" to put the male in the females cage.. That is only based on a few pictures of "aggerations" of snakes and the AUTHOR said that there were only a few females and mostly males... ?males go and look for mates, females wait to be found?

3) Is this a correct assumption? Cooling period for males is psychological, and for females, physical?

While watching a BP breeder (4 seasons now) and also with fresh imports. I have noticed sperm plugs to be almost excluseivly found during breeding seasons. This is just a personal obverastion...

4) When you are ready to breed, and you introduce the female into the males cage, how should it be set up? Should you remove all decor (branches, water) or leave it in? How about the hide box?

Good question, I have no idea this season is my first attempt to breed snakes. I would like to know also

I would enjoy any feed back on my answers, like I said these are not realy based on "hands on" time yet...

>>1) With that said, a hypothetical question popped into my mind. 70 degrees is a high enough temp for a Python to live its entire life.

70 degrees is not a high enough temperature for a Carpet Python. It's 'entire life' would be very short at that temperature.

>>2) Your saying if I put the male into the females cage, he might wander around. Thats true, I saw it last year with BPs! What I dont understand is, why wouldnt the female be distracted by a new environment like the male?

I've always run on the assumtion that males are the ones out looking for mates, and that the smell of the female would be stronger in her own cage, so I used to (see below) introduce males to females for a few days at a time..

>>To anyone:
>>3) Is this a correct assumption? Cooling period for males is psychological, and for females, physical?

I personally have found that a rigid shedule of cooling is not necessary for breeding my carpets. I used to monitor sunrise and sunset and cycle accordingly etc., etc (see klcb.ca/mcdowelli.html). For the last couple of years I haven't really been trying to breed many snakes and have just put pairs together in November and seperated them in Febuary and done pretty well.

With my snakes it seems that the photoperiod (my snakes are always in a room with a window and no supplemental lighting) and their own internal clocks control breeding more than temperature.

>>4) When you are ready to breed, and you introduce the female into the males cage, how should it be set up? Should you remove all decor (branches, water) or leave it in? How about the hide box?

I don't think any changes are needed. They'll breed when they're ready. Whether that's on a branch or in a hide box or wherever.....

ClintG

Thanks for the reply, both. I said that they could live forever at 70 degrees because this kid at my school had a damn ball python for three years. One day it hit me that with the stupidity of this kid, the snake couldnt be too happy. I told him Id buy the snake and the cage for 30. The BP was VERY aggressive. Anyway he told me he used the same wattage of a light bulb for the last three years, no changes. I put a thermometer in the very cage i bought the BP in with the very light Bob gave me, and it was 70f flat. I thought that was weird, and I read that Carpets live where the temps reach freezing, which I also though was odd! When you put the carpets together, will the male go for the female instantly? Or sometimes will he just sit around and act like nothing happened? Im just worried that they wont do anything. Should I just leave them alone for three days, and three days off? Thanks
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Many feel that I need to be balanced with equal time. Wrong. I AM equal time.

-Rush Limbaugh, 1992

>>When you put the carpets together, will the male go for the female instantly? Or sometimes will he just sit around and act like nothing happened? Im just worried that they wont do anything. Should I just leave them alone for three days, and three days off? Thanks

As far as I have ever read or been told it depends on your male. If they don't do much the first few times you introduce them there are things you can do to stimulate the male into 'being in the mood'. Refere back to that article that Jkrouski wrote above for several methods you can use.

Darci
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Takes all kinds to make a World...

Hmmm I cant get your link to work.