Reptile & Amphibian Forums

Hi!

I am thinking about breeding kings without brumation. I have spoken to a guy who breeds corns and some more snakes without brumating them.
I just would like to know - do you have any experience with this?

I have bred ruthveni - females wasn't brumated, male was.

I have bought adult couple of L.g.splenidna and californiae few days ago. It is too late to brumate them I think. What do you think?
What would be better in such case - brumate the snakes for 2-3 weeks, or try to breed them without brumation?

I am just corious your opinions.

Best regards
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snakes.pl

Last year I produced 2 beautiful clutches from a pair of Mexican Black Kings that were not brumated. I had an adult male, and was able to obtain an adult female at the Tampa show in March. Wanting to try to breed them for the current season, I put the two together that night, and witnessed immediate copulation (within 5 minutes!). (Yes, I know I took a huge risk by not quarentining, and I most certainly do not recommend doing this!!)The two were kept together on and off for a couple weeks, the end result being 7 fertile eggs. The two bred again for me later in the season, another 7 fertile eggs. I considered not brumating them again this year before breeding, but I figured I was extremely lucky last year and didn't want to take the chance.
Good luck,
Scott

A couple of issues to think about:

1) people sometimes say their animals weren't brumated when in fact they simply mean they weren't put thru dramatically lowered temps, with no food or light, for a long time: I often talk to people who acknowledge well, yeah, the house was cooler for a couple months over the winter, and yeah, there were windows in the room so the quantity and duration of light was less/shorter for a couple months, and, yeah, the snakes did seem to eat less over the winter. If you consider brumation to be a process of DEGREES (and i'm not talking temperature specifically here!) then i think a lot of animals are modestly brumated even without the keeper's intent: They experience environmental change and it's possible that change, however slight, is enough to stimulate the biological changes necessary for reproduction. So at least keep that in mind when evaluating your animals and the reports you hear from others about their experiences.

2) perhaps it's possible for animals to reproduce with no brumation at all, not even small degrees but i think your odds of success will be heightened by brumating.

3) With 2) in mind, why limit your options to brumating for only 2-3 weeks? you could stop feeding now, reduce temps 2-3 weeks from now, brumate for 5 weeks, and be bringing the animals up at the first of april. Lots of people routinely cool their colubrids til march anyway. there seems to be a trend right now of people cooling only until the first of feb in order to have babies hatched for the big august daytona show. But the brumation period can be shifted to early or late, i think, if managed properly. There's a lot of elasticity there.

peace and good luck!
terry dunham
albino tricolors
st pete, florida

I most certainly agree that brumation is the way to go to best ensure successful breeding, and would also agree that there are varying degrees of brumation which can lead to successsful outcomes.
I did think it was interesting that the pair of Mexican Black kings bred with such ease. The temperature was constantly controlled at mid eighties, and food was continuously offered. To the best of my knowledge, there was absolutely no change to trigger a breeding response. Now, obviously I had no control over the female, as I was simply told that she was not brumated. In my eyes the interesting part was that the male produced viable sperm (to produce 2 clutches at 100% hatch rate) with no cooling. (Again, I would never recommend this, case in point : this pair is currently being brumated as I do not want to take chances)
Now let me ask you this, as a fellow Floridian (Tampa Bay area), in your opinion do you think that other environmental factors, such as barometric pressure, etc., might play a more significant role than expected?

Thanks,
Scott

As yet another Floridian (South Florida) I would think that barometric pressure may just be a factor. It certainly affects feeding patterns. I have successfully bred Eastern Chain Kings, Eastern Black kings and all the Florida forms here wthout Brumation as well as several ratsnakes and also Glossies.

Frank
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"The luxury of not getting involved departed with the last lifeboat Skipper..."