Reptile & Amphibian Forums

In 2002 I bred my pair of hypo brooks, she laid 15 eggs, only 3 were good, in 2003 bred same pair, all duds, this year I bred my Lav. and Axanthic brooks, plus my hypo, Lav. 13 duds, Axanthic 2 good eggs out of 7, and still waiting on the hypo. I hybernate them at 50 to 55 degrees for 3 months, bring them up to 70 for 1 week, and then in the reptile room where it is a constant 82, I welcome any and all thoughts.

Sounds like you have it down technically as far as temps length of brumation etc... I had problems with my normal pair of Brooksi in that they only produced 1-3 good eggs or eggs that went full term then died. I split that pair up after 2 seasons of this and dont breed them together anymore. How big are your females ? Are they overweight ? I know Lemke Axanthics have had problems in the past with fertility of the males . Are your Axanthics Lemke's ? Is there a common breeding among all the females like are you using one particular male or different males ?

Keith
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np

you could try incubating at closer to 60, see if that helps.

how many breedings are you accomplishing with each female? are you observing copulation or merely seeing pursuit & etc.? expressing a sperm sample afterwrds? any chance you could get/borrow a microscope to actually check the sperm? it's gotta be frustrating to not know til eggs appear whether thigns are going as they should. plus with the scope if one male's not doing the job you can shift females to another who is. granted, the genotype pairings might not be exactly what you want, but operating on the theory that something is better than (near) nothing, it is worth considering.

terry

Answers to all responses, yes, I believe they are overweight, 3 different males, which makes me think I'm doing something worng, my male axanthic is Lemke strain, and they all bred several times, and I witnessed copulation, all the females are 36" plus. A none kingsnake breeding mystery, I have a pair of ghost bulls, and a pair of snow bulls, both were bred last year with 100% success, this season they have yet to show any interest. Thank You all for your quick responses.

First off I am sorry to hear about your situation. I had a clutch of 12 eggs go bad on me last year.....and it reminded me of someone who was trying to sell me some Brooksi about 3 or 4 years ago. This person had smoe morphs and was claiming that there was not enough outcrossing going on with these snakes in the hobby and that his snakes were outcrossed and this was his selling point. Now over the past few years I have heard quite a few stories of infertile eggs, eggs going the distance and looking perfect only to have fully formed dead babies inside, and also large clutches only hatching out a few healthy babies. Now please understand I am not knocking Brooksi, I love them and currently have 7. Only 2 are adults and the female is gravid now. If she gives me another clutch of bad eggs this season I will get another male for her. I now have 3 normal female hatchlings which I bought to breed to some morphs in an attempt to create some healthier offspring in the future. I got them from 3 different places and hope theyre all as unrelated as one could hope for. There's some guys out there who have perfect snakes that produce perfect babies, and they also know their bloodlines. However I have asked other people[who at least were honest] that told me their snakes came from parents who were siblings, and the pairs of hatchlings they were selling were also siblings from the same litter. Now when people like us buy these snakes and breed them and then we sell sibling pairs too you have a lot of inbreeding going on. This is nothing new, it just seems to affect some snakes moreso than others. Brooksi are very popular and though I had heard of some of the bad stories I wondered why more people hadnt spoke up about thier misfortune. I am starting to wonder if the safer bet is to breed a morph to a het instead of morph to morph? Albino Boas and Ruthveni come to mind.....if I am not mistaken it is a fact you are asking for trouble if you breed morph to morph with those snakes. I have heard of many problems including one eyed snakes. With Brooksi becoming a must have King in peoples collections time will tell probably sooner than later. I hope others out there are trying to strengthen the existing lines. To raise up beautiful babies into gorgeous adults only to fail at the simple cycle of producing more of these great snakes is just heartbreaking. I don't think you did anything wrong as far as cycling your animals, my guess it is just a case of hit or miss when pairing these snakes.....Tom

>then in the reptile room where it is a constant 82,

The problem might be heat sterilization of the males' sperm. I'd try turning off the heat at night and letting the temperature drop into the low 70s F. Most NA colubrids produce sperm in late summer, so if you put them on a day/night temperature cycle now, they should be fertile next spring. It may also reduce your power bill. Good luck.

Paul Hollander

>>>then in the reptile room where it is a constant 82,
>>
>>The problem might be heat sterilization of the males' sperm. I'd try turning off the heat at night and letting the temperature drop into the low 70s F. Most NA colubrids produce sperm in late summer, so if you put them on a day/night temperature cycle now, they should be fertile next spring. It may also reduce your power bill. Good luck.
>>
>>Paul Hollander
>>

Paul, I'd heard sperm develops during brumation; is it really late summer? can you elaborate? and while i could imagine 82 being two warm--maybe--for eastern milks from toronto or something, it's hard to imagine that bothering brooksi. I mean, have you BEEN to south florida in late summer? (actually, even here in central florida our kings and many other snakes seem to do a summer brumation--at least they certainly drop out of sight.)

terry

Hi Terry,

82 and even higher is not too hot for any king snake that I know of, as long as it is not prolonged. It's the 24 hrs a day, 7 days a week constant warm temperature that can do the damage. And even then the damage can be subtle.

I'll have to get back to you on the rest. I picked up this stuff a long time ago and have to dig the references out of my archives.

Paul Hollander