Reptile & Amphibian Forums

i know i only have a single female green anaconda that is many years away from any possible breeding but this is just related to breeding in general i am a forum jumper haha i jump from one forum to the next and have noticed kelly has a lot of different snakes he has sucessfully bred other than just anacondas and me being a novice i like learning from people with far more knowledge than myself here is my question is cycling anacondas really needed for them to breed sucessfully i know they are a boa and with my redtails i just put them together during the season they go at it and a few months later i have baby boas also my ball pythons were put together without cycling last year and the male started mating as soon as he saw the female the female did swell up and flipped upsidedown but no eggs were produced so is cycling nessecary at all for reproduction or does is it just used to increase the mating response

Concerning the part about the ball's mating but no eggs. I have noticed lots of snakes that I've kept copulating during all parts of the year when introduced for whatever reason. The cycling helps with stimulating ovulation in the female. If the ova are still in the ovaries during copulation the result will be as you described. No baby balls.

Arik

That may aid in ovulation but also cycling may be one catalyst for viable sperm. I also question temperature cycling with some animals and wonder if rainy/dry season cycling may be another option. I believe we do a lot with temperature cycling because it is easier and less time consuming than sesonality type cycling. If anyone else has some ideas I would be interested in those as well.

I would assume that male snakes would constantly be making viable sperm regardless of the time of year. I may be completely wrong on this but it would be my assumption. I would also assume that the pheromones given off by an ovulating female would be the most enticing thing to a male. I might try this sometime with some colubrids by cycling the females and not the males and see what results I get.
Wet/dry season definately has an effect on equatorial species. The change in seasons doesn't bring the change in daylight hours like it does in, lets say, Iowa. Directly on the equator the daylight is almost always 12 hours. Temperature variances are minimal as well. I know that simulating a 'wet' season in chondros is a big plus towards breeding success. I believe there are species that can be bred with only a change in humidity levels but I can't remember any species to give an example for you.

Arik

I don’t really consider myself an expert, but I can give you my thoughts on temperature cycling. I feel that it is probably the single most important factor in breeding tropical boids. There are several examples of tropical boids that were kept for years at relatively stable temperatures that could never be successfully bred. When they were run through a cooling cycle, successful reproduction occurred. I know several people, including myself many years ago, that never had success breeding Boa constrictor imperator until we started cooling them into the upper 60’s at night, along with a mid 80’s daytime high. As mentioned in a previous post, hormone production, ova maturation, and spermatogenesis, have all been linked to these cooling periods and temperature cycling. Some boid species require less cooling than others, and some appear to reproduce without a cool period, but careful night time cooling along with a corresponding warm period during the day will produce more consistent reproductive results in most boids, in my opinion. Additionally, much can be learned from the seasonal temperature variations found in a given species natural geographical range. In their natural environment, this seasonal cooling period usually corresponds with the young being produced at the time of the year that is most conducive to their survival. I feel that much of our success with the anacondas was based on this cooling effect caused by cycling daytime highs and night time lows. Care must be taken not to drop too low at night due to the risk of RI, or too high during the day. Although ova production and maturation are not overly affected in the female by slightly high temperatures, sperm production and survivability is definitely impacted. Hope this helped somewhat.

Kelly