Reptile & Amphibian Forums

because there are few Indie breeders out there compared to Pantherophis or Lampropeltis, but:

is it common for a male indigo IN CAPTIVITY to breed 3 or MORE females in a given season? Has anyone accomplished this before or know of anyone who has?

I can breed male hogs pretty easily to a 3 or 4 females, but how about Drymarchon?
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Anthony Chodan

www.gradeareptiles.com

I have worked with the same group of 2.3 couperi for the past few years, and it's not uncommon at all to have each male breed all 3 females during the course of the season.

I wouldn't recommened a group of 1.3 however. Indigos in the wild (recently discovered) breed with multiple males.

In captivity, the more matings you have...the better your chances of high fertility percentage (in my experience at least)

It would seem that one male with 3 females would be likely to produce low fertility in at least one or more of the females bred. Personally, I like to have only one less (max) male than females in a breeding group.

I understand the reasoning behind breeding with multiple males but it seems that this would make it more difficult to accurately document the lineages in the event that an indigo stud book is ever implemented. It seems there would be no way to accurately determine which male is the father of a given clutch.

Eric

Everyone has their own methods....a male indigo can breed with several females but as Dean mentioned, fertility will probably be reduced. I like to focus on selective breeding. For example, I match up my largest male with my largest female, my deepest red chin with my best looking red chin female, deep jet black male with similar female. This is what works for me. Rob

Actually, one of my males is super high red, and the other male and all of the females are black phase. If the babies come out red, I can say with some certainty that the red male is the father. If they are black...it's anybody's guess who daddy is, although I can always be certain who mom is

Considering how common multiple paternity within clutches is in wild animals (whereever it has been studied), I suspect if you bred 2 males to a single female, you would probably produce a clutch of eggs that contained babies fathered by both males.

Also, Rich Siegel and Neil Ford showed that mating with multiple males significantly increases the fertility rate in Pueblan Milksnakes (and they may have data for other species as well). If you want to maximize fertility, multiple males is the way to go!
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Chris Harrison

If memory serves me correctly, I recall hearing that Bill Corwin, one of the first to have success regarding the captive propagation of many Dry subs, described a wax like "plug" female couperi develop upon successful copulation.
Should this be the case, it seems as though it would be difficult for multiple males to successfully copulate with a female, once she has developed such. Of course, there could be a window of opportunity for multiple males to successfully copulate. Has anyone else noticed such a "plug" ??
Yet another area of Dry husbandry needing to be studied within the realm of maintaining Drys in captivity..
Very good topic, Anthony!

Jeff

From Vivarium magazine...I still have it somewhere.
Personally, I have never seen post-copulatory plugs in any of my Dry's. They do not seem to have a problem breeding with multiple males.

"described a wax like "plug" female couperi develop upon successful copulation."

it's actually deposited by the male, at least in garters. it cuts down on sperm competition. it doesn't make evolutionary sense for the female to develop such a plug.

matt

Dear Jeff,

Paul O'Connor, an aquaintance of mine, is the author of that paper (Vivarium). He was breeding Easterns before anyone else I know personally. He described silicone-like plugs which he found in his cages five to six weeks after the initial breeding, and hypothesized that this somehow prevented copulation by other males, until the plugs were expelled.

In my hands, once a female has mated successfully, she will refuse to mate again until at least a month after the last mating. At that time, she will become receptive again. This may be tied in with the plugs. I am beginning to develop the theory that Eastern females will become receptive, release pheromones, attact and mate with males possibly as many as five or six times during the breeding season (which starts as early as July for some females, and as late as November for others). I will describe my observations in detail later.

Bill Corwin is another friend of mine, very intelligent about reptiles and snakes, and has bred Eastern Indigos, but he is unfortunately not currently an Indigo breeder. I have learned a lot from him, and I call him on occasion for his advice.

Robert Bruce.

Anthony,

You may want to contact Robert Bruce to this regard, as I am aware he successfully mated single males with multiple females.
The lines shouldn't be too difficult to trace, so long as you maintain good records..

Jeff

Thanks, guys. Jeff, I will check with Robert. Just something I've always wondered about.
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Anthony Chodan

www.gradeareptiles.com

I have a few comments for what they are worth. I have found that males do loose their fertility if they breed with too many females. In my early years of breeding drys, I have tried just about everything from single male to single female breeding to mulitple males per female to one male with multiple females. I found that selective breeding produced the very best results.

I too used to breed my highest red throats to others with high red. I had a two to three year waiting list for my "super Reds" as I called them. I also bred the blackests ones together and got some spectacular beauties.

Good luck with your breeding project.
Chuck