Reptile & Amphibian Forums

Hi guys,

I'm pairing up my suris for the first time this winter. It's already down in the low low 70's at night here in S. Florida. Anyway, I have two quick questions.

1) I know I want my nightime temps to reach the mid to upper 60's for a few hours each night at their lowest...should I keep suplemental heat on in their cages (flexwatt at about 90 degrees) or turn it completely off? Day time highs are averaging about 79 right now.

2) With the cooler temps, my males have all but stopped eating, but my females are still ravenous. They all have excellent body weight, but if they're willing to keep eating, should I keep feeding them? Obviously I will feed them less with the cooler temps, but I figure it can't hurt.

One last thing...when is the best time to actually pair them up? They've been cooling for about 20 days now. I figured I would toss them in together in early december even though the coolest weather doesn't occur until after the new year.

Alright...thanks a ton guys. I'm certainly not a commercial breeder (just a lowly biology graduate student totally obsessed with snakes) so any info you guys have is appreciated a great deal.

Cheers and best of luck with your own breeding seasons!

Gabriel

1. I never allow temps to get into the 60s, low 70s is as low as I go for night time lows. I get daytime highs to about 78.

2. While cycling, I turn off all supplemental heat.

3. I never feed my animals during the cycling period and actually stop feeding about three weeks prior to beginning to reduce temps.

4. I put males and females together after 5-6 week of cycling with nighttime lows in the low 70s and daytime high around 78. At the same time I'm putting them together over the course of a couple of weeks I slowly raise temps to normal and slowly turn up thermostat comtrolled supplemental heat.

I've had virutally 100% success if I exclude one female that I've yet to produce a viable litter from and suspect something my be wrong with her reproductively.

Mark

..

n/p

The fact is; " everybody has their own way of cycling and their own theories on what it takes to make a female ovulate. " These animals are being produced more now than ever, but we still poorly understand what it really takes and it may be a mixture of a dozen different things. I personnaly believe in my own experiance and surveying the experiance of other very successful breeders of B.C.C. that the key factors are; " Having an older female that has been slow raised and barometric pressure and of course a good breeding male of maturity. " Cooling, if done improperly, can be a respiratory illness waiting to happen. Personnaly, I feel and have seen this in my own collection that; " Your animals always need to be able to reach temperatures in the mid 70s year around and always have access to a hot spot. " When you cool your animals anywere in the 60s you are taking a chance on illness, especially if you remove the hot spot all together. Even if you do not remove the hot spot, the animal will cool down to the point of being to lethargic to get on the hot spot and alot of breeders will see this and assume that they are comfortable and they are not! Alot of breeders; " and I will not mention any names " have already experianced lower respiratory in their animals because of this practice. Lower respiratory is in the lungs and much harder to pinpoint because no snot usually comes from the nose or mouth. This is a death sentence and there is NO CURE! In my experiance and in others, it seems that March - June are the best months to achieve ovulation in B.C.C. May and June were always my " magic months. " It can become VERY ARGUMENTATIVE when you are discussing peoples cycling techniques, but the most important thing to remember is; " You can try every technique in the world and give your snakes the best setups and do everything that some of these smart guys tell you to do right down to the wire, BUT it all comes down to the animals and GODS WILL! " The first time that I tried to breed Surinames 15yrs ago, I had the best Suriname breeder in the country at that time, tell me everything that I needed to do to be successful. I followed it all the way down to the wire and my males bred 24hrs a day like mad men and I GOT NOTHING. It is not by my wisdom and my hand that these animals are born but by GODS. Throw them together between March and June and have fun and hope for the best.......GOD BLESS...Johnson Herp

JUMP UP AND DOWN ON ONE FOOT!

No, you do not hop on one foot, but if my reference to the FATHER upsets you, than you might want to consider hitting your knees?.......GOD BLESS.....Johnson Herp