Reptile & Amphibian Forums

Hi Everyone,

Does anyone else here have issues regarding their Asian rat snakes and shedding DURING brumation? I have 5 Asian Ratsnakes, including 0.2 Radiated Rats, 1.1 Vietnamese Blue Beauties and 0.1 Ridleyi, and all 5 of them have shed during this current brumation period. Of my 20 corn snakes, not one has.

My question is this:

Is this due in any part to their shed cycles not being as closely related to their reproductive cycles as their NA cousins?

Or rather, is this a cue that their cycles ARE still related, and that this is the beginning of what would be naturally a "during-brumation" mating considering the mild winters in their natural habitat? That being said, I did receive a fertile clutch last year after a "post-brumation" copulation...

Anyways...

I'd like to hear any thoughts on this, and also, pose another issue.

One of the radiated rat snakes this weekend started a shed, and a bad one (I assumed due to the dry cool conditions in the room). I hemmed and hawwed whether I should take her out, warm her a little and risk upsetting her system to help the shed, or just leave her be and take care of it in a few weeks when I warmed them on schedule. My concern won, and I took her out, to notice a nasty wheeze, a few mouth sores (not rot, just sores) and an upper chest "rattle". So she's being warmed, and I'm concerned with why this happened. My other radiated is fine. Any thoughts are welcome, and also, other than keeping her warm and humid for a while to see if it clears up on its own, any other steps I should be taking?

Brumation temps have been fluctuating about 58-68 degrees... averaging around 63 most of the time.

Sorry for the long post,
Thanks for any help,
Kris
(enduring a long cold winter in Montreal... -34F this morning... go ahead... laugh it up...brr)

First off I'm in New England so it's not -34 here. But it's going to be -10 to -15 F here tonight. Ouch!!!

Secondly I don't work with the species you listed, but until someone who does speaks up I'll offer a couple of thoughts.

I believe all three species are actually basically from tropical areas. Now even if they're montane, I don't believe they require the same type of brumation that temperate ratsnakes require. So that may acount for the difference in the relationship between shedding and brumation and mating.

If no one who works with these species jumps in, I'll do a little review of my favorite ratsnake resource (Schulz's Monograph) and see if I can find relevant info

Regards
John

Nice answer, John. I think most of the regulars are hibernating.

I don't keep any of these species, either, but agree, since they are from the tropics they probably don't need much of a brumation. Also it's very humid in that part of the world.

The remedy seems straight forward in that you could put a moist hide in their cage to assist with shedding. The radiata, especially, I wouldn't brumate below 65*F, with a rise in temp to about 75* during the day, and would keep moist.

My mandarina are much more tolerant of cold temps, but still require a moist hide which isn't too hard to do. Radiata does mate all year, btw.

I told you the cold temps were coming, John. It was -25*F here two nights ago, but only +10 last night. It's supposed to get real cold again for next weekend, however. Nice photo of the longissima, btw

Later ....TC

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Ratsnake Haven: Calico and hypo Chinese beauty snakes, Mandarin ratsnakes, Chinese twin-spotted ratsnakes, South Korean Dione's ratsnake, Great Plains ratsnakes and corns

That's an interesting point about the moist hides, that's actually something I never thought to put in during brumation. My thoughts were always that they should be dried out during the brumation period, thinking that adding moisture in the colder temps would risk respiratory infections (my mother always told me never to go out in the cold in wet clothes or I'd catch a cold!)
It seems in this case the opposite was true...

My other thinking on the drier conditions came from reading weather reports on Thailand and other Souteast Asian countries. Apparently, snakes from these areas endure a monsoon season in the late summer to fall months, and then a slight drop in temps (down to the lower sixties but not much lower) and a dry spell for a few weeks during the "winter", followed by an increase in rainfall and higher temps signaling spring. I've been trying to mimic this (more for my own edification admittedly than the snakes' actual need for these cycles).

Well, they've all gone through a shed now, some earlier, some later, so I guess at this point, I have nothing left to do but start warming them in a few weeks, and maybe think next year about brumating the localities seperately, keeping my NA rats cooler and the Asians a bit warmer so I can keep some humidity.

Thanks for the feedback guys, I really appreciate it!
Kris

that means we'll also start warming up (relatively speaking).
It only went down to zero last night. Today will be in the balmy twenties. But you're probably right that another wave will becoming.

Thanks for the nice words on the longissima pic, but I've got to get some new photos of my snakes. The old ones are starting to bore me.

You might be right about the ratsnake people hibernating. Well it won't be long before the folks down south will have nice pics of their new hatchlings and other good stuff.

Best regards and stay warm,
John