Reptile & Amphibian Forums

Hello guys,
I'd like to pick the minds of breeders here, how long do YOU leave them down for? I've had mine down since mid November. And down in the crawl space of my house, it stays very cool, from 45 degrees on the floor to 55 degrees close to the ceiling, which is only about five feet above the dirt bottom of my crawl space. And of course, no lights on down there. I'm just curious the different lengths of time people on this forum have hibernated their snakes and still had good success in breeding. Soon, I'm going to bring mine upstairs, and put them in the entry way, where it's warmer, but still cool and will have some light. I let them stay there a week before they return to their nice warm cages.
Russell

I know many people including myself who start cooling them around Thanksgiving and warm them up around March 1st. Works well for me with all the colubrids I keep. Tom Stevens

i don't keep my snakes down for as long or as cool as i have in years past. most of my stuff starts refusing food in early september here. natural photoperiod is the trigger and once they start that there's no turning back. i leave them be for about a month in place providing only water then move them to the back room. this year most of them got about 80 to 90 days [depending] @ about 60* on the floor in a dark, empty room. they are all up and eating again now and some have started shedding. when the females shed the 2nd time [probably april] i'll begin pairings. i used to really chill them for long periods [120 days plus] in the past but found that it wasn't really necessary and sometimes too harsh on the animals. this is the lightest i've ever brumated at so it'll be interesting to see what transpires later this spring.......what are some of the other methods out there?

Hey Dan,

I was just giving some thought to bringing up some of the animals that are in brumation right now and checked the days. It seems ages ago but for this third of the collection it has been only about 68 days. I think I am going to go ahead and bring up the corns and kings. But leave the mexicana group and the pits down for another thirty days. The mexicana group really needs reduced temps to produce viable sperm count in our opinion and the pits seem to do better with at least 90 days for us also. The corns would breed with two weeks I think LOL. What we have been doing for a number of years is to breed the collection in stages and thereby have hatchlings basically year round. We breed in March, July and October usually and it seems to work well for us.

John Cherry
Cherryville Farms

Cherryville Farms - Reptiles

Russ,
December 1st to March 1st at 45-50 degrees. Take care. John Meltzer