Reptile & Amphibian Forums

They are here!!! Today I had a day off and decided to sleep in. I wish I didn't. When I got up at about 12ish I found three baby prasina's in the enclosure!! I missed the labour which probably took place in the early morning, for the placenta was still wettish. I made some pics to show you all, enjoy them.

like I found them this morning. Very unexpected because I thought she would have delivered around the 27th.

The young are brown with a pinkish hue over the head and belly. They should become green after 6months of age.



Some facts:

Mating took place on the 27th of januari
no basking was observed
female keeps eating until one to two weeks before labour
female does not shed during pregnancy
3 healthy large brown young born on the 7th of juli.
approximately 160 days between mating and labour.
Average temperature during this period 28C
humidity 50-60% (on the low side)

So the prasinas actually bred at your place, in captivity?

They sure did. Here is the evidence..lol

A remarkable accomplishment. Congratulations. I'm happy to see you kept good records and posted them. The babies look quite large relative to the mother. How big is this female?

Your temps and humidity are lower than what is commonly recommended I think and that doesn't surprise since I found the same conditions worked with mine. Is this lower humidity successful because your snakes are well hydrated? This was my guess because mine drank readily from a bowl of water once they were acclimated, and I was led to expect that they wouldn't. Please comment.

H. Capobianco

The female is quit large exceeding the 2 meter or 6 feet mark. But its quit hard to measure these ropey critters...lol. They do get much bigger, for I initially purchased 3 WC adults of which one female died. I spotted she was in bad shape at the fair, but I gave her a shot, but helas. She was much bigger than the female I have left.
I now think the mother of the 3 is still on the young side and therefore only gave birth to the 3 instead of the more common 5-15 range. However the size of the young surprised me!!! They are indeed very large and about 50 cm or 1.5 feet long.
It is very important to keep the young at 100% humidity until they have had the first shed. If the first shed sticks they will most certainly die. So at the moment I am waiting for them to shed and then I will start feeding.

About the hydration of the adults. They do exactly as you discribed. They have no probs drinking from a water dish. They do have have shedding probs if you do not bump up the humidity during shedding cicle. Shedding them manually is no fun and stressfull. So I do spray more during shedding.

Do you have any experience with the feeding of juvies? I have seen pics of them eating guppies, others force feed mice. Ive got little gekko's ready and will try those shortly. Any info on the raising of the offspring is welcome.

thanx in advance,

PJ

Henry,

I could not reply to your e-mail adress, I got the "sent mail undelivered" nonsence back. You could mail me on P.J.Kwakernaak@student.tudelft.nl.
Well here is the reply:

The vines are doing well!! They have all shed perfectly and they all have eaten a small gekko.
I am very glad to have gotten this far with the babies. However I only have a small number of baby gekko's to feed them, so Iam already looking for alternate food...like minnows. Otherwise I will need to force feed them. This will only be the last resort!!
You are most probably talking about Helmut Sommerauer from Austria. He has indeed bred and raised them before. But they still are bred rarely!! This is because the wildcaught are hard to switch to mice.
I feed mine gekko's which do not come cheap in the Netherlands. Its a shame because I would like to increase my collection of vines, but its unaffordable to do so.
I will keep the forum updated on the progress!!
Thanx for showing such interest,

PJ

WOW! this is great! I have some stupid questions but the answer will be really helpful, thanks.
1. What size enclosure do you have them in?
2. Is the enclosure heavily planted?
3. What is their feeding, and misting schedule?
4. Did you use any suppliments of any kind?
5. When were the adult obtained and from what source.

Hi rick,

I am glad to give some answers.

Q: 1. What size enclosure do you have them in?
A: I keep them in an enclosure made of seals wood of 2.5 feet x 2.5 feet x 5 feet : width x depth x height. For heat I use a large IR bulb ( nocturnal ) and for lighting I use UV lighting. I think this is the essential thing for them to do well. Two weeks after I placed this UV lighting they MATED, so there you are. By the way this is a day active species so why no UV??

Q: 2. Is the enclosure heavily planted?
A: Yes it is!!! This increases humidity, cleans air and looks nice. I do not use fake plants.

Q: 3. What is their feeding, and misting schedule?
A: I feed the adult female two live adult gekko's (hemadactilus frenatus, or common house gekko's) each week and the adult male, which is half the size of the female, only one a week.
During pregnancy I increased the feeding slightly.
I hardly ever mist the enclosure. The plants do most of the work. Still I have the humidity on the lowside (50-60%)only performing extra misting during shed cicle!!!

Q: 4. Did you use any suppliments of any kind?
A: No supplements. I do feed the gekko's with supplemented crickets, but that doesn't really count.

Q: 5. When were the adult obtained and from what source.
A: I got them from a reptile show in the Netherlands. I initially bought 2 adult females and one male. The larger of the two females died after a couple of days, which was forseen.
They are wildcaight and do not know the exact origin of the snakes.

Hope to have informed you and any further Q's are always welcome!!!

PJ

Thanks for the information. I really thought the breeding would be related to rainy season and linked to misting cycle, but from the information that you have provided, its the quality of lighting and probably the duration as well. In the past I have not put the emphasis on Lighting for this species, but I will now.

No be carefull with your conclusions. You could also be right about the misting. Remember that the pair I have is wildcaught. They mated shortly after I purchased them and directly (two weeks) after I placed UV lighting. They most probably mated because: 1)I gave them a drier, cooler living conditions than where they originated from. (possibly)
and 2) UV lighting could also play a role in the general health of the animals. In Januari I used 9 hours sun and increased this gradually until summer at 12 hours light a day.

Iam by no means a expert!! I can only share my personal experience with this species!! The mating could also have been pure luck!! Now that the female has produced, Iam goingto feed her well and gradually increase humidity and then drop it suddenly next season.

However Iam always glad to share my experiences with anyone, helping in the succesfull breeding of this beautifull species!!