Reptile & Amphibian Forums

Here's my post from one of the other sites Pituophis forum. It was in reference to many people wondering why their overall production was not too happening this year. I hope I get my point across as far what I am questioning, as it is not easy to type this out in a paragraph.

On the subject of problems with breeding, I was thinking....

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And I had to wonder if similar things occur in nature for reasons unknown? What I am saying is if many breeders of various types of North American Colubrids are having a lousy year as far as production could it also be a lousy year in the wild? I do not think there's any way to tell.....but when I was a kid and went out in the field some years it would seem snakes were overlowing in massive populations. On another year [in the same locations]they may be hard to find at all. Who knows how the instincts of snakes alter their wants and needs to reproduce? Many people ask themselves, "What have I done wrong?"[when their captive snakes do not reproduce]. In many cases I would say nothing. It is frustrating to not have your animals produce, but I think in some way the snakes themselves may have a sort of realization of this, and that it may influence them to breed heavily in seasons to come. I say this because recalling talks with other breeders in previous years it seems the majority of us have good and bad years at the same time. Not half the breeders do well and the other half do not. Seems more like all of us or none of us. People sometimes panic and rid thier collection of snakes they think are problematic when indeed they may not be, and that is not cool. We need to take the good with the bad and treat the animals with respect and as pets...not just money makers. I am waiting to see if some people including myself see some clutches much later in the year than average. I keep notes as best I can[ i am not the most organized person] and this year barely has any similarity to last year. On a different note I saw my Sonoran Gophers breeding again, and I already have a clutch from that female? It is not often I hear of Pits double clutching? Does anyone else think that what I mentioned about good years and bad years in nature having any truth to it? Especially meaning even if our captive snakes are kept in optimum conditions is it still mother nature that decides if they will or will not produce? I would like to hear about it, especially since reports of many proven breeders not producing this year have reached my mailbox from every part of the US. Tom Stevens

The only "bad" year was during an "el Nino" in the late 1990's. I had lots of bad clutches that year.

Kerby...

I remember that year too when I lived there.

This year for me has been better than I expected only because I did'nt count on breeding anything but a couple of cal kings. I bought a trio of thayeri last month and already one of the females laid, and I have 13 eggs incubating. I'm hoping to double clutch her and see if I can get a few more for this year.

The other female laid a bunch of slugs.

Hey Kerby did you and Scott ever make it out here to southern NM for that herping trip you had talked about?

Here's some pics of the female variable king that laid 13 eggs and her while she was gravid and a pic of what I'm hoping for

Chris

Kerby, did you note if other local guys also had lousy luck that particular year? One of the points I was trying to make is some years both newbies and veteran breeders do not do as well as they had hoped, while other years it seems everyone has tons of pictures of their clutches on the net. Then sometimes people are baffled that thier proven breeders did not produce although they were cycled as they were in previous years with snakes that all had good bodyweight. When I mentioned snakes in the field sometimes being in abundance and other times non existant I wonder if this good year bad year thing may be inspired by mother nature both in the wild and in captivity? I hope you're having a good year, mine is OK.....when I was pretty much expecting to kick major ass LOL ttyl Tom Stevens

Hi Tom, I live in Arizona too. But It has nothing to do with the answer, hahahahahahaha. I also bred snakes in several other parts of the country.

Ok, when I was new at breeding snakes, I thought I noticed the same as you, and at that time there were far fewer breeders to keep track of. But that was when I was new. After ten or more years, I started to understand what I was doing, and as long as I did that, I did not have down years.

If I had failures it was alway traceable back to me and my effort. I soon learned that whatever I concentrated on, did well, and the others did not do so well.

I also do field work, and here in southern arizona, we have been it a long period of drought, going on the ninth year. This has been very interesting to watch. With our rattlesnakes, they did not stop or slow down reproducing. They did seem to have fewer babies and less babies survive. Also, we noticed that very small and I mean very small females were breeding.

Also, I was a pioneer in multi-clutching kingsnakes, one of the last species to do that for me was pyros, of all species. I conditioned the females, conditioned them better, and better, yet nothing. Then I gave up, then the next year, all my female pyros multi-clutched. I thought about weather and luck and such.

What it turns out to be is, lack of control. If your base your cage conditions on room conditions and room conditions are subject to follow the weather, you will be effected by small changes in weather. Consider, wild snakes, have a huge ability to pick temps. They are not stuck in their cages.

What I am saying is, you may be effected by weather, from year to year, but its only because you have no control over your cages. My suggestion would be use better equipment.

Now about us arizonians, we seem to escape this phemomena, because be have such extreme weather, we HAVE to control it or we will have fried snakes. hahahahahahahahahaha fried raisin snakes. I hope this helps, FR

I am still a little confused as to why so many people, including experienced breeders sometimes have ups n down when conditions are very similar from year to year but I guess we'll never know. I myself am seeing some things happening as of late that are just happening a lot later in the year than in previous years. And also spoke with a handful of people that in my opinion gave up too quickly as if they thought there was only a very small window of opportunity for the females to become gravid. In other words they stopped introducing the males. I myself will introduce males once every 3 days until I have 2 clutches from my snakes. So far I have not seen a clutch dropped so close to the time I cool them that it affected the females in a bad way. Thanks for writing Tom Stevens

If I had to guess I would think that at least once in a blue moon mother nature would somehow effect the luck of us breeders? Interesting about the El Nino. Tom Stevens