Reptile & Amphibian Forums

Right not my collection is a year or two off from breeding. I'm wondering with adult and juvie kings;

Is there any detrimental effects or is it unheathly/un-natrual not to burmate your kingsnakes for long periods of time?

My little experience. Last winter I burmated my adult male calking for the first time and he went over 2 months without a meal even after some breeding attempts. I found it easier to coax him to eat over the winter when he wanted to burmate than after burmating him and he went off feed while wanting to breed and lost lots of weight. He's back to his normal self now and eating 2 f/t mice per week without any hesitation.
I'm just wondering if not burmating is in any way harmful to kings or if it's a neccessity in captivity for long lived healthy and vibrate kings.
Thank for any repsonses,
Uncloudy

I brumate ALL of my cal kings, except a few future breeders on their first winter, from the first of November until around mid March depending upon the outside weather. I live at 5,000 feet here in Arizona where we get four seasons. I use my windows to control the snake room temps. My brumation temps range from high 40's to low 60's. My snake room averages around 50-55 degrees. Obviously the night time temps are cooler than the day temps in my snake room. I do not feed during that time, but I do keep a constant fresh water source in their cages.

I have never tried not brumating my cal kings for breeding purposes.

I also need the 4 months break from taking care of my snakes and where I live the wild cal kings are NOT out and about during the winter time.

Kerby...

Also during this time the lights are off and the shades are closed. So the snakes experience whatever partial daylight and nighttime hours that occurs naturally.

Kerby...

I don't have a large collection at all so it's not hard to keep my snakes out of burmation over the winter. For this upcoming winter, none of my snakes will be breeding or burmating unless a friend wants to use my male calking services for his female.

I'm just wondering if it's unhealthy or not recommended, by experienced keepers like yourself, to not burmate your kings at all because I know burmation is a natural process in the life cycles of kings.

The part of AZ your in Kerby sounds nice. I'm in the probably the hottest area of the Sonoran desert in Yuma. In the future, I'll probably have to build some type of cool burmating box in my garage to keep the temps down especially for any mexicanas I may want to breed.
BTW Kerby, I've seen some of your incredible calkings in person from from other herper friends here in AZ and they're all top notch quality cali's.
Thanks for the response,
Uncloudy

brief right up about NA colubrids. In it they make the claim " A period of cooler temperatures is considered very important for many of the normal functions of these snakes including reproduction. Some data suggests that failure to hibernate colubrids consistently may increase the risk for ovarian or uterine disease in female snakes."

ARAV page....www.arav.org/Journals/JA016465.htm
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Ace

Thanks for the info. Ace.
Happy Herping,
Uncloudy