"The first most obvious reason is the range or area of temps was not great enough. Like too large an area of heat. This will not allow a large enough cooler area.



Consider, snakes WORK from cool to heat, so cool is very important.



We all know that exposure to too much heat will indeed render males infertile. It will also allow for the sperm to die in the female while its being stored before fertilization.



Also a common cause it adding or upping the heat in the spring(bringing them up tooooo sooon)."



Without going completely into the setup I don't think any of this was the case. The prime way I was able to increase the gradient was to reduce the area of heat. In doing this I was able to create a nice, though small, "hot" spot without overheating the rest of the cage. Also, temp wise it has been a below average spring. My room has heating and cooling but is controlled off the house thermostat and is more susceptible to outside conditions. In the summer I actually have to run an exhaust fan (bathroom ceiling type) to draw out hot air and draw in more cool from the main system to keep the room cool enough.



"Also, when they are infertile early, they can indeed be fertile for the second or third clutches."



Agreed. I will say however that they lost much if not all the weight gain from last year during this first lay. I have an idea of why this "appears" to be the case but don't have the time to articulate it here.



"Early in the development of allowing them choices. I commonly experienced first clutch infertility. Then later clutches were perfect. The reason was, early on I did not use a cooler or air conditioner, later in the year I did.



Again the cause was tooooooo much heat."



Interesting but again, I don't think this was the case in my collection.



"Also like any method, you must learn what is important, not what you think is important."



At 50 years of age, finding a different path to the same or better results does require a certain amount of un-learning. My old system worked great though had a flaw that sometimes adversely effected a few of my females. I think that problem has been solved and that given time they'll cycle in to this new regime. I intend a minor change however. Last year I allowed the animals to go along feeding for as long as I could by offering them more and more choice foods (weanlings to crawlers, to fuzzies to.....) as they became reluctant to feed. This year I'm going to allow them to go down as soon as they stop feeding on weanling.



"I am glad you have patience, as many here think they can try something new once and it should work. That is not very likely is it. Like with anything, you need to work the bugs out. Cheers."



Thanks.


-----
“Nothing is at last sacred but the integrity of your own mind.” Emmerson



WWW.TDSNAKES.BLOGSPOT.COM

[ Show Entire Thread ]