Quote:
Originally Posted by Wildside
It doesn't matter what species. What differences have you noticed? I'm very curious because my recent change in practice has put all of my animals on a higher level of thriving. Unfortunately I don't have enough snake breeding experience under my belt to be able to determine if this will effect my prospective outcome for the season.
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What I provide is the highest thermal and humidity gradient possible...
If I could get 0% to 100% humidity and 50F to 100F temperature gradients I would.....
But with a large collection of over 150 snakes I must make do with what I have readily available and financially feasible. I have to mention I live in an area where it is very hot and very humid....South Texas. Arizona's 119F and dry has nothing on our 100F temps with 80+% humidity....lol
I cool my snake room to 70F to 74F with a window unit......This provides the cool temps cold blooded reptiles (our snakes) need to conserve energy. During the day it does okay in my WELL insulated snake room. It holds the temps below 80F in the day when it is 100F outside. At night the room temps hit 70F. I also provide a hot area with back heat (Cable). This hot area is typically less than 90F but I want it to be around 90F without heating the entire enclosure. This is the toughest thing to achieve. To achieve the best temperature gradient I use deep aspen. The aspen acts as insulation. It isolates the heat to the back of the enclosure and allows the cool air conditioned air to keep the temps cool on the other side of their enclosure.
Okay....what has this done for my snakes and for me as a snake keeper first...
Now I know when to feed instead of feeding every Sunday evening after the 6 o'clock news like most breeders do.....lol I know boas and pythons can be overfed but if kept correctly colubrids cannot. They will refuse prey when full. I feed my kings when they are on the cool side conserving.....
I have learned to understand why my snakes do what they do. They aren't just snakes sitting in a box that do nothing....Like I've seen my snakes act prior to refining my husbandry techniques over the past 20 years. They actually hunt for food at night. Hunt for mates during breeding season. Find the right temps to metabolize. Find the humidity when needed to shed or when they are dehydrating.
With this set up along with a humidity gradient it has been easier for me to get stubborn mexican and montane hatchling kings to feed. I have not seen these montane snakes "shutdown" for the winter like most do, but I do force a brumation on them for breeding purposes.
I've also seen my snakes grow to breeding size in as little as 18 months and no, this is not from power-feeding. It is from feeding them correctly as growing snake use caloric intake to grow and those small meals they eat are metabolized quickly. These young snakes WANT to eat twice and sometimes 3 times a week, typically every 3 days or so. Adult snakes eat larger prey that takes longer to digest and will only want to eat once a week give or take a few days here and there. They do not use all the caloric intake to grow. They use it to sustain.
In years past I've seen double clutches come easier, even when I'm not trying to double clutch a female. It's all about calories and how they use them at certain times in a year and throughout their life. If one sets up with the correct gradients they'll see this....
And...I have many kings that are in their teens, some are over 20 and one is over 30.
This is a reflection on thriving in captivity. I beleive most of the information that say powerfeeding and breeding snakes at a yound age will shorten their life span, stunt their growth and cause egg binding is false. If husbandry is correct none of this happens. These snakes know what they are doing and have been doing it long before we came along and took them out of the wild and made them captives. It is our job to provide them with all the possible options we can think of and let them choose.
Again...Most of my experience is with colubrids. But I don't see why options would not be benificial to any reptile. Letting them choose teaches us what to provide......
Hybrid Mode
