hibernating is it nesseasary?

[chamitch]

do u have to hibrenate your corns or just if u want to breed them?

[Simon]

you don't HAVE to burmate your corns.
Even if you are planning to breed them.

If you don't want to breed them then just continue feeding them unless you want a break for yourself (like me...haha)
other than that...no....just continue feeding them and they'll be happy as ever~

[Invictus]

When I first got my corns, they were all housed together - 2.1 combo. When April rolled around, the biggest male bred the female several times a day for about 2 weeks. Absolutely NOTHING came of it. If you are planning to breed them, brumating is highly recommended, or you may end up with a lack of success like I had.

[marisa]

Brumating for breeding is seen as being a needed thing less and less for corns in a lot of cases. But its great for a break IMHO! haha

It IS needed for some but for most corns you can breed them easily without brumation. I got 21 fertile (and hatchlings!) eggs in total this year from one female/male pair, no brumation. Which I will do again this year.

It's really one of those things. Obviously to be sure you get breeding, brumate. Its not needed though most of the time.

Marisa

[marisa]

I'd also like to point out something Simon (I believe! not sure) told me which helped.....if you haven't brumated and are trying to figure out when the female will be close to ready and ovulating you can try and pair her up after sheds. They seem to go hand in hand. This certainly worked for me!

I know that another problem if you don't brumate can be the males sperm and its potency so to speak.

Marisa

[Siretsap]

When should you brumate them?
I have some 100% het super hypo that I want to breed this year, so when should I cool them down?
and what temps?
I have a room that goes down to 8 celcius at night and no higher than 14 during the day, would this be ok or too cold?
thanks
Michael

[Invictus]

8 would be too cold. 14 would be a bit high. You want to try to keep them at 50-55 F, which I believe is 10-12 C.

[Stockwell]

Corns in Florida are not exposed to 3 months of 55, so it is possible to breed corns with no formal brumation, however if you have the facility to do it safely, then I recommend it. When I say safely, I mean you need a controlled and monitored spot, because if your snake accidentally freezes, or spends too long in the 60's,which tends to make them ill, it will end up with the brumation not being worth the risk.
I brumate as much stuff as possible because it greatly reduces the feed bill, and allows time for other things during the winter, like cage building, painting the herp room, and getting my reserve stock of rodents back up.

It's not really healthy to pack food into temperate colubrids 12 months of the year, and that contributes to the many obese snakes out there, so at least cut back the food if don't cool them.

I should point out that with Corn snakes, even a short period of cool nights, down to high 60's, seventy even, can be all it takes to result in fertile breedings.
I bred my first corns in 1979, by accident.
A friend of mine had his granny coming for March break, so he drove his snake over to my place in the dead of winter.We didn't even know the sex at that point. He simply stuck it in a box, figuring the car would be warm enough, but it was the dead of winter.
When that snake was placed with mine, copulation was instant, and it resulted in 12 fertile eggs, all of which I hatched on a moist sponge in a cake pan.
So that was the quickest brumation ever.. A 20 minute car ride in the 60'sF most likely