cooling boids - more than 1 way ??? - Page 2

Brent Strande · 11-12-04, 07:44 PM

Quote:

Originally posted by wyz
Got a question for breeders who like to test things and might have tried that before.

Lets say that you wanna cool a pair a Brazilian Rainbow Boa in order to bred them.

It is suggested to cool them with night time temps of 68-72F (20-22C) and kept day time temps at 81F (27C).

What if you provide them with a big enough enclosure that as low temps at one end of the cage and high temps a the other end ?
(we'll make the assumption that the enclosure is big enough and setup so that we can obtain this huge temperature gradient)

Do you think the snakes will get the right temperatures by themselves without the breeder having to force them ?

Think they know at what temp to go in order to get their body prepared for breeding ?

WYZ

Sorry, not sure why I got Brazilian Rainbow Boas, I missed the white lipped python part...

Jeff_Favelle · 11-12-04, 08:47 PM

I think the answer was obvious that I think it wouldn't work as well, or I would be at least trying it. I kind of thought that it was implied when I said "I wouldn't try it".

And its not up to me to correct every single thing about your husbandry. You were asking about breeding (the LAST stage in keeping reptiles) and you didn't even have the first part correct (correct temperatures). If you were ready for the last stage, I would probably have answered your question.

And there's a REASON that cook-book recipes BECOME cook-book recipes in snake breeding. They WORK BETTER than all the other methods. If something works better, why use something else? If putting a timer that shuts off the heat for 12 hours a day on your cages is too hard and time-consuming, I don't think you're going to be ready for the daily work of 20 baby Rainbows.

Piers · 11-17-04, 02:53 AM

Well I think Its a good question.
I have had boa go off food in the fall by themselves and my hog male wouldn't go on the hot spot for the longest time and also went off his food. But This isn't the average behavier.
Some snakes will try to cool themselves but I wouldn't rely on it for good sucsess.
Even when you read a lot of breeding info on snakes that says that a paticular spieces dosn't require cycling, somewhere it usually says that they do better when cycled.
Back when I started to try breeding guys just had a lot of males and females and hoped for the best. Cycling was as much by accident than intent.
The other thing to consider is space. it would have to be a pretty big cage for a small snake in a basement or garage. Then theres all the other stuff like insulation heat to keep the room temps around 62 65 ntl 68 72 dth as well as what would be needed to regulate the cage temps at the hot end and I'm sure their are a few things I forgot or(more likely) don't know about.
Piers

Jeff_Favelle · 11-17-04, 03:34 AM

All my male boas go off food in November whether I've started cycling or not. Same with the Carpets, same with the Womas, and same with most of the male Ball Pythons older than 18 months.

crocdoc · 11-17-04, 08:36 PM

Jeff, they must be getting some sort of cue that it is cooling outside, or that the days are shortening. Are there windows in your snake room so there is a visible shortening of day length in terms of ambient light, or is there a slight drop in ambient temperatures in the room? It wouldn't be natural for any of those snakes to start wintering in November otherwise, so they must be picking up on environmental cues.

Jeff_Favelle · 11-17-04, 09:10 PM

Circadian Rhythm.

crocdoc · 11-17-04, 09:55 PM

so they're getting lighting cues from outdoors, then

Jeff_Favelle · 11-18-04, 12:01 AM

Nope, circadian rhythm exists no matter what the light is. You can put them in total darkness with no photoperiod and the circadian rhythm still persists.

http://users.rcn.com/jkimball.ma.ult...Circadian.html

crocdoc · 11-18-04, 12:35 AM

That doesn't make any sense to me. If it were an inherent circadian rythm telling them when to winter, why would they start wintering in November in your home?

crocdoc · 11-18-04, 01:19 AM

Quote:

Originally posted by Jeff_Favelle
All my male boas go off food in November whether I've started cycling or not. Same with the Carpets, same with the Womas, and same with most of the male Ball Pythons older than 18 months.

I guess I am being a bit obtuse on purpose and should explain where this is heading. Carpet pythons and womas come from the southern hemisphere (as would some ball pythons and some boas). November is spring, so rather than winding down they'd be gearing up if they followed inherent circadian rythms. In Canada, November is autumn and your snakes are winding down, which means they are getting cues from their environment. Presumably you have central heating (I've yet to meet a Canadian that hasn't) so a drop in ambient temperature isn't the likely cue. It's probable that they are picking up cues on day length from ambient light.

Jeff_Favelle · 11-18-04, 03:16 AM

I don't mean an inherent circadian rhythm that the snakes have before they are even embryos. I mean that after 5 years of cycling the same time every year, they know its time to cycle. I don't really have to do anything. I'm not sure what causes it, but it'd make a great thesis paper!

crocdoc · 11-18-04, 07:09 AM

We have an unpaired female estuarine crocodile where I work. Every year she drops a clutch of eggs. The first few years she dropped them at around the time one would expect this species to lay in the wild, but after a few years it started to go off kilter. First it was a month or so late, then two or three. Eventually she was laying mid winter (which would be the dry season up north - they lay in the wet). This year she's come almost full circle and has laid close to when she should.

My guess is that this is what would happen to your snakes, all external stimuli being absent. Our crocodile has the same day/night schedule all year round, but her enclosure is cooler in winter, so it seems daylight length may be more important than temperature in maintaining the laying schedule in that species. My monitors go on temperatures.

MouseKilla · 11-18-04, 06:02 PM

Wow, was that link ever over my head! lol!

I hope you don't think someone needs to be able to follow that to be considered knowledgeable enough to breed boas! That was a humbling vocab lesson for sure.

I was wondering, from what little I think I understand about (the?) circadian rhythm, if there is any way to prove that all the environmental manipulations we make to cycle has any effect at all or if things like ovulation may be all or mostly internally triggered?

The reason I wonder this is because there are so bloody many of these "cookbook" breeding plans with widely varied instructions. I'm sure a lot of people have read Jeff Ronne's no-cycle breeding instructions, I almost cried the first time I read it because it was so contrary to everything else I'd ever seen. In that article he claims that boas breed despite our cooling them, not because of it.

When I'd finished crying and banging my head off my keyboard I thought about how many different methods have been successful and the number of times I've heard of people getting unexpected litters. If one guy cools his snakes and another guy doesn't and they both produce then who's right? Is there any real proof that anything more than having two snakes of the right age and size of opposing genders in the same cage is needed to breed them?

Jeff_Favelle · 11-18-04, 08:54 PM

Ha ha Killa, its stuff like that that keeps me up until 4am every night. Don't even get me started! LOL!

hhw · 11-18-04, 09:10 PM

Forgive me if I'm misinformed, as I'm not sure if this pertains to ball pythons or other boids as well, but equatorial climates have wet/dry seasons rather than spring/summer/fall/winter. I'm not sure about Africa, but I'm guessing that like Southeast Asia there's a wet season from November to February. Despite longer days, the temperatures are still cooler during this period than at other times of the year.

Now, the climate in Africa probably may have little or no bearing on the circadian rhytms of a several generations captive bred ball python directly, but given that this would have been the original cycle of the imports and if all generations have been kept on the same cycle (which is quite likely since that's when they would have most likely successfully bred), it would still be quite possible for the original cycling to have been maintained.