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Posted by oldherper on April 16, 2003 at 07:53:26:
In Reply to: Breeding ideas posted by cfoley on April 15, 2003 at 13:00:14:
As Paul says, yes it's possible. You will need to keep them in an area where there is no outside seasonal influence, so you can manipulate all the conditions yourself, i.e., no exposure to natural sunlight and temperature/humidity fluctuations. Then you simply "create" the seasons yourself using photoperiod, "rainfall", day/night temp fluctuations, etc. according to the season you want to simulate in the region the snake comes from. For the asian Naja ssp. that's really not all that difficult, because the fluctuations really aren't that broad, so you don't have to simulate 55 degree F. brumation temps, for instance. Plus there's the fact that you almost have to separate those animals to keep them FROM breeding, so they are not difficult to breed in captivity to begin with. That relieves you of the problems associated with a lot of species that are diffucult to induce to breeding in captivity. You can actually "short cycle" them by reducing the seasonal changes to half their normal duration and induce breeding twice a year instead of the natural once a year. However, the animals, especailly the females, need to be really fed up and have a lot of body weight to stand the stress of twice a year breeding and egg production. That means feeding them approximately twice what you would normally feed them during the heavy feeding times of the cycle. This can result in obese snakes that aren't as hot to breed and can ultimately end up in liver damage or other systemic failures related to rapid fat production. It's not really something I would necessarily do on a regular basis....but, to answer your question...yes, you can breed most snakes "out of season".
:Is it possible to breed snakes in the offseason? If so, is this species specific? I plan to breed 1.1 N. sputatrux, 1.1 N. melanoleuca and possibly a few others, it is only April, and I do only have 6 snakes currently. My time is rather unlimited in the warm months, Im wondering if I can get a head start on my breeding projects.
:Thanks
:Chris
