brumation for pythons

i am fairly new to breeding pythons, but i have been growing and caring for them for about 3 yrs. i have just recently begun brumation on my animals and am now questioning the thermocycling. alot of what i have read on forums and websites suggest temp changes to around 70 degrees, but what i have recently read says for my three species, womas, jungle carpets, and balls that it is not necessary. in fact the one book, the reproductive husbandry of boas and pythons, state that respitory infections are a great possibility. i have invested alot of time and money in these and i dont want in any way to harm them. if anyone has any information that could help me it would be greatly appreciated. i am looking forward to producing pieds, and albinos, along with the womas and carpets. thanks in advance for any help.

Can't speak to the womas or carpets, but a temp. change of that great would not be good for your ball pythons. During summer months the hot spot should be 90-95 with an ambient temp. of 80-85 with a night time hotspot of 85 and an ambient of 80. During the winter months hotspot is the same during the day but the ambient temp. should be 80. At night, the hotspot should go down to 85 with an ambient of 72-75. These are the temps set out in Dr. Seward's DVD about breeding ball pythons as well as Kevin McCurley's new book(NERD founder).

thanks for the info

im bringing the temps back up to normal now. theyve only been down for a few days so they should be alright. very much appreciated and thanks again.

there are a couple of schools of thought regarding brumation. One is to use nighttime temps the low 70s, with slightly below normal daytime temps; the other is to provide more consistent temps in the 75 degree range. I generally use the latter, as it is easier for me. My jungle carpet/diamond intergrades, seem to do better with lower temps (70ish) - the times I went higher, I always had poor fertility. With most of the other species I breed, I cool them down to around 75 degrees and pretty much leave them there for 6 weeks...but I will occasionally increase temps closer to 80 for a day or two. I have never had problems with RI when doing this, as long as the specimens were healthy to begin with (obviously, if they are not - don't cool them). As you rack up your time in this hobby, you will find that there are many ways of doing things...just because somebody doesn't follow so&so's method, doesn't make them wrong.