Documentation

I would like to know how many of you, who currently have eggs incubating or have incubated eggs in the past, have measured the size and weight of your eggs throughout the incubation period. If any of you have or are doing so, please record your data and share it. If you have not, please consider doing so, as the information recovered can provide some insight regarding development within the egg.
Also, measuring and recording growth rates, making notes of food intake and observed behaviors can provide valuable information as well. Whether you are applying your information to specialized data cards, software or simply a written journal, I would like to encourage everyone who is doing so to keep at it and those of you who aren't to begin doing so. Much information has been recorded through casual observation and even an individual with only a single specimen can make significant contributions to the knowledge base.
More to this regard wil be coming later..;0)

Best regards,

Jeff

Jeff,
I agree with thiss sort of record keeping. Just by annually weighing/measuring animals and observing successful mating patterns I was able to hypothesize P.ruthveni females seem to prefer smaller males for breeding. Most people have told me you need to have very big girls in order to be successful whereas I have found my biggest girl is the most difficult to breed. The girls do not need to be that "big" to breed successfully and maybe it is good to have a regular influx of young males. Maybe it only works under the conditions present in this colony but it has worked for 4 years now.

( sorry to hijack the dry forum with a pit, I hope to have dry contributions soon!)

daveb

I recall you and I having a discussion regarding the preference of female P. ruthveni gravitating towards smaller males.
Information, such as you have posted, comes from careful observation over a period of time and by working with a number of animals and such is rarely observed in the field. You do not have to be a scientist by trade to contribute valuable information regarding a particular species, as much has come from the realm of private herpetoculture and hobbyist which has been over looked or simply unobserved by biologist …

Thank you, Dave,

Jeff Snodgres

Hey Jeff,
I think that your suggestion of documentation of husbandry, and breeding work is a great idea. And I feel the same about a stud book/drymarchon family tree/ geneology chart, or whatever you want to call it. I agree that way too much good intel is lost because it isn't recorded, or shared. It is also quite possible that the answers to the problems which plague us and wildlife biologists are right under our noses. But do to the fact that nobody publishes the mundane details of the work which we all take for granted, those answers will not be discovered. And due to the fact that we have not yet completed a proper drymarchon web community, and due to the fact that we seem to have the dry club divided into several little fragmented social clicks, in which small groups keep to themselves,...and do to the fact that some folks have been alienated, and 86ed from some forums, and some folks seem to want to keep one foot in each place,....we just have a mess. Basic chaos. There is no unity in the drymarchon community at this point. But,.........

We can fix it. A huge step in the right direction would be for you, and me, and B.W. to get busy, and finish our little project! Take indigosnakes.com away from kingsuck.com. Unite it with indigosforever.org and start building both sites up to support what we want to accomplish. And on that list of things to accomplish will be an online blog/form for folks like us to keep notes, and publish the documentation which you have requested. It does not need to be nearly as complex, or user un-friendly as the form you showed me. Just a basic blog form where each drymarchon breeder can record his/her daily husbandry/breeding notes. Make it a part of our comming web community. If we can do that, I would be happy to participate, as long as we utilize the "KISS" principle. That other thing was WAY too complex for me! Then we can ALL see each others work, and learn from it! Zoo keepers, biologists, breeders,...EVERYONE!!!

Also, I have not seen any progress whatsoever on our project. If you two do not wish to, or are not able to GIT ER DUN,...then giver to me, and I will! I have located a local expert with whom I can sit down, and work it all out,...ie; design, layout, web hosting etc. We need to get this thing going. If you guys will let me take indigosnakes.com, and indigosforever.org I will GIT R DUN! It will cost some money, but I will pay for it. If you guys want to pitch in that's fine. If not, that's o.k. too. But right now we seem to be stuck in the mud. And that ain't good.

Then after we get this goose off the ground, we can ALL have ONE drymarchon place to go which will have everything, everyone will need. No more dabling here and there. And the sooner the better. Jeff,...B.W.,...I know how busy you guys are. I'm not nearly as busy. And I guarantee, you won't be disappointed. Give both those websites to me, and I will make it happen.
T.

Hey, Tony,

Trust me, work on the project has been ongoing, though the results might not be visible just yet, there has been much work going on in the background.
I believe you are absolutely correct, regarding the separation and clique behavior of those working with Drymarchon, as we are only hurting ourselves by not getting along. Of course, we are all going to have disagreements, regarding our individual preferences towards doing things, but sometimes, we must simply agree to disagree for the greater good and not take such issues personally. Trust me, I know how difficult this can be, as I try very hard to be diplomatic and understanding of the thoughts and views of others, but I still manage to get ignited and show my arse from time to time.
It is my hope the new site will be a place where everyone will be willing to share their successes and failures, especially the latter and without being flamed, as only through our own mistakes and failures can we learn and strive to make things better for the animals in our care, which is what the big picture is about…

Best regards,

Jeff

Tony, it is not a matter of just "doing it". The logistics are very complicated. It is progressing and has not stopped. Right now I think we are waiting on word for the DNS change. Nothing more can be done until that goes through. I think that Dean needs to send login info for GoDaddy to change it.

Arewethereyetarewethereyetarewethereyetarewetherey etarewethereyetarewethereyetarewethereyetarewether eyetarewethereyetarewethereyet?

But I do think that we should come up with a husbandry/breeding notes page. Trouble is,...finding the software I guess. That way we could all post all of our notes every day, for everyone to read. We could document, and share information very effectively that way. It just has to be realatively simple, not like that other monstrosity Jeff showed me.

At any rate, thanks for the call B.W., and keep me posted please. Although I still don't get all that computater gobletygook.
T.