here is a couple posts (sorry they are long) in support of the heat theory. One is from Chad of PE. Now as you read it, this was from less than 2 months before the fire that killed all the animals and maybe proof of his theory.
first post:
I wish I was posting a great photo of a Desert girls sitting on eggs or Super Deserts hatching....but I'm not. I am posting to let you guys know my thoughts on this whole thing.
A few thoughts....
I think someone said Deserts have been around for 10 years. 10 years in the ball python world is nothing. There are a number of projects that are 10 years in and have shown very little "fruit". And these are projects that are with some of the "big" boys. Each project is completely separate thing. They all aren’t easy, that’s for sure. Maybe you are starting with wild caught stuff, maybe you are chasing double het stuff and can't hit the 1 in 16. Who knows, projects can go slow for a number of reasons.
For us, a reason a project can be slow to get going is getting older snakes from another person collection. Everyone has “their” way of keeping their reptiles. When I visited Ralph Davis I was blown away by how hot he kept his rooms. Tracy Barker doesn’t provide cage heat unless it is for females who have has their post ovulation shed. When Dan Sutherland visited our place last summer, his first comment was, “Man, you guys really keep your warehouse cool”. The point I’m trying to make is, trying to get snakes to breed for you that have been raised by someone can be tough because everyone has their “way” of keeping them. When we got Stan’s collection, I flew out to Tennessee, rented a big truck, and drove the snakes and racks back to Colorado. 22 hours behind the wheel. Stan keep his snakes without any cage heat at all, only room heat was provided. So, warm room, no cage heat. At Pro Exotics, we do a cool room with heat provided to each cage for 12 hours. The two keeping systems could not be more different. We use Vision racks with hide spots. Stan used Freedom Breeders with no hide spots. Stan is a big time hunter, dog show guy and long distance motorcycle rider. All things that force you away from home for weeks at a time. So, his balls got fed great when he was in town. But sometimes he was gone for weeks at a time. We offer food weekly, we never miss a week. Ever. As you can see, those snakes have had to deal with very different climates (Tennessee vs. Colorado), heating and cooling cycles, cages types, and feeding schedules.
So, I said all that to say this, none of the adult females I got from Stan have become good consistent breeders for me. The ones that bred the year I got them from Stan or were gravid when I got them took FOREVER to put the weight back on after that first year. Not only did those girls have to recover from the breeding effort but they also had to adapt to a entirely different system of keeping and feeding. There are still a few girls that bred that first year I got them, that still have not recovered and gotten back to breeding weight. That was three years ago!!!! Out of the females that come in the collection, only about 50% have bred once or more in the past three years. Off the top of my head, I’ve got two awesome Pieds from Stan that have not bred for me after three years of trying. Both came to me well over 3000 grams, but I can’t get them to fed well enough to be breeding ready. Let me be clear, I am not talking badly about Stan or his reptile skills in any way. His success as a breeder speaks for itself. I just want to point how tough it can be to get older reptiles to adapt to new conditions.
What does all this have to do with Deserts? Well, the Desert females I’ve tried to breed before this year, were not born at or raised up by Pro Exotics. I believe a breeders best chance for success comes from snakes born and raised under his conditions. Each step you take away from that model, the less chance for success you have. Starting with wild caught stuff or buying a “proven’ male from one breeder and grabbing adult females off of craigslist, etc, can work but that type of shortcut doesn’t lend itself to long term consistent success. This is the first year that I will have breeder size Desert females born and raised here at Pro Exotics. All the attempts at Desert female breedings before this year at Pro Exotics involved females that came to me at adult or close to adult size. The Desert girls born and raised at PE are growing very well and I have a couple over 2000 grams and a few others at are very close to 2000 grams. The Desert girls I got from Stan have been a mixed bag, like all the adult or sub-adult girls I got from Stan. Again, I’m not blaming Stan in any way. It just is what it is when buying adults from someone else. I’m sure if Stan was writing this about getting my collection of adults, he would be saying the same things! The Pro Exotics born and raised Desert girls have bred a few times this year for me, and I found today two girls who are just starting to grow follicles. I’m know these girls will give me my best chance for success. They have great size and were born and raised here at Pro Exotics.
I was talking with Larry today and I think we may have stumbled on what may be a key breeding component to getting the Desert girls to lay good eggs. In reading the Barker book on Ball pythons, Tracy writes about female balls laying slugs because they were exposed to too much heat during the pre ovulation shed period. She wrote that if females are exposed to temps above 82 for too long it can cause her to ovulate too soon, and that can be a cause of slugs. I talked with Tracy about a week ago, and she said the same thing on the phone. Which got me thinking, could it be as easy as moving my breeder Desert girls to a rack without heat tape? Well, today that is just what I did. Larry and I talked about a breeder who said he got eggs from a Desert girl the last two years. What makes his results so interesting is, he keeps his boas and pythons in the same room as his colubrids. And I think he doesn’t use heat tape. Interesting, right? Which then got me thinking about one of the first Desert girls who was gravid for us. As I said above in this super long post, Stan kept his snakes in a very warm room without heat tape in the cages. Well, when I brought his collection to my place, I choose to not use heat tape on his stuff until the fall and the temps cooled a bit. Well, we had a Desert girl who was really too small to be bred (under 1200 grams), but we at that time we thought Deserts were some type of dwarf (after raising a number of males and females born here, that is NOT the case) so Stan and I both paired her up and she was gravid. When it became obvious she was having a very hard time passing her eggs, we choose to aspirate her eggs. When she passed the empty shells, it was clear they were eggs not slugs. So, I think the “lack of heat” may have played a factor in that girl producing eggs but her small size prevented her from laying them. I have also noticed with other Desert girls I bred that they used the heat tape more than other snakes in my collection, especially when gravid. I hope we can look back a few years from now, and laugh at the thought the Desert girls won’t breed. It may be just a case of us keeping the gravid girls too hot!
I know we live in a “show me” world. We heard about Michael Powell’s eggs last year, and I’ve heard about a few good clutches this year as well. But the whole thing will never be put to rest until someone (hopefully me) post shots of Desert girls on good eggs and even better, Super Deserts hatching. I’m working hard to make that happen. If it doesn’t happen this year for whatever reason, I will keep trying. There has not been a morph yet where the females can’t reproduce. Caramels may kink, and Super Womas have a tough time surviving, and we know about a number of lethal combos, but a morph that can’t lay good eggs? This would be the first if it is indeed the case. But I don’t think it will be
Chad Brown
second post:
To first understand exactly why this theory makes perfect sense you have to also understand the findings of Dave and Tracy Barker as it pertains to why female ball pythons in general throw slugs in captivity when slugs are pretty much nonexistent in the wild. All female ball pythons are sensitive to heat during follicular development; too much heat forces females to ovulate prematurely which causes them to throw slugs. Heavier females 2k plus can regulate their body temperatures better because than have more insulation through their body mass. Lighter females having less body mass have a more difficult time regulating their body temperatures and therefore are more susceptible to slugs.
Chad it was good talking with you the other day and I honestly think this theory has some legitimate merit to it. After comparing notes with Chad, Dan Wolf and Mark Bailey about what these breeders (who have been successful with desert females) are doing differently than those who are getting slugs, I feel really good about some similarities we’ve noticed. Before anyone says anything, yes, there have been female deserts that have produced viable eggs. Like Chad said, “This is a show me world” so without pictures I understand there will be those that won’t believe until pictures are posted which I can’t really blame you. Anyway..
I was contacted last week by a breeder in Florida that has produced two viable clutches from his ’07 desert female he bought from Stan. He told me that he never heard the rumor about female deserts and went on to tell me about his female that produced 4 good eggs in ’10 and 4 goods and 2 slugs this season. In that brief conversation, I asked him about how he kept his animals, he went on to tell me, that he breeds ball pythons and colubrids in the same room which is heated to 82-83 degrees year around with no other alternative heating ie flexwatt, heatcable, etc. Chad was telling me when he first acquired Stan’s collection it was maintained with an ambient room temp and no other alternative heating and what do you know, they had a desert female gravid that year with viable eggs.
I’m of the thinking that desert females don’t particularly need special treatment or special husbandry. After putting two and two together it seems they are just less forgiving of our improper husbandry to begin with. Keeping these animals in a tub with one end at 90 degrees and the other at 80 degrees is just flat out too hot. Normal female balls for whatever reason may be a little more tolerable of the high temperatures, but I’m thinking that all the slugs produced year in and year out, shows that even the more tolerable normal females are still having issues with the heat. Female ball pythons during follicular development seek the cooler end of the tub, they also wrap their water bowls to further lower their body temperature, my question is, if the tub was 10feet long and the temps kept dropping how far would female balls go to seek out that proper temperature they require? Based on all the slugs produced every year I have a feeling they’d go a little further than what we think is optimal.
If we keep exchanging information and actively seeking out solutions instead of just marking projects off as defective and not worth while, I really feel as a community we’ll look back at the old ball python care sheets that read 90 degree hotspot 80 degree cool side as being a thing of the past. The sad part about all of these is the fact that there are ball python breeders out there that already know the benefits of keeping their collection cooler, yet they keep this information to themselves. With that there are breeders producing no kink caramels, eggs from female caramels, spiders with nearly zero wobble, etc etc It is actively being done, it’s just being done by breeders that don’t upload all of their success stories straight to the internet like we newer breeders tend to.
If you read all that and still can’t see how this relates to female deserts, let me try and break it down a little simpler. Breeders who have produced viable eggs have done so keeping them at a lower temperature than what is believed to be standard ball python husbandry. That being said, it’s really looking like female deserts are more sensitive to the heat during follicular development than other female balls. If we change our husbandry for our whole collections not only for female deserts I have a feeling we’ll see a huge increase in viable eggs as well as a reduction in defects and deformities.
Although, it is just a theory, I feel really confident that we will consistently see female deserts on eggs in the future. Also, keep in mind if this theory is correct, we will continue to see slugs from breeders that keep their ball pythons within that standard 80-90 degree ball python husbandry range that’s posted on all the care sheets all around the web. I’ve been keeping my animals cooler each year and I’ve been getting better and better results but it’s still been too hot, so from here on out my collection will never see over an 85-86 degree hot spot except during that peak summer heat.
Cooler is better..
