Breeding indigos

[Robert Seib]

Yesterday, November 2, (yes, I voted also) I put my indigos together for the first time this year. I never know when to put them together anymore. I used to do in Sept and Oct and they always bred, but I did not always get fertile eggs.

It recently got very cold and the temperatures in the underground drawer were 56, while in the upper enclosure where the lights are it was 65 (in the early morning). So I put two pairs together.

I did not see a copulation, but I saw courtship in one pair last night and in the other pair this morning. I separated the first pair.

I never know when I'm doing something right with indigos, or doing something wrong. If it were a science, and we all knew what to do, there would be a lot more fertile clutches out there every year. Like there are for kingsnakes.

robert

 

[thesnakeman]

YUP, but together maybe we can figure

it out! I sure hope so. Spread the word about this new forum, so we get lot's of input!

As for me, this will be my first attempt at breeding indigos this year. I plan to begin cycling them in about a month. That way the out door temps, and light cycle will be more in line with my needs. Wish me luck, and I will keep you all posted.
T.

 

[oldherper]

You are exactly right, Robert. It's extremely difficult to know if we are doing it right. I'm trying to find a way to fix that, though. It may be that you are doing this thing or that right, I'm doing something else right, and someone else is doing yet another thing right, but none of us are doing everything right. We Drymarchon breeders haven't been the best in the business of gathering, analyzing and sharing data.

A friend (another breeder) and I are trying to put together an internet-based data repository. This will be a database of information from various breeders (all those who want to participate) from which we can extrapolate which techniques lend the best results consistently. We will gather data such as:

1. diet
2. photoperiods
3. temps and temp cycles
4. humidity and humidity cycles
5. copulation frequency and duration
6. dates of copulations
7. age and size/weight of breeders
8. clutch sizes
9. fertility rates
10. incubation mediums
12 incubation conditions (temps, humidity)
13. incubation duration
14 hatch rates
15. length, girth and weight of eggs at oviposition, 30 days, 60 days, 90 days

In addition there will be a "stud book", which will list who has what subspecies and any available lineage information. Of course, this stud-book data will be password protected and available only to participants in the study. The site will be linked to KS.com and to Doug's site and (hopefully) this one.

 

[Robert Seib]

Very ambitious. But we need to start somewhere.

I used to produce between 40-80 couperi per year about 11 years ago. They always bred and everything was good, and then the bottom fell out. Since then I've struggled to get a clutch or 3.

I had stopped feeding chickens for a couple of years. I wondered about that, so this year I started to feed a lot of chickens. We'll see.

Also, I used to change the lights every year prior to breeding. So I did that this year. I used all 5.0 UVB. I swithced a few months ago.

The temps this morning when I put the animals together were 56 in the drawer and 65 in the above lighted area.

A friend of mine, Steve Takata, put his animals together last night and two pairs copulated and were locked up all night and this morning when he left the house. His temps were 65.

I'll know by February or March whether those were fertile cops. The temps may have worked, but I don't know anything else about his setup. (I have very high hopes for him, though). I don't count myself out now because it just recently got cold for me.

I also fed snakes when I had them, still born brazilian rainbow boas when they were available (my indigos favorite food) and bullfrogs when they were available. Ah, fish from the Chinese market, mostly smelt. This is all because I have not been doing well on plain rodents for a few years.

But,,,,, I had raised a group of indigos in bus trays with no lights that fed exclusively on rats that all laid fertile eggs that hatched one year. So I am scratching my head over that....

Confused?

best wishes,
robert

 

[oldherper]

Yeah, you know...I don't hold out any hope that we will ever hit upon a 100% effective combination. But, if we can collectively increase everyone's success by even 5 or 10%, I'll count that as a successful project.

One thing that I think will be a big help is the stud book. The bloodlines we have available are limited. What we have is what we're gonna have. We need to do all we can to make good decision on breeding projects and new animal aquisitions for our projects. If we don't, our available gene pool is going to start to get inbred in a few years to a degree that we'll start to lose the quality of our stock.

 

[thesnakeman]

database

Most definately count me in on that data base O.H. Anything I can do to cooperate, and help out, you bet! Now if we could just get someone to post on the old forum about this new one,...
T.

 

[Rob Carmichael]

for some reason (probably a lot of help from above) I have enjoyed a good deal of success with my group of easterns; but as Robert said, those successes can end abrubtly so I am keeping very good records. I love the studbook idea and hope it comes to fruition; I'd be happy to help any way I can. But the bottom line is, working with indigos is no guarantee and that is why I love working with this species so much; its a wonderful challenge that never guarantees any level of success; just the opposite. My other challenge is working with Gila Monsters; an equally unnerving task at times when it comes to successful breedings. I feel that light cycles/fluctuations, varied diet and seasonal temp changes are the keys to success (but there are many other factors that come into play).

Rob Carmichael, Curator
The Wildlife Discovery Center
Lake Forest, IL

 

[WebSlave]

Well, my first few trys at breeding eastern indigos when I lived up in Maryland resulted in nothing but infertile eggs. So I tried to figure out what it was that I was doing wrong. Something was obviously wrong with the environment I was subjecting them to.

Well, indigos are southern climate animals that are active pretty much all year long. Even in the Winter months, they will come out and bask on nice sunny days. Since they are Fall breeders, I thought this might be the key: HEAT. As far as I know all female reptiles will seek out heat when they are developing eggs. But in the environment I had them, there was no way possible for them to get the heat I thought they may need. So what I did was to put a heating pad under one end of their cages and put it on an 8 hour timer. As soon as I did that, I noticed that without fail, the females would be laying on that heating pad from the time it came on, till the time it clicked off. The males seemed OK with being over on the cool side of the cages. But the females were pretty much glued to that spot every day.

Well, that made ALL of the difference. I started getting 100 percent fertility without fail once I started using those heating pads. Unfortunately, I do not have a great amount of case history on this, since a few years after trying this out, I moved to Florida, and of course, my indigos couldn't come down here with me. But the change in results was rather dramatic.

Maybe this tip will help you guys out somewhat.

Good luck guys! Man I really wish I still had mine.....

 

[gila7150]

My other challenge is working with Gila Monsters

Awesome, I guess we share two interests Rob. Do you work with bandeds, retics or both?
I only have a single CB01 female (I believe) cinctum from Dr. Seward. I hope to get a mate for it one of these days. They are absolutely incredible animals.

 

[Patrick Dring]

indigger breedings

Hi everyone... yes it's extremely frustrating...and with no chance for a second clutch like with many other species...it's a once a year chance... it's galling to see my blacktailed cribos breed successfully every year with no cycling and virtually 100% good eggs and better than 90% hatch rate...and then there's my indigos I'm mollycoddling like crazy trying all sorts of temps and setups and I get eggs every year but always infertile...I have often wondered, ok so the males go searching for mates at this time of year and the females are in the gopher tortoise burrows...are they staying in there or are they coming up to sun? Anyway, this throws a new curve to the process, if it now means that perhaps we should cycle the females and males at different temps. So the males are out and about and therefore probably not as cool as the females, and Phil Blais has suggested to me that this seems to make sense as cold males may not be able to form viable sperm...well I cringe to think what I will do in the coming weeks... rather groping in the dark.. anyway one more thing...going on the idea that there were once a contiguous range of Drymarch-like animals from georgia to n. south america ..it begs the question, does the texas subspecies have these same spotty breeding success? or is it closer to the cribo equation? (or are there just so damn few erebennus in captivity that no one can say? )
p.s. anyone breed those rubidus? guy in maryland years ago had a few...
cheers, folks

Pat

 

[thesnakeman]

Diet

There must be something missing in their captive diet. Has anyone ever tried feeding small turtles, tortoises, eastern diamondbacks, or coral snakes?

It seems to me that they spend a great deal of time in such close proximity with gopher tortoises, that perhaps their relationship may be a bit more symbiotic than we knew. I wonder how many of those little ones get eaten by big Indigos, and what effect it has on thier body chemistry?
T.

 

[Patrick Dring]

well, speaking of their eating turtles..I have an unpleasant anecdote about my Black-tailed Cribos...when I first moved out west and caging was temporarily dicey, one of my big cribos got out and gobbled down 4 baby wood turtles I'd just gotten (@75 bucks a pop) a three hundred dollar snack..I could see the lumps in him and rushed over to the turtles (open) cage to find it empty ;-(

other fun anecdote about cribos:
housed at about eye level when opening the cage to feed, they were such little maniacs that one hurled itself bodily out of the cage flopped 5 ft to the floor (it being summer I was barefoot)..I could see this big male was hungry and stepped back slighly..the little guy saw my foot go back and lurched forward...prompting me to step further few steps back...the little brute chases me across the room and grabs my heel! Talk about personality! Didn't bother me at all...bit of blood, ok.. in fact this is the kind of thing that endears them...damn intelligent animals...between them and their cousins the indigos...I've seen them catch a mouse thrown from 3 or 4 feet like a terrier catches a ball!

 

[epidemic]

Dry propagation..

I have to agree, the captive husbandry of Drymarchon spp., in general, leaves much to be desired, but with the sharing of knowledge, ideas and experiences I feel as though we have already come a long way.
Robert made an interesting point, regarding diet. I once fed all of my Drys a strictly rodent diet. However, for the past ten years, I have offered a varied diet which includes rodents (mice, rabbits and rats), chicken, quail, trout and quail eggs. Since I began offering the variety, I have noticed increased growth rates, fewer dermal anomalies, increased egg production in females, and increased fertility in males. I keep all six of the available species of the Dry complex, and have realized the results indicated among all of them.
Also, the animals will let you know when the time to breed has arrived, especially if males and females are housed within the same room. You simply have to stay attuned to your animals through regular observation…

Jeff Snodgres