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Eastern Indigo Snakes and Captive Breeding?

I want to apologize to the Moderator, for venting my frustrations, above. I was absolutely out of line, doing that, and was therefore disrespectful to the good people who maintain and visit these forums.

My sincere apologies to everyone for my childishness.
 
No apologies needed at all. Thanks for trying to give life to this forum. How is your crew of indigos doing? My big male has totally shut down for the winter. Happens every year. Take care.
 
tim brophy said:
No apologies needed at all. Thanks for trying to give life to this forum. How is your crew of indigos doing? My big male has totally shut down for the winter. Happens every year. Take care.
Click to expand...

Glad its not just my guy alone then!! My boy is doing pretty much the same and skipped his last meal choosing instead to go re-bury him self back under the newspaper from where I pulled him out for food time. My younger 2 year old is still hammering away though.
 
My females keep on feeding with maybe a slight reduction, as do my 2013 males. But the 2011 7 foot+ male has not eaten in about three weeks. I keep trying every few days, but his interest is not in food. Got his temp down into mid 70's. If I had a female older than 2 years, I would put him with her. But my females are all 2012's, even though the biggest is 2500 grams and 6'! The 2013 boys are still nailing food. One nailed 8 rat pups over 6 days; the other 2013 boy ate 1 cornsnake, 3 chicks and two quail over the same 6 days. One of the 2013 males is producing sperm plugs. I wonder how young indigos reproduce in the wild? I believe it is younger than we think.
 
All my boys and girls went on a diet for about a month, and were eating, but very sparingly. I wasted so many thawed mice and chicks, it was driving me nuts. They all even shed during that period, but still only took one animal after the shed!

Finally, four days ago, they were all refusing their regular foods again......until I cut the legs off of two chicks, and offered one to each snake. That did it! They grabbed the legs like they were starving, and then proceeded to eat a couple of animals each. I'll be feeding them all again tomorrow, starting with chick legs. (Yes, the bigger snakes can nearly inhale the legs, but it gets them started; that's what matters.)

I'm excited; have another permit application submitted for adding a four-year old girl to my family....
 
Very much on the subject, but a question I haven't seen asked:

My new girl, arriving in 2 weeks, is pure black. She's 4 years old. My .12 pair has a male that's near her size....but of course, he's still growing fast.

I figure on them mating, in a year; because his unrelated '12 mate won't be ready yet.

BUT HE IS STRONGLY REDTHROAT.

Am I bastardizing the breed, or improving the species, by combining the 2?

Personally, I lean towards the latter, because we have an inbreeding issue with couperi.

But I'd like to hear arguments, if anyone believes them.....
 
I have asked this question of maybe three indigo breeders, and the concensus from this small group is that the color phases are random. There are no recognized subspecies within eastern indigos, so I do not see how you would be bastardizing the species. My largest male is a red throat and his parents were both black throats!
I have really come to favor the black throats, but when I first got involved with this species I wanted the more colorful red-throats. But in my very small sample size, I have only two black throats. They are both really great snakes, and are the fastest growers I have.
 
Thanks, Tim! I believe that black phase vs. red throat -- and the color of red -- are, in the wild, somewhat determined by locale. I know that in the Orlando area, several decades ago, every indigo I saw had a DEEP ruby red throat and chin. A friend from coastal Tampa area found very orange-chinned snakes.

Nonetheless, I've read John Michels' (Black Pearl) account of breeding a black to a red-throat, and getting both phases, for his first brood. And I personally like the idea of diversifying the gene pool as much as possible. I have the genetic history of all my present 4; they are all unrelated, and the new girl has no relatives from any of the breeders in any of my genetic trees.

(Just for science's sake, it's worth noting that there are no subspecies of Homo sapiens, either..... And a Chihuahua and Great Dane are the same species, too.)
 
(Actually, there were two subspecies of Homo sapiens, H. s. idaltu which is now extinct, and the currently extant H. s. sapiens. :)
 
Wow. Thank you Vanessa. I try to learn something new every day - and you have certainly provided the best lesson I've learned in a long time.

Of course, I had to follow up; Ethiopia, ~160k years ago, 3 known skulls; idaltu meaning "elder", or "first born".

And here I thought I was pretty good at this stuff, having received some instruction from the Leakeys, in Olduvai Gorge, but I was really looking for the Red phase of the Black Spitting Cobra, so I likely missed some of the human ancestor lesson. (Got a lovely cobra though! And now we're talking red vs. black, all over again!

I see the idaltu ssp was named decades after I studied; many thanks for updating me. In fact, now I see that Zinjanthropus is renamed an Australopithecus anyway.

It's hard to stay up to date on such things, when I've since become a BMW mechanic and racer. Thanks again!
 
Not a problem, Chris! The taxonomy of Homo and related genera have been under significant revisions lately, as have a bunch of other plant and animal taxa. Now that the cost of genetic testing has gone way down, there are a lot more research projects that can now afford looking at the molecular relationships between organisms, so we're learning and lot and being surprised in some cases (which has created significant consternation for my students who must learn all the new scientific names, lol).
 
Going back to an earlier discussion here, on indigos slowing down on food for the winter:

My young '13 girl, maybe 40 inches, had refused food for 10-14 days, as she turned blue. Yesterday, I saw she'd shed, so I thawed some mice, a 1-day quail, (and a chick for a bigger snake.) I cut the leg off the chick, and had barely gotten the tongs to the door of her hidebox, when she ERUPTED from the entry, yanking it back inside. By the time I'd picked up a small mouse with the tongs, and turned back to the cage, she was out of the box, and SHOT STRAIGHT AT MY CHEST, mouth agape, through the open door!

She quickly recovered, and while I tried to control my laughter, she found the tongs, and proceeded to eat a couple of mice and the quail. I really love a voracious eater!
 
Two of my males are only eating every couple weeks now. But all my females are still eating as before, about every third day.
 
All my snakes seem to have recovered to a fairly normal feeding schedule. While others have told me their couperi eat well when pre-shed, mine have always been very hesitant until the shed.

The biggest boy ('12) is doing all he can to catch up on missed early growth...he's not actually that much longer than the '12 girl, but he's becoming quite massive -- NOT FAT, just massive. His head is significantly larger than hers, and he's got her by ~ 1/2" or 3/4" in diameter.

She was bigger, when I received them, 16 months ago. The comparative growth, and behavioral differences, are the only reason I believe she's a girl. By visual exam of post cloacal girth, she's a boy. I'm about to send shed skins off to a Vet Diagnostic place in Canada, for DNA sexing, just to make sure.

Meanwhile, my new, big, 7-year old girl arrives Tuesday - I have a video of her which I've watched fifty times! I'm very excited! Her huge cage is fully adorned and ready.
 
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