View Single Post
Old 04-23-2007, 03:06 PM   #7
carol
In my "grand scheme" of things I haven't seen much difference unless there are extremes involved. I've raised a LOT of snakes to adulthood. Of all the snakes that I've purchased that were about 24 months or under, I've had no problem getting them too adulthood by age 3. The only exception was one snake that was just always a fussy eater for me and I was too stubborn to attempt live with her for a long time. She would basically only eat f/t to keep herself alive, about one small meal every 3 weeks. By age 3 she still under 100 grams. At that point I had established my own colony of mice and discovered that she would eat live like there was no tomorrow. This snake from then on out fed ravenously on live and was well over 300 grams less than a year later when I weighed her at age 4 before finally breeding her. She's a small sample but also seems to prove that what you say is not always the case.
However I may just have a less aggressive attitude regarding growing my corns. I pretty much have the goal of getting my critters to breeding size by age 3 and if they reach that size by age 2 (which many here do) that's just icing on the cake. I sappose if your goal was to get all your animals breeding size by age 2, you may be a little bit more concerned with optimum growth rates. Then again what is optimum growth rate? To get them to produce as fast as possible or to get them to grow at the rate that suits the individual snake the best? Or does it make a difference?
Personally, in my collection I've found that animals that are breeding size by age 3 do better than animals that I bred at age 2. They have less problems with egg binding... although here we go off on a side note for a moment: I've had less binding problems breeding 2 year old animals that were UNDER the 300 gram mark than 2 year old animals that were OVER the 300 gram mark. Now there is a HUGE disclaimer that begs to be announced that this does NOT mean I endorse breeding 2 year old animals under 300 grams. It has taken me many years to develop a "knack" for picking females that were ready and females that weren't. Of course breeding is always a risk, but unless you've been doing this awhile, it's always best to stick to the three three's, 300 grams, 3 years, 3 feet, (and not fat!).
Back to topic "3 year olds vs 2 year olds": My 3 year olds have less binding problems and typically produce more eggs than the 2 year olds. In keeping "project" animals, I've noted that most "sisters" will produce very similar sized clutches. The only time I've noticed variance in this is when I've bred one sister at age 2 and another at age 3. I'd say that after raising about 6 pairs of such sisters, the ones I bred at age 2 laid clutches that were about 9-12 eggs for the first three years while the ones bred at age 3 laid larger clutches (in the high teens) for the years to come. Although if you spread out your production over 3 years it probably evens out since you got an extra clutch from the 2 year old. Then again here is another example: I bred a Hypo Lav to a Bloodred in 2003, since that Hypo Lav male had been used a lot and was very young, I backed him up with a Bloodred male. This backfired on me a bit because I only got female triple het normals and not a single male. I guess it was better than the alternative. So I kept two females and had to do the same breeding the following year to get some males and of course I held back two more from the 2004 clutch. I bred all these animals last year and the 3 year olds gave me two clutches each in the high teens. The 2 year olds gave me one clutch of about 12 each. Of course it's too small of a sample to say anything but the production difference does intrigue me. Why did the older females 2nd clutch and not the younger? Even more interesting, this year the older females gave me 19 and 20 eggs and are preparing to 2nd clutch now, and the younger ones still gave me little clutches. Wish I knew what that meant, they are all full siblings.
So whats my point? Sure I get impatient and breed some of my females at age 2, however it seems a lot less stressful on me and the snakes, there is reduced risk, and possible better/easier production from animals that were bred at age 3, at least in my experience. And hand in hand, unless extremes are involved most animals reach breeding size by age 3 no matter how the first year went.
I remember asking Don years ago about buying "year old" animals that weren't much bigger than fresh hatchlings and he had mentioned that although they may take as long as the hatchling to reach adulthood, he saw no ill effects from them taking a little bit longer to get there. On the other hand, we had also talked about raising babies on a "every 2 weeks" basis and his experience was that such an extreme did create babies that just didn't thrive and sometimes just died for "no apparent reason" even after being put on a more normal schedule. So I agree that if the maintenance diet is extreme, it will create unhealthy animals. However, I don't agree it is beneficial to push a hatchling's growth either. And for the other can of worms... what exactly is the benefit of having a faster growth rate?
Sorry for the book, I'm trying to keep my mind off of other troubles.