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Breeding/Egg Production & Care Any topics concerning breeding of the cornsnake, brumation, egg laying, or issues concerning problems in any step along the way.

Imprinting Scent on Captive-Bred Eggs?
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Old 10-17-2007, 12:18 PM   #11
Rich in KY
Instead of using guts, I wonder if this would work by using live pinkies to scent the incubated eggs.
 
Old 10-17-2007, 12:20 PM   #12
Tula_Montage
What an interesting idea. Although my concern would be that it works too well... What If you never had another non feeding corn, where would all these healthy babies go?

I don't think theres enough non feeders every year to keep the numbers down, but if all those troubled kids were perfectly healthy thats even more corns to worry about shifting, whereas its very easy to keep numbers down by culling non feeders.

For other species such as the blairs etc this is a fantastic discovery though, that would take major amounts of stress out of establishing babies. I am wondering how it would work for garters when they don't lay eggs? Do you sent the mother LOL!!?
 
Old 10-17-2007, 12:29 PM   #13
Rich in KY
Quote:
Originally Posted by Tula_Montage
I am wondering how it would work for garters when they don't lay eggs? Do you sent the mother LOL!!?

LOL
 
Old 10-17-2007, 01:18 PM   #14
Drizzt80
Quote:
Originally Posted by Susan
Sounds like an interesting project! I had a couple of clutches with a high percentage of problem feeders (anole scented preference) that I might try this on.
I think if it would be feasible to split that clutch(es) in half or thirds so you had a control, mouse guts, and/or live pinky, etc., and put them in separate incubators, it would make for an incredible comparison! I would love to try it, but I don't have a pairing that has created non-feeders with any amount of regularity . . . yet!

D80
 
Old 10-17-2007, 02:13 PM   #15
tyflier
Quote:
Originally Posted by Drizzt80
I think if it would be feasible to split that clutch(es) in half or thirds so you had a control, mouse guts, and/or live pinky, etc., and put them in separate incubators, it would make for an incredible comparison! I would love to try it, but I don't have a pairing that has created non-feeders with any amount of regularity . . . yet!

D80
That's a great idea! I will be breeding a pair of greybands in 2 years(Murphy willing)...hopefully someone else will experiment before that time comes, but if not...I'll split the clutch and run the results.

Tula...as for the garters...I don't know...maybe I misread that part of the article...

Also...just for clarification sake:

This was not in a medical/scientific journal of any kind. It was an article in a nutritional magazine that is sent to pet shops to help them choose which foods they want to sell and which they don't, and what new products are available. It is, basically, a marketing magazine.

With that in mind...the article was actually written in order to sell pelleted foods for reptiles, and to give shop owners enough information to reliably and accurately educate customers on the benefits of pelleted foods for reptiles. It referenced snakes because of the high nutrition densities found in both wild and captive food items. The part about imprinting scent on eggs was only a small section of the article, but it certainly got my attention.

And so...I turn to the experts for opinions. As I said...I will bring home the article so that I can make more reliable quotes, and also provide any references that are available.
 
Old 10-17-2007, 09:24 PM   #16
tyflier
Ok...

...I just walked in the door from work...

The magazine is called "Pet Nutrition" and it is a supplement to the 2007 "Pet Business". The article is generally discussing herptile nutrition, and the saleability of pelleted foods for lizards, turtles, amphibians, etc. It uses the snakes and scenting only to describe the importance of nutritional density and scent in creating pelleted foods. Obviously, the scenting of eggs fits well with the importance of scent to reptiles and the feeding response. So here is the brief section about egg-scenting:

Quote:
...An interesting aside is that prey-scent preference has been successfully researched by subjecting reptile embryos, whilst still in the egg, to a prey scent that is readily available to the captives after they hatch. This ability to imprint reptile embryos to an available prey is an important husbandry tool, as it enables a reptile keeper to provide food for species that would normally feed on prey that is difficult to provide. King Cobras, which normally prey on other snakes, can be imprinted, whilst still in the egg, with the scent of rats. Once hatched, they will then readily eat rats, which they may otherwise have been reluctant to ingest. This reptile embryo imprinting technique involves applying the liquid scent to the surface of the egg for the last two weeks of incubation. Similar results have been obtained for embryo Indigo snakes and Hognose snakes. The original research was conducted on crocodiles....
Later in the article it talks about greybands, but only very briefly and only about their "picky palate".
 
Old 10-17-2007, 09:59 PM   #17
ArpeggioAngel
I will hopefully have two clutches of graybands next year. I am definately going to mark this thread and give it a shot.
 
Old 10-17-2007, 10:08 PM   #18
tyflier
Please let me know how it goes. I am quite curious as to how you do it, and what the results are...
 
Old 10-17-2007, 10:49 PM   #19
Susan
Quote:
Originally Posted by Flagg
Susan -

Was it your pewter clutches? =)
Those were some, but I had a couple more as well. My female pewter keeper is eating F/T like crazy, as are several of the male charcoals het pewter. I've gotten 1 male pewter to take lizard scented and the other ate a live pinky recently (my mice FINALLY started producing).

Quote:
Originally Posted by Drizzt80
I think if it would be feasible to split that clutch(es) in half or thirds so you had a control, mouse guts, and/or live pinky, etc., and put them in separate incubators, it would make for an incredible comparison! I would love to try it, but I don't have a pairing that has created non-feeders with any amount of regularity . . . yet!

D80
I'll see if that's a possibility when the time comes. Unfortunately, by the time I get to most of the clutches produced, the eggs are all well stuck together in a clump and I have rotten luck separating them, often losing eggs in the attempt.
 
Old 10-18-2007, 12:18 PM   #20
toyah
I found some more information on this - sounds pretty interesting!

Quote:
The work of Dr. Helga Sneddon, and other members of her team, under the supervision of Professor Peter Hepper, in the School of Psychology, Queen's University, Belfast, UK, may have established just such a technique during their research into embryonic learning. They have discovered that they can influence the feeding response of hatchling crocodiles by exposing them to manufactured food flavors before they hatch. The project was in part designed to help the captive reproduction of endangered crocodilians by encouraging an active feeding response in hatchlings, which frequently are unenthusiastic in their response to available foods.

The decision was made, for research purposes, to experiment with a flavour which would normally be entirely unnatural to a crocodile. For this reason the flavour chosen was strawberry as this could be assumed to be an abhorrent flavour for such a confirmed carnivore as a crocodile. Fruit eating crocodiles are rarely recorded, other than where incidental or accidental ingestion has taken place, although alligators have been recorded to deliberately pluck and consume fruit from overhanging branches.

The artificial strawberry flavour was painted onto the incubating crocodile eggs for an exposure period of eighteen days prior to hatching. At twelve days after hatching the baby crocodiles were offered two dishes of the same food, but with one flavoured either with the artificial strawberry flavour or artificial orange flavor. Those babies that had been exposed to the strawberry flavor before hatching ate significantly more of this food than that which was either unflavored or orange flavoured. Statistically more than six out of ten of the strawberry treated baby crocodiles voluntarily opted for the dish of food flavoured with strawberry. These baby crocodiles had already developed a taste and acceptance for strawberry flavour before they had ever eaten for the first time.

As the research team stated," Results (taking clutch variation directly into account) showed that crocodiles exposed to strawberry before hatching showed a significant postnatal preference for strawberry flavoured food. This preference did not generalise to novel stimuli such as orange and was specific to the stimulus used for embryonic exposure."
 

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