brumation of young corns

[chausies]

This just occured to me, I have never heard of anyone brumating young corns (say, those under a year old.) I know that it gets too cool in the wild for the youngsters to stay active all year, so I assume that in the wild they also go into a natural brumation period until the weather becomes more ideal for them. Why do captive snake keepers not simulate this experience for their youngsters? Is it just a matter of wanting the snakes to grow through the winter? Is there more risk than benefit to brumating young corns because they are more delicate than adults? Is it just tradition to feed the youngsters year-round? Maybe to have them ready to sell? Just curious...

charlene

 

[Amanda E]

For me its to try and get them up to breeding weight as soon as posssible. Also I wouldn't see a reason to brumate them if I wasn't going to be breeding them that spring.

 

[Jason B.]

I planed to brumate several of my 2004 hatchlings this season, but changed my mind. I changed my mind because I thought I might get some winter sales out of them. I have seen it done without any problems in the past and even bought about 30 hatchlings from a guy right out of brumation then warmed them up over a couple of weeks in the middle of winter and they did fine for me.

 

[Kel]

I had some irregular feeder hatchlings left in December 2003 - they'd maybe eaten two or three times of their own accord since hatching in July/August. I decided to try brumating them to see if this helped their appetite. I built them up during November with a mixture of force-feeding and supplements in their water and started the brumation process in mid-December. I got them out at the end of January and all three ate the first thing they were offered and everything that was put in front of them after that. I was able to sell them as reliable feeders in March.

I had one persistant non-feeder hatchling that had never eaten of its own volition and I brumated it with the rest as a last resort. This one tolerated brumation well and recovered afterwards, but still didn't eat. It eventually died in late February.

So in future, I plan to brumate any hatchlings that don't eat regularly. I didn't have any this year, so I can't comment on the reliability of this technique.

I don't brumate my adults, simply because they don't seem to need it. They breed reliably without, so I don't really want to risk them. I think there's a view that brumating improves fertility rates, but as I'm only a hobby breeder (pleasure not profit) this isn't really important for me.

 

[Creeper]

Sorry if this sounds really stupid, but what is brumation? Just trying to learn everything I can. From reading, it sounds kinda like hibernation?

 

[vanderkm]

Brumation is cooling - similar to hibernation but during brumation snakes are active intermittantly - up to drink and pee occasionally so not a full deep sleep like hibernation.

We brumated 8 September hatched corns that were non-feeders last year to try and get a feeding response from them. They came through a 6 week cooling with no weight loss and 4 of the 8 fed well after that. The other 4 never did feed on their own and were euthanized.

We are brumating all our holdback hatchling corns, kings and milks this year because we are moving and it is easier to move them when chilled during the winter here than to try and maintain normal temps. I don't anticipate any problems - we have treated them just like our adults except started cooling later so that they will have a shorter overall brumation. These are summer hatched babies and they were feeding on hopper mice, so they are well grown and fully able to handle the stress of cooling. I expect that if all goes well we will brumate all in the future - nice to simulate natural conditions and give their metabolism a rest.

mary v.