Weight loss during cooling

[glacey]

How much weight can a carpet loose during cooling before it becomes a concern. One of mine has lost about 8% of his weight (started at 1200gm) in the past 6 weeks.

All my others have maintained their weight.

Heating is turned off - so day temp 15-20ish.

 

[Magpie]

Heat it back up, treat it for worms and flagellates.

 

[glacey]

Thanks

Any particular product recommended for worming???

 

[sxereturn]

That's some pretty serious weight loss. When you weighed it the first time, had it just being fed, or was it about to crap?

And also...1200 grams is a small carpet, why are you cooling?

 

[glacey]

It's not a noticable weight loss - but yes 7-8% is a big loss - not that he didn't need it, the last few rats in March/April made him a bit fat.

He's been more active than all the others - but we've had a few lows (weather wise) and he seems to be set off by those.

Yes 1200 is small - he's only 2, I hope to breed next year and wanted to give him a taste of cooling. Most of my other went off their food, so I thought easier to cool them all.

 

[sxereturn]

Yeah, keep an eye on him, weigh him every week and if he keeps declining, stick the heat back on. If you wanna be extra careful, get a fecal sample and get your local vet to give it a check over...

 

[Splitmore]

Heating is turned off

glacey,
there's your problem right there,I can only assume your not supplying any heat at all?If this is the case them I'm surprised the rest of your snakes aren't sick as well.15-20 degrees maximum is way too cold for carpets,they still need to be able to bask and warm themselves even in winter.25 degrees is plenty cool enough for a day time minimum in winter,any lower and the snakes immune system can't function properely.All my childrens,olives,blackheads and womas are all still at 30 degrees during the day,even though they are being cycled for breeding.They get 6 hours at this temp then the rest of the time the temps gradually drop to about 18 degrees during the night.Carpets I run at about 27-28 degrees during winter cooling with night temps only getting down to about 17-18.
At this stage I 'd warm up the snake in question look out for any signs of illness.I certainly wouldn't go worming it at this stage,if your snake is infact sick worming could do more harm than good.

 

[glacey]

15-20 degrees is outside temp - not here during the days to measure what the enclosure temp is and can only assume it is a little warmer.

My pythons are captive bred, but originate from Sth Western WA - so temps are quite low. Most local experienced breeders turn their heat off totally for cooling.

This one just seems to be too active for a cooling period.

 

[craig23]

The old argument about cooling again. I just think if your not breeding this year with this male, and you think something is wrong, heat it up, feed it, and monitor it. Take action if things dont improve in a reasonable time frame (a few weeks). Cooling this male this year wont affect next years breeding, so just heat him up and feed as normal. For you to post this thread you must be concerned, so this is your best option.

I also have cooled carpets in the past by turning all heat off, and had no notable weight loss, infection etc, and the female became gravid. I was in Goondiwindi and temps in the cage droped to 3-4 of a morning and ranged from 13 to low 20's during the day and I left them like this for 3 months, july, august and september before heating up again (by this time I noticed the female was already gravid). I have never yet seen a carpet sunbasking in winter and I belive they hide away for the duration, therefor i treat there cooling as such. An insulated bed room or snake room is just as insulated as a deep earth crack, hollow log or rabbit burrow, so I turn all heat off and leave it to nature. I know plenty of people that do this as well with years of sucsess.
Im not saying by any means you have to cool this much to breed, but im saying that in my experience and in the experience of many others, turning heat off, and letting them get cold, will not make a healthy carpet sick! I belive not cooling a snake properly is much worse if you stop feeding them. As ive said before, if the snake isnt cold enough, its metabolism is still charging along, and if you stop feeding( which most people do when cooling), it will loose condition.

I love the way some say "in the wild on cold days they will sunbake and get warm", well what do they do in stanthorpe or gundy or lismore at night when the temps are 1 or 2 or minus 1 or 2??????? and days are like 10 or 15 MAX. I bet you wont be seeing carpets out sunbaking!!!
I dont know how they are going to maintain the ever so popular "safe minimum" of 15 or so.

At the end of the day, this argument will go on and on, as we only just finnished a thread on cooling last week... In my opinion, to solve your problem with your male carpet, heat him up and feed him up if needed, monitor weight, and if you have further weight loss problems worm or see a vet. Also look out for infections like canker, pneumonia and the like, it could be causing the problems... both can be caused from inapropriate heating/cooling techniques. Both will require the heat to be turned back on, this may be enough in mild cases, antibiotic treatment may be needed otherwise...... After all this, your snake is probably fine, just giving you some things to look out for. I wouldnt panic too soon.

Craig

 

[craig23]

Just one other thing. When a snake is "hibernating" yes its immune system is barely active (internal immune system). However a snake with a very low core body temp like below 15 degrees for example, is a very unatractive host for most pathogens and the snake is safe from most disease and parisites. Infact a very prominent herp professional we all are familiar with gave a talk at a herp meeting and said he belives (from experiments) cooling in tigersnakes in southern areas where body temps got below 4 degrees, proved to act as natural worming as the internal parasites could not survive at these low tempurates.
Perhaps without the server cold period in winter these tigersnakes are subject to, the parasitic worms would become fatal in the majority of cases.
The same person has seen tiger snakes out in the middle of winter in frost covered grass at near zero degrees... dont tell me they are trying to sunbask and get warm!!! He thinks they may deliberatly get cold, to rid themselves of parasites. ( I will not mention the persons name incase I have in some way portrayed the information incorrectly and discredit them)

Yes when a snake is at ideal temps its immune system is running full steam ahead and the snake is safe. When the snake is cold, it is however not attractive to pathogens and is also safe, even tho its immune system is running slowly. When a snake is kept for a long period of time at a temp where by the snakes immune system is not running at full strength, but yet it is still within the range of temperaturs pathogens will be attracted too.and thrive in.. you are putting your snake at risk. I belive these temps are the high teens, low 20's for most of our pythons.

We always think of snakes using behavioral techniques in the wild to keep warm, well some professionals think they use those same techiques in winter to keep cold, or at least cold enough to be safe from disease and parasites. This may only apply to species in areas where maintaning a high body temp in winter is not possible, so they opt for the other safe option, keep cold, too cold for disease.
Maybe in Sydney or Newcastle, diamond pythons sunbask in winter and manage to get a high body temp and be safe from disease using there immune system, but in colder areas, no matter how much the snake sunbasks, it wont get warm enough... so we all think they just hibernate somewhere as warm as they can find????? Well maybe not. Some reaserch suggest they find a nice cold place to remain totally dormant. This is the snakes other defence mechanism against disease.

Just something for everyone to comment about.. It all makes overwhelming scence to me, both with my limited scientific knowledge, and common scence. We all seem to forget that snakes have evolved as ectotherms for a reason. Its a biological defence against harsh cold climates that would otherwise take large amounts of effort to survive. Why do so many think snakes cant handle the cold????????????????????? they are perfectly adapted for it! and may even use it to there benifite.

craig

 

[Artie]

Craig, I found both your posts very well put and extremely interesting.

Artie

 

[craig23]

Me again, sorry for all these posts, I just re read what glacey said about his male carpet become more active during low pressure systems. Its possible he is getting more active looking for a female!!!! There is plenty on the net, specially concerning death adders, which states some snakes mate during low pressure systems. He may or may not be old enough to mate, but maybe this is all it is... he is randy! He might be an early achiever! plenty of people have experienced matings already this season.
Craig

PS, come on everyone, we have had 140 views of this post in 24 hours and 1 reply. This is an important subject and every person who has, or is going to breed should comment on.. what does everyone do in winter to get results? have you had infection problems? What have you found to work the best?

 

[glacey]

Thanks Craig - agree totally!

I personally don't have a problem turning all heat off as I think it's more dangerous to cool at 25 deg.

I didnt mean for this to become a cooling debate-just interested if anyone else had a snake drop lots of weight during winter.

 

[obee]

you say it is a small carpet that you aren't going to breed this year.so i have no idea why you would even want to winter him.as craig said he could be firing ready to go.he might not have been ready to winter.did he stop eating by himself?or did you stop him?we've had some 8 degree mornings the last 10 days.but every young animal i have i won't stop feeding.i monitor wieght but keep them going.i've said this before but i know a guy with 80 odd animals who last year kept all his breeders feeding to the day he paired them up and had the biggest,most successful season in 13 years.plenty of good advice has been given already so give him some heat,watch him and if he settles and wants to feed don't stop him.
just one other thing ppl constantly say things along the line of,"in the wild."
from the day our animals hatch they aren't ever in the wild and are totally restricted at cooling time,so be careful with temp lows.


obee

 

[soulweaver]

i agree with ppl in here

 

[NCHERPS]

As many of you are aware, I am from the UK.
I am talking from personal experience and from experiences of others that I know of both in Europe and the USA in relation to Pythons only.
It is of my opinion that the majority of European and US breeders do it in the ways described below.

I was quite surprised when I came out to Australia to hear that so many people cool their snakes completely by just turning off their heat completely.
I have always cycled the heat down gradually down to the desired temps over a number of weeks and raised again by doing the same.
Throughout this time however, I have also kept the heat on for basking, but have just reduced the number of hours that the snake can bask for, down to maybe 6 -8 per day, during the day, and have also reduced daylight by drawing curtains(although the natural winter photoperiod is the most beneficial factor in my opinion).
I believe it is in fact the nightime temp drop that is the most important factor, and not the daytime, I know some people that have kept very high daytime temps and have continued to feed their snakes, but have just reduced the night time high heat drastically to induce viable sperm production and they have had great success.
I personally tend to reduce the DTH(Daytime high) over winter, but still give them the heat and turn the NTL(Night time low) temps right down, but again, the temps have gone down over a number of weeks.

What I think has to be said is from what I have learn't from people in Australia is, that quite clearly successful breeding has been achieved by both the methods I describe and by the 'All heat off' methods, which leads me to suspect that pythons are alot more adaptable than we think when it comes to stimulation to induce breeding.

I also think that with a few species that have been bred very infrequently in Europe and US that the lower temps and Brumation might well be needed, not only in the sucessful breeding but in the successful keeping of the species, the main species I am thinking about is the Diamond python, which is bred so much more regularly in captivity in Australia.

I am personally also of the belief that unless your snakes are going to be bred in the upcoming season, there is no benefit in cooling or Brumating them, as it doesn't in my experience inhibit them from breeding in a years time.

Neil

 

[hugsta]

I try and find the day/night temps through the winter and summer periods of the animals place of origin. If the temps are avg. 27night and 32 day in summer than thats what my animals get. if its 1-2 night and 10 -15 day in winter than thats what they get. If they survive and successfully mate and breed in each of their locations then surely they will do the same if you reproduce those conditions in CB reptiles.
At least this is what has worked for me.

 

[obee]

hugsta in the early days diamonds didn't do so well up here in the far nth,to warm.once they did begin to breed, the offspring[very limited success with initial stock]were obviously better aclimatised.animals bred here did better and bred better.when adults of third generation animals were sent back down south to there natural home range they didn't do so well,but then there eventual offspring did.so despite the fact that they were a cold carpet species this meant very little to the far nth bred diamonds they still didn't do so well.


obee

 

[hugsta]

Well obee, they say you learn something everyday, and I just did. Interesting bit of info. It just shows how fast new generations can adapt.

 

[obee]

i love diamonds and get offered them every year hugsta but because they seem to not do so well i have steered clear of them.to date i have never owned a diamond.the ones that were bred up here were shockers compared to what was in collections down south.


obee