Brumation 2013

[gregmonsta]

Well, last weekend marked the start of brumation for my posse. It's going to be a sad state of affairs in my living room for a couple of months with the majority of my collection headed for the deep sleep. I thought I'd give a quick rundown of this years process as I've tried different things over the years.

The snakes had been denied food for 2 weeks and I dropped theiir basking temps from 30C to 19C over the course of a week and a half.

Recently, I switched all of my main enclosures to cocopeat as a substrate. It took a little while to get the water/peat ratio right but I started thinking that this soil mix might make a good brumation medium. I tubbed this with a drier layer on top and provided a large hide and waterbowl for each of the groups.

Tubs ready and waiting



Each snake was weight checked and the females got a good once over to make sure that they were empty/not trying to double clutch/etc.



Snake groupings:
Parietalis and radix females


Parietalis boys


Radix boys

[gregmonsta]

Infernalis, marcianus and 'Florida blue' sirtalis girls


Infernalis, marcianus and 'Florida blue' sirtalis boys


Beena trying to escape!


Marina attempting some form of sign language


Off to the kitchen cupboard we go ...


Temps started at 15.6C on the first day (with the door having been open). This dropped to 14.3, 13.7, 12.4 on each successive day after. Temps have remained steady at 12.4C since.

Based on previous years I expect this to drop below 10C around the beginning of December and plan to bring the marcianus and 'Florida blue' sirtalis back out by mid-month. The others will remain with the temps not expected to drop much below 6C at its coldest. Wakey time for these will be mid-Jan. and the warm-up process will be the reverse of the cool down.

[guidofatherof5]

Nice family photos.

[SD Reptiles]

Nice collection ;-)

ps : just saw that we have eachother on facebook :-)

[CrazyHedgehog]

I have bought some cooling stats this year with fans for brumation. Gonna leave them in the tanks in the house, but use curtains and and the stats with cooling if it gets to warm in the house.

[gregmonsta]

I have bought some cooling stats this year with fans for brumation. Gonna leave them in the tanks in the house, but use curtains and and the stats with cooling if it gets to warm in the house.

This sounds intriguing. How will this work? Will they be in a separate room or will they remain in a living space? Also, are the fans just shifting air or is there a cooling element attached? I ask because I'm not sure a fans on their own in a room with a high ambient temperature throughout would be enough. They would simply be moving air as opposed to cooling if the ambient temperature in the room as a whole is the same.

[CrazyHedgehog]

Yes they are gonna be in the front room, but we are going to set the fans up on the vents on the cool side, this is right by the window, (no posh double glazing and its pretty cool this side of the room, even when the heating is on!) and behind the tank on the outside wall for the other ones. we have cooled over winter before in this room (lights and heating off, and tank glass covered) and they tend to go off food, but it probably hasn't been cool enough for a proper brumation. Hoping this should just be enough to lower to better temps.

The cooling stats work as normal stats, but the other way round, if the temps hit a certain temp the fans come on to cool slightly. We are going to give it a go, if the fans do just move the air rather than cool, we can easily pipe to below the floor boards (where it is definitely a lot cooler).

Its funny though, we stood at the stall discussing exactly your thoughts. When we cool, its not far off the temp, just worry it fluctuates a little too much, so hoping this will help stabilise the temps better. It can't be any worse than without, but I will keep you posted as to whether it works or if we totally wasted our money!

[gregmonsta]

Fingers crossed with that project . Piping leading to a coolspot would've been my suggestion.

[gregmonsta]

First check-in at the weekend. Temp still stable at 12.3C. Snakes doing fine. Parietalis and radix are displaying a preference for submerging themselves in the waterbowl. Marcianus and sirtalis are favouring the 'dig deep' method.

[guidofatherof5]

Love the updates, keep them coming.