breeding size

[Sputnik]

She looks pretty big in that picture, Stefan. She could well be gravid.

[Stefan-A]

I think that might just be the angle. She's nowhere near as "fat" as any of the gravid snakes I've seen here. She shed two weeks ago and apart from still eating, she does behave like she's gravid.

Didn't somebody get a surprise birth a few months back?
Edit: Was that you, Esther?

Why can't these snakes just have a clear and unambiguous way of showing that they are gravid? They could grow a large hook on their lower jaw and turn bright red, or something.

[Thamnophis]

Or start wearing big, not that elegant dresses...

[Stefan-A]

Indeed. Too bad they don't build nests either.

[drache]

it does seem that there is something off that got triggered by her mating
the most likely explanation would be that she's gravid, but in the pic she doesn't look that big
the mating may have caused hormonal changes even if the babies did not develop, or she's not gravid yet
she could be holding sperm - not sure how that would affect her hormonal balance
I wonder what would happen if you cooled her a bit
if she's holding sperm, that might trigger progress

[zooplan]

generally they need to be around 18" or larger, males can breed after 12", they don't have to be very big. You want the females to be larger as it's harder on smaller younger females.

Both measurements seems really small to me.
Actually I´m keeping a red sided male, that had his 5th shed yesterday it was 16 inch.
But its unbelievable that he should have breeding size because he´s about 3 month of age.

[Stefan-A]

Seems really small to me, too.

Mentioned in the Rossman et al. book (Table 4-3):
Female SVL at maturity: 426 - 570mm (sirtalis)
Male SVL at maturity: 360 - 387mm (sirtalis)

SVL = Snout - vent length.

The length varied between different regions. For females the SVL would be 16.8-22.4" (average 19.6), for males 14.2-15.2" (average 14.7).

I remember reading somewhere that males are sometimes already able to mate after their first hibernation and females after their second or third.

[ssssnakeluvr]

males don't need to beg big for breeding..usually after 1 year they are big enough to breed.

[zooplan]

thats a fact.
but as you can see in some examples, females can grow to breeding size in only one year too.
This seems to be a normal process in captive breeding, in a study of Dr. med. vet. Sassenburg (1983) it is documented that point of maturity went down from the age of 27 to 9,5 month within 5 generations. (T.s.parietalis)
Normal breeding size to me and most of the keepers I know around is 15" to 20" for a male or 24" and more for females.

Maybe females become bigger (heavier) with US-keeping conditions?
I´ve never seen such a big (and short) gravid female as "Don´s massive Garter" around in Europe.
Is there a special difference in maintenance?

[Stefan-A]

Are you talking about something like power feeding?