Reptile Fight Club - Cycling Snakes...Is it needed to breed snakes?

Episode Date: September 24, 2021

In this episode, Justin and Chuck tackle the topic of In this episode, Justin and Chuck talk about cycling Snakes...Do you have to cycle snakes in order to breed them?Who will win? You decide. Reptile Fight Club!Follow Justin Julander @Australian Addiction Reptiles-http://www.australianaddiction.comFollow Chuck Poland  on IG @ChuckNorriswinsFollow MPR Network on:FB: https://www.facebook.com/MoreliaPythonRadioIG: https://www.instagram.com/mpr_network/YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCtrEaKcyN8KvC3pqaiYc0RQMore ways to support the shows.Swag store: https://teespring.com/stores/mprnetworkPatreon: https://www.patreon.com/moreliapythonradio

Brought to you by the MGR Network. All right, welcome to another episode of Reptile Fight Club. Me, Justin Julian, and my co-host, Chuck Poland. Hello. Ready to fight again. Back for more. Yeah. I'm excited to fight. This will be a good fight today.

Sounds like your dogs are ready to fight, too. Yeah, they're always ready to fight. They got something to say as soon as we hit record. Yeah, I know. They were nice and quiet until we recorded, and then they're wankers. It's probably my voice. They're like, who's that weird voice? No, it takes very little.

I mean, yeah. The breeze, the breeze, whatever. Yeah, they get loud over nothing. And then when my dog's like, one starts barking, then the other one has to bark. Oh, yeah, yeah. There yeah yeah no there's no and the fire truck starts them how they literally start howling and then other dogs in the neighborhood start howling and it's like we're all singing together yeah like yeah it's really it's grossly ridiculous good times good time well this isn't dog fight club my hope no dog fight that'll be be bad. We're not there yet.

We'll see. It might be. It might be. Please don't fight your dogs. Well, no, not me. Yeah. So, yeah. So let's talk about some reptiles, huh?

Yeah. You got anything reptile going? Yeah. So I've got more eggs from my William Cy. So I've got four William Cy babies in the incubator now. So that's going. I've just kind of been cleaning and feeding geckos, getting ready. I'm starting to hit all my animals with their small, frequent meals before I cut them off and start them into their breeding for the year. So, kind of super excited.

It's that time, isn't it? Yeah, it is. It is. I'm starting to get cold here. Yeah, I was walking up to work this morning. I'm like, oh, this is a little chilly out here. Yeah. I'm not a big fan of winter. So. No, I get it. Well, I live in Southern California.

I feel your pain. And yet I don't. Yeah. Yep. You pay a pretty price living down there. That's for sure. Oh, I do. I do.

But, you know, it seems like it might be worth it. It is. It's not bad. It's fun to get back to Southern California again. I guess I've been a few times this year. Yeah. Yeah, I was just going to say, you were here, like, not even that long ago. Yeah.

It's close enough. You know, the kids can say, hey, Dad, we want to go to the ocean. Okay, jump in the car. Let's go. Let's go for a long weekend. Yeah. Well, I like that you have a good excuse to come down here so oh yeah it was it was good to see you that's for sure hang out

yeah for sure you know fun to hang out with ants and i'm glad he got to meet you yeah no that was cool it was fun it was fun to talk to him he's a cool guy yep so uh we had you know we had plenty of uh you know uh job-related conversations around. He's in the Air Force. Oh, yeah. Just kind of trading stories, our military stuff. So just fun. Just a fun guy.

Really, really good to meet him. He's awesome. Yeah. Hopefully you guys get to go out shooting sometime. Yeah, that'd be great. I'd love to. I told him so. Just have him let me know.

Yeah. He's a good one. Yeah, that'd be great. I'd love to. So I told him, so just have him let me know. So yeah, he's, he's, he's a good one. Yeah. For sure. For sure. Yeah. So cool. Um, I, uh, I got a couple of geckos. I, I got them at the Anaheim show. So I had to drive down to, so I flew. So I had to, um, have some friends bring them home and they, they only made it, you know, they're, they live in St. George, so they were about five hours away. I drove 10 hours over the last couple days going down to pick up some gecko. I'm a little tired, but I always need an excuse to get down

to St. George. I love that area. Did you just went down and picked them up, or did you... We did a little herping, a little birding. Who was we? Me and Heidi. Heidi went down with me. I went down with my lovely wife.

That's awesome. Made a nice long weekend of it. Nice. I guess it wasn't even the weekend. It was the middle of the week. But her day off is Thursday. How many men can say that they take a soiree out to herp with their wife? What a lucky dude.

She's a catch for sure. I've got a good wife. She's awesome. That's awesome. So we had a lot of fun. I mean, I, you know, I, she didn't complain at all. Like she was just fine going on herp and she kind of knows it's part of the routine. Right. She, she's got you, she, she knows you. Yeah. I kept out, you know, like we can, well, we, we did a little shopping, not much. She just needed a shirt or two for the next day or two. So, um, but then we just kind of went out herping. Nice. I got some sand.

So that was always nice to get some good, uh, gecko sand. So, um, I, I was running low on that. So it was nice to replenish my stores. And then, uh, we did a little birding the next day. We got her a, a gray horned owl, which she hadn't seen yet this year. So that was cool to see. It was just out in the day. I think it was a young one. What does that put her count at? I think she's at 180, high 180s, 190, somewhere around there. So you're up mid 200s, low to mid. 230. 232.

Are you thinking you're going to break 250 by the end of the year or what? I don't know. I haven't really been going out that far. I feel like you need to travel a little bit. You know what I mean? You've probably caught a lot of the species that you're going to see in Utah, right? For sure. That's the funny thing, too, is you go some other places and it's like a lot of the same species. Yeah.

Well, especially unless you go like probably regionally. Right. Like, you know, you probably go to a different region of the North America. You're probably seeing different stuff and maybe some of it's what seasonal, like you're going to send you a seasonal migration.

Yep. Yep. And, and the, you know, assemblage changes. So you can go to the same area multiple times. So yeah, we went to a park that we've been to many times and saw, you know, two or three new species. We saw some green herons flying around. So that was cool. I hadn't seen those yet. Is this a state park?

It's just a, like a little kids park, you know, it's like a normal park. So it's just a like a little uh kids park you know it's like okay so it's like they have like yeah they like a little dinosaur thing for kids where you can go and right you know jump on the little swings and stuff but um they have a big pond or two they have a big pond and then a littler pond and so you can walk around that area and there's there was a roadrunner cruising around we didn't actually see it but somebody's like there's a roadrunner so we went to look for it and missed it but we've seen all you saw was a coyote before yeah exactly some coyote with an anvil rocket i don't know what was going on there weird so you know it was it was fun it's nice to get out and and and heidi gets excited you know as excited about seeing stuff as I do. So that's super fun. So all we found herping was

a toad, a little Arizona toad. I mean, it was cool. It was, it was fun. Yeah. Well, making little croaking noises and stuff. So she thought that was really cute and was pretty excited to see it. Um, so I, I always liked toads. They're fun. Well, what a fun, what a fun date with your wife. So yeah, it was fun. And then we got to sleep in, you know, that was nice. I bet dude. I bet. Yeah.

You, you, you've kind of been nonstop the past. I mean, from, you know, the super show and, and, you know, going back, I'm sure you had to get right back to work and then you had to go get those geckos, which I mean. Today I've been spending time just, we got our, the end of a, one of our contracts with the government to screen antiviral compounds coming to an end. And so I've been working on the reports and all that stuff. And I had to have a call with the project officer because our counts were off and we billed them for more than we should have.

So I got to adjust, you know, we had to adjust our, our invoice. It's just a, yeah. So you didn't tell him like, damn the man. Yeah, no. It was not a fun day. You don't overcharge the government. Let's just put it that way. Well, you can, but you pay them back.

Like you don't, yeah, they don't, they're not going to pay. Yeah. They're going to get their money back. That's for sure. And we like to keep on their good side. For sure. I don't know. I have heard, and maybe this is completely off topic, but I've heard a lot of people on Facebook talking about research.

Like they know what's going on. A few of our reptile friends, Chris Behoff was going off a little bit too. And he admitted like, oh, I was off base. I was just. What was he saying? Just that research. They were saying that researchers are biased based on who's funding them.

So like, you're going to do the, you're going to make the people who are funding you happy. And that's not how research works, right? You put together a proposal of work that you want to do and it's funded or it's not funded based on the feasibility and the importance of what you're finding and i and i think you know if if a research or if a pharmaceutical company or whoever who's funding it doesn't like the result they'll just shelf the research they won't not like they're not gonna tamper with the efficacy of the research they just may not you know if the research is not flattering they may take it back because they have not, you know, if the research is not flattering, they may take it back because they have to, or, you know, take it back to a model and start again. Or they

may just, you know, there's plenty of instances where research never makes it out. But that's just the idea that, you know, and I, you know, I feel like we've talked about this or maybe I've said this before, but the idea that everybody from the researchers all the way to the marketing and the government are all crooked and it's all cooked. That requires a conspiracy of proportions that you can't even get enough people to cooperate on these days. Right. So just that idea that it's like, you know, it's all, it's all rigged. It's all like, well,

first of all, you know, yeah. And no, no, no scientist wants to create something that's going to hurt humanity. That's not why people go into those types of endeavors. So it's just not to say that some,

you know, companies might not try to stretch, you know, a dollar stretch the data to make it look like their stuff might be better than it is. And we actually had a, a company that was asking me to compile some, some raw data for some studies that we did for them. All the results were negative. And I said, no, I'm not going to send you that data. It's I'm not compensated for that time. All the data is negative. We gave you the summary of the data basically, you know, saying whether what what you're what the activity of your drug was. And it's all zeros. Like, I don't know what you think you're going to find from the day. Oh, we can find, you know, hints of efficacy. I'm like, no, you can't. That's not how this data works. And I'm sorry, I'm not sending it to you, you know, and she was mad. She was trying to get the government to force me to, you know, do that. And she was offering to pay for it. And I said, no, I'm not going to send it because I don't feel comfortable with what the, you know, the way you're going to interpret the data and, and you'll potentially misrepresent it. She got

highly offended, very upset, but Hey, I mean, and and can't we agree that that even a good data set can be misrepresented uh by by people who you know uh want to maybe cherry pick cherry data uh to make it kind of look a little bit you know um but i would say those those are very few and far between because they're wasting their time. They're wasting their money. That's not, nothing's going to come of that. They're not going to get any drugs approved through the FDA where they don't

have good solid data. And I think, I think that during the COVID stuff, Johnson and Johnson experienced that. I think where there was, maybe it wasn't Johnson and Johnson. Maybe it was the yeah, I think it was the uh yeah i think it

was johnson and johnson where where they were publishing a study and uh i think it was the fda basically pulled back and was like hey no no no no hold on we're that you know the way you the way you we we want so i think they cut the data off at a certain date, but if you run the data out further, what it showed was that the, you know, that the percentage rate of effectiveness actually went down a little bit. So they were, so the concern was they were using maybe a little less, you know, a little more incomplete of a data set to kind of show a higher efficacy. And the FDA said, no, dude, you need to, you need to include your entire data set because it more accurately represents the, you know, how, how safe or not safe the, the, the, the, or how effective, not safe. I'm sorry. It was. Yeah. And that's why, I mean, that's why we need the FDA. That's why we need, you know, to, to kind of control those kind of things because the you know companies may may

go that way but you know for the most part i haven't really seen that because yeah you know they kind of spin their wheels that way anyway and i think yeah sorry why i do i mean i do understand that there's a push-pull force in there, but the idea that, you know, researchers and scientists are wholly on the side of, you know, some bought-off profit scheme that, you because it's hard to wade through that. It's hard to know who to trust. So I would recommend talking to somebody in the actual field that you're discussing. I mean, there's a lot of, you know, chiropractors that are going to give their opinions on how to deal with COVID. And, you know, I've been going the rounds with one of my friends from high school that's a chiropractor that thinks he knows, you know, he's an anti-vaxxer. And I'm like, dude, you've got medical training like i get it you know not everybody wants has the same you know uh view of things and that's fine you can have differences but when you're making just

baseless accusations you know there's i think using your using using your using your professional title, if you're a professional, to reinforce your opinion about something that you're not really an expert in. So it's kind of like using a professional title that's misleading. People hear doctor, so they assume you are a doctor of something relative. And it's like, oh, you're a doctor in virology? Like, no, I do backs. Like I'm, I'm a chiropractor. Oh, that's, um, getting back on topic, um, you know, writing the books. Um, I, uh, I think it was either Bob or, or, uh, Russ put on, you know, the covered Dr. Justin Julander, Justin Julander PhD or something. And, you know, I'm like, okay, that's, I mean, it's true,

but it's not really relevant. And they're like, oh, you know, it's, it's okay. It's, you've got that title. Let's just put it on there. And then, um, later I was, uh, with the green tree Python book, I had, uh, Dave Barker, um, do the forward. And so I asked him if he'd do that. And, and he recommended, he said, you know, you're not a herpetologist. So your, your PhD is not relevant to this topic. So I would suggest removing that. And I'm like, yeah, that, that makes total sense. So with that one and, you know, with the green tree book and then with the, uh, um, the knob tail book, I'm pretty sure I didn't put PhD on that one, but anyway, so I, you know, I'm, I'm, uh, that makes a lot of sense to me.

So I'm not trying to pass off that I have a PhD in herpetology, but I will say that, you know, having a PhD gives you that, you know, that extra training on how to think critically and how to evaluate data sets and things like that. So, you know, and how to read professional papers, it's not necessarily my field, but I feel like I have an okay capacity to understand things that I read in scientific literature and things like that. So, but I, I feel like I have an okay capacity to understand things that I read in science and literature and things like that. So, you know, I, it may not be directly applicable, but I think broadly applicable is, you know, realistic in that regard. So although I'm not going to put PhD on there, I do think that, you know, going through that process of getting a PhD and learning that,

you know, method of critical thinking and researching and things like that. It all kind of plays in together. And I mean, you know, science is science. I get where Dave's coming from, but at the same time, like you're not misleading. You're not trying to mislead anybody. No, I mean, yeah, I didn't do that on purpose. You know, maybe, maybe the publishing company put it on there to sell a few more books. I don't know. Hey, listen, if you have somebody with a PhD in a scientific

field, maybe it's not directly related to what their, their book is about, but is that make their scientific, you know, contribution potentially less? No, I think, you know, contribution potentially less. No, I, I think, you know, somebody could still make that and, and you earn the title. So it's not, you know, you're, you're not, um, I mean, and, and hopefully those people who get to know you through your book, understand that you're, you know, you have your PhD in virology, not in herpetology. And I think you've always been pretty forward and, and, and, and, you know, um, open about that. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, maybe we have a herpetologist on here and we, and we have that debate, you know, nobody's trying to hose or anybody. Yeah. I do think, you know, the, uh, herpetologist would definitely have greater depth in this area than I would,

you know, and could probably do a more complete job in some aspects of, of the writing than I can. So it is what it is. Like I said, you're not trying to hose or anybody. And, and there's, there's an example of somebody without a PhD, who's just hacking, hacking their way right through people's work. I mean, maybe maybe maybe that's another topic for some days like you know because yeah he's smart how to game the system oh yeah he's gaming the system and he understands the antiquity of some of these things and so he can manipulate

it and and you know start his own publication so he's still everything's peer-reviewed publication you know and he's doing it as being a wanker, right? Like he's a butthole, you know? I mean, from his perspective, I think he started out with a reasonable intent. Like, Hey, I'm seeing differences here. I'm seeing these, you know, different populations have different, you know, looks and behaviors. Then do the work just like everybody else, but to, to wait for other people to get ready

to publish and then swoop in, you know, because you got wind of something. Oh, he swoops in long before they're ready. Yeah, exactly. Or you just blatantly start renaming stuff. You just slap a name on it. Yeah, so that when somebody actually publishes the work. I don't know that it necessarily started that way. You know what I mean?

I think maybe he felt like he was wrong. I don't know. Maybe necessarily started that way. You know what I mean? Like, I think maybe he felt like he was wrong. I don't know. Maybe a topic for another fight. Yeah, that's fine. It would be interesting to discuss. No, I agree. The pros and cons of Hoseride. But then again, if you say his name three times. So I think we're on two times each.

I think I've said it a couple more times. But okay. So yeah, we'll chew that one over. If he shows up, he's got a fucking fight. No, I don't want him on here. He's a train wreck. Yeah, no, I know.

Anytime he chimes in on a post, you're like, oh, great. Here we go. Yeah. Well. Yeah. You don't just, hey, but you don't just uh i dream of genie uh you know wink and then you show up here so yeah um that's that's the beauty of uh that's the beauty of not getting yeah you don't get the link you don't get in no no ticket no laundry yeah well should we uh

get get on with the fight here oh we, we're going to fight today? We got to fight? I think so. I think we better. Let's fight. Now that we've lost all our listeners talking about

our complaints about science and general. Whoa, these guys are just like, whoa. Yeah. Listen here, left field. If that's what you think. I know.

I know how they hate that. People are going to say, that was not political. That was science. That was not political. So let's, if you're thinking that's political, then there's something wrong with your thinking. Okay. Yeah. Let's introduce the topic today. So we're talking about cycling, right? And are certain things necessary to cycle your snakes? Do you have to follow a recipe or are there many avenues to

breeding a snake? So, whether there are or aren't reproductive cues that need to be hit in order to successfully reproduce an animal. Yeah. Yeah. I think that kind of sums it up nicely. And I think this was maybe precipitated a little bit after listening to Shane talk about his experiences with breeding helm harrows on Moralia Python's radio. And, you know, some of the things that you're like, yeah, that matches my experience. And other things like, no, that doesn't really line up with what I saw. So, you know, it kind of gets the brain working and, you you know thinking about these topics and hey do you really have to have certain things happen to breed an animal or can many different avenues you know can is there a lot of ways to breed a snake more than many ways to skin a cat there you go yeah that's uh

i don't know where that uh came from i think i'm not a cat fan so we can skin the cats yeah i'm fine with that. I like cats. We've got cats. Do you? Oh yeah, that's right. We've had this conversation. I've got my hairless cat. I'm a dog person. Okay. Well, listen, we have had this conversation and I think a hairless cat is more like a dog. So I will yield to Justin, but my wife had a cat when we first met that I moved in with my wife at the time. And so this cat would wait until I did my laundry. I would fold it in my laundry basket and this cat would just jump in there and pee all over my laundry because the cat lived with Heather before I was there. So now who's this fucking

dude he was putting you in your place yeah yeah yeah so me and the cat on you as well yeah that cat well we could have skinned that cat but but we didn't because you know i i i i wanted to continue a relationship with my now wife so um skinning her cat that would be a bad move it would be a bad move man it't, plus it would be very undue to me. You know what I mean? That's true. The only place I don't like cats is in Australia and the outback where they shouldn't be. Or other places for that. Yeah. I would just say that the feral feline is yeah yeah lock them up people yeah we don't let ours out yeah keep them out of the laundry basket keep them out of nature so yeah because even in you

know even in here they're they're gonna hunt down birds and and they account for a lot of uh bird mortality in the u.s and and throughout the world i mean they're just they're not a good predator to have outdoors. They're psychopathic throw killers is what they are. Sorry. I guess you could put it that way, but I do want to reiterate, I am a cat fan. And I know there's a lot of listeners that are also cat fans and friends of mine that really like cats. So is that, is that true? Have you verified that? Is that,

you need to visit a Peter and Joanne Birch. They've got several cats. What? Peter? What? I think it might be more Joanne than Peter, but they do have a few cats and some cool dogs. They're just nature lovers in general. If it's Joanne, then it's Peter by default, right? I didn't like my wife's cat, but you know, it was, I like my wife. So I liked my wife's cat, even though it peed in the fucking laundry basket.

Right. Like, you know, by default I have to, you know, it's a forced participation. Okay. Well that was another tangent. So we won't skin the cats, but we will talk about different ways to breed a snake. Yes. Okay. So we'll give it a coin toss. I know it's kind of a moot point at this venture. Gee whiz, dude. Why don't you give it a call? Tails.

Okay. What do you see there? I can't see. It was actually tails. Was it? So I won. I won. I won. Do you hear that, people? I won. I won. I won. I do you hear that people i won i won i won i won i

won i won i won all right well okay try not to glow too much well listen my percentages are rising my my stock my stock is rising so so what side do you want and what do you um i am going to, I am going to go with the, the nay side that you do not necessarily need specific cues in order to breed a reptile. Okay. All right. Well, um, do you want to start or do you want to, I'm sure I know what you want to say. Well, I mean, are you asking me or, I mean, you won the coin toss. So you're going to say if you're going first. Then you start.

You start. I figured that would be the case. I don't know why I asked you, but okay, here we go. Yeah. So I think there are definitely some set in stone things that are needed to breed some reptiles. And, you know, I guess, you know, I kind of would say that I side with you a little bit in this regard that, yeah, there's probably lots of different ways. But I think there are some that are pretty fast and firm that are just integrated into the into the snake's DNA almost and that they it's required. I mean, you look at all the temperate region colubrids, right? They generally need winter cooling for the males to develop, you know,

sperm properly and for the females to cycle and get things ready to go. You can actually manipulate that. I think you can, you know, obviously it's, it's nice for the keeper as well because you're cooling them down. You're not having to feed them during that time, but getting them cool is pretty much a requirement. I mean, it's nice for the keeper as well because you're cooling them down. You're not having to feed them during that time, but, uh, getting them cool is, is pretty much a requirement. I mean, there might be some exceptions to that rule and you might have an,

an odd clutch that you didn't, you know, from an animal you didn't, uh, cycle. But I think for the most part, cooling, uh, temperate region, animal, reptile is, is, um, necessary for reproduction. Okay. I'd start out with that. Okay. That's good. And so I am not Mr. Calubrid.

So perhaps I'm speaking a little in ignorance. And, you know, this has just been. Try it with a diamond. Yeah. Right, right. Try getting a diamond without cooling. Yeah. Sure, sure, Sure. Sure. But so, and, and, and my, you know, this goes back to, you know, when I first started, uh, well, it goes back to reptile radio with Terry Phillip and, and, and it goes back to me starting to reconsider how I kept my stuff. I like that flat temp idea that Terry has.

And that's kind of how I keep the ambient in my reptile room is that 78 to 80 degrees. And I don't heat my babies. I don't heat my juveniles. they're, you know, they're going through their reproductive cycle and they're either have follicles or they've ovulated and they're, and they're cooking eggs inside of them. So, I mean, I guess my, my, my, my thought process is, and like I said, I'm not a colubrid guy. So do they need that cold period? Because people talk about, and people talk about diamonds needing, well, you got it like, and they're like, I might as well just put this in the freezer for a couple of hours. And do you need do you really need to get a really cold?

Because it's almost like we brag about how cold these these snakes can get and still do fine. But my question is like and in nature, do they get that cold? Yes, absolutely. They do. But is that a functional requirement of them, uh, being able to breed? Does that, does, do they need 50 degrees for their sperm to be viable or do you need to keep them at a temperature that you don't cook their sperm by keeping them a little bit too warm? Um, you know, And so what we're looking at is nature.

So we're looking at that natural cycle and we're seeing that they cool down and that we're seeing when they warm up and we see when they lay eggs. And so there is this cycle that we use. But what I'm saying is, is that because nature's driving the bus and we're just interpreting that

and we're saying, okay, well, if I do what nature does, I can be successful, right? That makes sense to me. But is that necessarily the case, right? And I guess the other part of it is I feel like reptiles, especially when you start to go into classes of reptiles, I feel like pythons in general, they all have some of the general same requirements, even though they come from different areas of the world. Right. And, you know, we say like, oh, well, you can't you can't treat a ball python just like you treat an endospecies. Well, maybe you actually kind of can. I mean, you know, maybe there's some certain requirements, but in generality, you know, do you have to stick a ball pipe because it comes from, you know, the African, a humid

African area? Do you have to heat them up and keep them warm all the time or can they exist in that 80 degrees? And then you just warm them up when they're in they're when they're in their reproductive events because i have had no issues across and that's but but all things in their place i keep stuff that's very similar right so i just i just to me i question when we say like ah you have to do you have to hit certain hard points when you're breeding an animal. Otherwise it's not going to work. Now, I think, you know, we, we, uh, talk about, you know, use Terry's, uh, Morelli Python's radio interview as an example. And it's, was that what it was? I think I said,

yeah, my bad. That was one of the, uh, he might've been on the other one, but I remember the one that he did with Eric and Owen and, and, you know, he, he, uh, made some really interesting points and talked about some things. Now I followed up with some of those things with him and, you know, and talking to him and visiting him and out at the reptile gardens and stuff. And, you know, over phone conversations and stuff, uh, he, you know, I think, um, he's coming at it from a different perspective than most of us because he has so many species that he's caring for and so his room has to cater to all these different species that have you know very different requirements from each other so what he's doing is he's kind of boiling down okay what's the what's the regimen that we can get the most of these things to perform with and be healthy in

and potentially reproduce in and that's been that kind of 78 to 82 degrees you know most species do a well there do all right you know stay alive and thrive and nobody will throw up their meal or every that's a safe it's a safe place for an animal, for a reptile to be, or for most snakes to be, I'll say that. I'll say that. But I would argue that that, that may not be necessarily the best way or the most reliable and repeatable way to breed any given taxa, right? If you're trying to shoot for majority, it's like trying to govern a state.

You've got to kind of listen to the majority of your constituents and try to do what they would want you to do. And yeah, there's going to be some that are just going to be miserable under your leadership because you're not listening to them because they're on the fringe or they're on the. So there I went and did make it political. But anyway, you know, we we we I think, you know, if you're if you're like you, where you're specializing in certain pythons and you kind of want to find those key elements to to be successful repeatedly, because I think you can get clutches and you can get eggs from animals when you're just keeping them kind of that middle of the road, you know, doing. But if you, if you learn from their, you know, cycling or their natural cycles and you're like, well, you know, maybe they don't have necessarily a cool down period, but they have wet and dry periods, you know, maybe I'll dump a bunch of water on them for a couple of weeks and maybe that'll signal, you know, and you can do those studies and figure out what will work. Now, I guess the downside of the dangerous side of that, of trying different things is sometimes you just kind of screw up the animals because you're trying something different every year. So that's probably not the best thing to do if you want to have a repeated success. It's like, you know, pick a lane, stick in that lane, and you're going to probably have more success that way. But I would say that,

you know, if you're, when you're starting out, you might want to consider those natural events because that's what they're, that's what they've evolved to, to do. And that's what they're, you know, used to signaling their reproductive strategies. so I do think that, that those natural things are kind of hardwired and they're, there's some that are definitely necessary to breed those species. Yeah. So I like, I like a lot of that. Um, I mean, I think pick a lane, stick in your lane is probably a good way to go. I mean, I think with harder to breed things, and this has been just my experience is that, you know, you have to get them established. You have to, and, and, you know, you can listen to the interview Shane did, which was fabulous. Um, and he, you know, he, listen, my animals were like a hundred grams when I got them. I had a reverse trio of female and two males. And Shane's animals were

much older, much bigger from what it sounds like. And he had a very difficult time. And so, again, it's the struggle, but it's the perseverance. And I truly believe that why Shane was successful and why I have been able to be successful is that we long game the shit and, and, you know, year after year after year of not having success, but still continuing to keep that animal. And in, I think, I think steady state economics is something that all animals look to when they're, when they're trying to make reproductive decisions right if you're just changing shit from year to year all the time the animal's like what is going on here i'm not sure where i'm gonna be next year or next month or whatever i'm not gonna i'm not gonna risk

a reproductive event right now because things seem to change so much. And so that idea that Terry has where, you know, you, you kind of flat temp, um, and, and, you know, like I said, I, I don't, you know, my animals are out behaving, they're active, they're, they eat great, you know, they're, they, they perform all of the natural functions and behave with the natural behaviors that I'm used to seeing from every type of scrub that I've ever kept. So to me, I'm kind of like, okay, all of this tracks with every piece of experience that I have. Now, could I be doing it all wrong and every behavior that I've seen has been wrong, maybe, possibly, is having successful clutches necessarily a sign that you're doing everything right? No. But it is a marker of something that animals that have never been bred or have been bred so few times in captivity are now successfully

breeding year after year. Maybe that's just the animals. I think, you know, for me, I think things like having a female and having two males that have contact with each other is, I'm goading those males into breeding her. And I think there's situational things that have zero to do with seasonal triggers. Are there certain seasonal triggers that I use? Yes. Are they absolutely? So one of the things Shane talked about was that he worked heavy with humidity and gave them a lot of humidity leading up

to the breeding. And, you know, the first time I bred the Tracy A, I did the same thing and I had success. But the second time I did not and I had success. So did I do it well enough or did the first time just kind of, you know, open the roll out the red carpet for everything after that? Like, so, you know, and it's kind of like that. And that's what I'm saying is I don't think there's a form like people want to say, like, oh, that's the one thing you didn't do. And if you would have done that, it would have worked. Well, I don't know about that, you know? Some of those things too are like, you know, did you track all the storms that came through, you know, California or did you, you know? Yeah, yeah, yeah. So, I mean, I definitely had, so again, I have an elevated, isolated hide box.

And when I had barometric drop events, storm events, yes, I absolutely did not see that female and that male. And previously, when I had seen copulations, they were correlated to barometric events. So I do think that there are, to your point, certain things that are highly tied to production to reproduction right i do because you know i i love that line that from the terry phillips interview like this says you know my my uh rattlesnakes come from an area where it snows a lot but i'm not shoveling snow into the cage it's the cold not the snow it may be the barometric pressure change and not the water in the cage exactly triggering and so you know you you know we might miss those subtle things where we think oh i sprayed them and so you know that that's kind of more of a you're you're ignoring the the real cue which

was barometric pressure you know and i think oh go ahead go ahead and do they need that barometric pressure you know maybe it's important for some species maybe that's kind of what triggers them more so than uh anything but the i guess the the kind of take home is is that you know sometimes we misconstrue you know a necessary factor for for the unnecessary resultant yeah or a correlated or or an associated factor yep kind of hangs on that like in that like that example and going back to tracy a because that's my best you know my best uh my best shit to kind of throw at this um you know i i think it when people think about the homohera islands, they think, oh, it's, you know, stable temperature, warm, humid, rains all the time.

Well, my experience is the Tracy, they hate water. They don't want to be wet. That's not their, they may enjoy the humidity. They may benefit from that. But spraying water in their cage, they don't like that. You know what I mean? And so I think, you know, maybe having humidity at right times uh cool uh do you have to have a wet period in order to get them to i don't do a wet period uh i don't think that's a thing i think a wet period when you have an animal in a

box leads to bacterial infections so you know i mean, I mean, and again, just because, and this kind of reinforces my idea that just because it happens in nature doesn't mean that it's a requirement. It's just where the animal is, where it's, and it's not because it rained, that animal evolved there to be there because of the rain it's just a form that exists and and in that area that exists rain is a thing so just like in any part of the world humans it doesn't change who you are as a human but you you deal with different climates and maybe people change a little bit because they get more sun. Maybe they get a little dark, their pigment gets darker, things like that. But we're still all just humans and operating in the same way.

And I'm not trying to use an anthropomorphic. You can take them out of that environment and they'll do this. And they're still successful to reproduce, right? And so I'm not trying to use an anthropomorphic, you know, example here, but I think you see kind of the point that I'm trying to make. will that that need those things and if you don't if you give them the option like so if they need a cooling period but you give them a basking spot they might choose to bask all day and kill their reproductive season yep yep and i and i would also say and you know in in regards to rain frogs definitely need rain to reproduce you know that's what triggers a reproductive event with many frogs i mean i've been in places where you can throw a rock and they'll go try to mount it because they

think it's another frog you know they're so keyed up on reproduction it has to happen quick as soon as the rains come you've got to get that job done and so they're they're out you know mating aggregations and hearing the calls and seeing all the tadpoles, you know, that kind of thing. So most definitely some species would require, you know, I would say frogs would require rain if you don't give them a rainy or, you know, wet season that might not, they might not breed. And I think you see that in reproducing a lot of frogs that they need like rain chambers to get the mood going. And if it's, you know, not, and, you know, correlated with potentially storms outside. I know some frog breeders in Utah

wait until the big snow storms come and then they'll start their frogs in a rain chamber. And do you think that, do you think that, that, that, that rain cycle, cycle uh because those tadpoles have to exist in water that's that to to those frogs they're like okay this is a safe time for me to you know initiate a lot of these events a lot of these i mean not that they're under you know a couple feet of sand or something you know it's dry as dry as can be on top. But as soon as rains come through and they get saturated, they'll, they'll start crawling up to the top and find their mate and get it done and hopefully have the water around long enough that the tadpoles survive to, to, you know, burrow themselves down in the dirt and avoid the hot temperature. So they, they are

definitely tied to that water. They're definitely tied to that rain cycle. And if it doesn't rain or doesn't rain enough, they might not come out that year. They might stay underground and be underground. Same, I think there was a lungfish, right? In one of those planet Earths. Those things are crazy. Making like bricks.

And then the lungfish came out of the house from the middle of the brick that he used to put his, you know, wall together or something. So stuff like that, you know, absolutely tied to rain cycles. And, you know, sometimes I think there are some species, obviously, that are much more adaptable, much more easy to breed than others because they don't necessarily have as many triggers or cues that they need to start a cycle. And so they might be considered easier to breed in the hobby because they're just more adaptable to a lot of different situations and circumstances. I heard Scott Iper talking about how all carpets are the same thing. And, you know, I tend to disagree with that because, I mean, you know, try to keep a diamond like a Darwin and you're not going to breed it. It's not going to do well.

It's going to live five years and keel over. So, I mean, obviously it's adapted enough and changed enough genetically to require certain things. So I do take issue with, you know, that all carpets are the same but what i but what i do think is that if you were to take a diamond python and reproduce it in captivity over and over and slowly as you reproduce it you begin to change so it's that idea that and and um what was that the ghost in the genes it was a kpb special where they talked about how epigenetics influence environmental changes and how women who bear children in times of famine, actually the children become smaller so that the mortality rate in the women is lower. And so we, you know, we used to think that genes from one set of offspring to the next are a blank slate. And now we're starting to understand that there's, there's a whole flood of epigenetic changes that are happening from, from, from, from parents to children. And, and so the idea that,

you know, we're, we've all of a sudden taken something that's used to sitting in an environmental cycle from, from, from annually to an environmental cycle from annually to month to month to whatever, and now we've put it into captivity, if you can take that and make it a stable thing for them over the period of time through their epigenetic changes in their offspring, they will be able to begin to change. And I think with enough time, you'll probably be able to begin to change. And I think, you know, with enough time, you'll probably be able to breed a diamond python, maybe not necessarily like a Darwin, but maybe like a San Diego diamond python that's lived in San Diego for 50 years. Right? Yeah. Yeah. I mean, I, I, not to say that. You see what I'm saying? You see what I'm saying? Yeah. Yeah.

But there are some, some species that would just die out because they can't keep up or they can't make those epigenetic changes to keep up with the changing environment or things like that. Whereas others can, because I think that's what we see with extinction, right? Yeah. That's what extinction is.

That's kind of this point of, you know, and I can't remember, I think it was maybe Nick or somebody that's kind of bringing this up, like, or I've heard it from a few different people. But, you know, the fact that some may have seven factors that are necessary to line up to get them to breed correctly and others might have one or two, you know, and so and you can hit multiple different things and they all work, you know, whereas others might be need a little more cue like you know like an amphibian if you don't give them a rain cycle they're not going to breed or you don't give them enough water to breed in they're not going to do it you know so yeah so they're just wasting their energy and i and i do i do kind of wonder about that because you know i i definitely do not disagree with you that there are certain environmental things that are are are essential

and are essentially tied to reproductive events for certain things right yes pat yourself on the back yep do do your rocky dance the stairs no no i agree with you but at but at the same time, I don't think that... So there's seven or eight things that have to line up for an animal to reproduce. Well, that's kind of shitty for an animal if it's got a couple of bad years and in a changing environment. And what i'm speaking to is the plasticity of animals they have every living animal has to be placid in in in the way that it is because you know it reproduction is a primary drive so maybe you know that idea of like oh well it reproduces so it's happy and healthy well maybe not i mean it's that's like like one of the most important functions for an animal. So maybe it'll reproduce and you're still screwing things up. But yeah, you can see animals that will reproduce themselves to death.

Right. Absolutely. Every ounce of energy. I mean, chameleons are a great example. They're, they're kind of like the insects of the reptile world. They'll breed, you know, they'll, they'll start producing eggs, even if there's no male around and they'll die egg bound because that reproductive drive is so strong does that mean you're keeping them right not necessarily you know because they're going to reproduce because they that's what they do you know and i think there's a lot of different species that could fall into that category and so to sit there and be like well chameleons reproduction isn't everything right but it's the most important thing to the reptiles

and for animals yeah i mean yeah yeah so but i but i don't think they can just change willy-nilly to match whatever you know environment they're put in to to reproduce and but but like i'm saying some might be able to do that some might require less stimuli some might be able to colonize every area of the world and reproduce fine. I mean, morning geckos are a great example. They're colonizers and they've made it to, you know, Hawaii, Australia, all these different areas. But I don't see them in Utah. You know, they haven't made their way to Utah and can't, can't adapt to our environment here, but you know, they can adapt to more tropical or, or, you know, you know, semi tropical environments

and do just fine there. So, um, there are still some things that would be important for them to reproduce, um, that, that you wouldn't find in other areas. And I think if you, if you, but, but, and conversely, if you were to take, and this is very, uh, very uh apparent in plants where you get invasive species um and and they're you know they're highly they're they're high the plants are highly prolific because in their native habitat they have to out compete um but if they make it out of their native habitat that you know their their reproductive strategy is high because they're in high competition but when you remove their competition all of a sudden they just take they they become you know an invasive species because there's nothing checking them anymore

right so yeah i mean you have to take you kind of got to take the apples and the apples right a little bit um and and so um you know but like you know going back i think you know the conventional wisdom was that tracy a were were um you know that they needed to be kept warmer and and that that was what it was and you know clearly that doesn't seem to be the case that you keep them cooler and and you know i don, you know, I don't, I don't, uh, I don't actually remember if Shane kind of talked about what his, his temperature regimes look like. I know he talked about what he did for eggs and what he did for eggs was very close to spot on with what I did. So I think, you know, Python, uh, I think Python eggs have a certain incubation period. And I think, you know, some Somalia in general have long incubation periods. So, you know, that idea

of having a longer incubation period, cooking those eggs higher, uh, and higher temperatures is not good. I, I, I did mine 80, 85 to 86. Uh, I believe Shane said he was more like 87, if I believe 86 and a half something like that and and um it's still on the lower side compared to other pythons absolutely absolutely and so i tracked uh when i tracked maternal incubation with uh pygmy python the clutch got over 90 several times like it was like but but but but you, were you surprised they had, did you, did you get, did you get, um, did you get time data on that? Like how, how long were they over 90? And like, were they long events or were they short events? You need to read my books better.

There's a graph in there that shows the, you know, hour to hour changes in that. Well, not everybody has your book. So I'm just trying to help out the audience at large, but as a plug, please get Dr. Julender's book on anterogia. It's amazing. It's got a graph in it that will answer all of these questions for you. Anyway, continue. Yeah. So, you know, I, I, I do think there are some species that can colonize well, and that can adapt to just about any, you know, environment, you know, say like a pigeon or, you know, they, you can find those anywhere in the world and they can reproduce and do very well just about anywhere. Whereas others, you know, I, I guess I look at Australia, I love Australia. So I'm, I like to talk about those animals there and you see some animals that have a huge range. They cover basically the whole continent. You know, you see, I don't know, like what's a good example of that, but they, uh, maybe a certain gecko species. You can find them just about

anywhere, like a binocular gecko or something. And then you find other geckos like the leaf-tailed geckos that are found on a single mountain range, you know, and they have a very, very restricted range. They're kind of on an island and maybe, you know, changes to the environment that are a little extreme or rapid, such as anthropomorphic, you know, climate change and things like that would result in their doom and they're going to go away or become extinct because the changes are too rapid for them to keep up with. And that's why they're in this, this position anyway, right? Because the eritification of Australia is drying out and then they're kind of stuck on these little islands of, of habitat that work for them still like the green tree pythons in Australia as well. They're

remnant rainforests where they can kind of have a little niche or toehold in their area. Um, but you know, if it continues to dry in those rainforest patches go away, they're going to go away too, you know, but that's not to say in a few million years when the earth balances out again and things start to cool down, they can make their way back when there's a land bridge or something in the next ice age. So, you know, it's there, there, there is a broader picture or something in the next ice age so you know it's there there there is a broader picture a bigger picture of you know where something might disappear or change but maybe the the basal form can give rise to other forms like say all the leaf tails came from a common ancestor which is pretty pretty likely you know and then as they got stuck and kind of

isolated in these different areas, they adapt and grow. But that's not to say in a million years, you know, it might change so they can kind of interbreed and mix around and move around in a, in a greater area and change that all, you know, so that's, that's the difficult thing with taxonomy, you know, is right now we have a snapshot, you know, you kind of take, I guess the genetics play into that a little bit, where you can kind of see changes in the long run and changes in different genes and things like that. It doesn't, I mean, epigenetic changes are more rapid, you know, right now, adaptive changes, whereas the DNA, you know, that's kind of like what's happened over a while you know to to make those changes and so you know we we have a snapshot but what does that tell us you

know in the grand scheme of things and so you know i and i think you know different taxonomists have different ideas of what these things mean anyway that's kind of a little bit a little bit of a tangent there but i do think that you know some things are more plastic, you know, and have those set requirements that if they don't see them, they ain't breeding, you know, there's, they've got to have those things. And so if you're trying to breed those in captivity and you say, ah, they don't need that, you're probably not going to be successful with them. Whereas with others, if you go, um, you know, ball Python might need, and especially as we, okay, I'm going to introduce another topic, but I'll let you respond to this, this one first, if you have anything to say on that.

Yeah. I mean, well, I mean, I think that, you know, and, and again, I just go back to what my experience is and, and you know, I am not the great and powerful dr justin julander so i i will i will just stick in my lane um and talk about tracy a is is you know i don't god forbid everybody gets mad here but i don't think dave dave and tracy barker did a really great job describing the speed i mean mean, they, you know, they named the species, but where, where do they exist in the Halmahera Islands? Are they at elevation? Are they, are they, you know, are they elevation pythons? Are they down at sea level? You know, we, we kind of understand what, and, and no knock to the Barkers. Like I get it. I'm

just, I'm just saying like um you know we understand where they come from but a lot of very very different uh microclimates exist on that island it's not a small island so um you know what what exactly are they experiencing for temperatures um oh look justin's getting a book he's gonna he's gonna smack talk me out here but um so you know i mean i think that when you see that weather station average of temperatures for the home of harrah islands and you think that's exactly what that animal is going to experience that that that may be leading you potentially down a wrong path um and so i will i will uh i will just keep talking to allow justin to oh i don't you can you can stop talking if you want i

was just gonna slap you upside the head go ahead dude go ahead no i was gonna see if they had you know any information on where they're found um do you have the book there uh it's called the pythons of the world volume three the pythons of asia and the maleve archipelago i have not gotten that one oh there you go you can mail it you can mail it talking about what the barkers have or have not said so i saw a paper i saw a paper and uh I remember the paper fairly well. It's been a while since I've seen it. So that is what I'm, I'm assuming that their, their book comes from their primary research since not very many other people that I know of have described or named the species after themselves.

So I'm just saying, you know, but I mean, I think most insular python species, Halmahera pythons probably can be found throughout their islands in nearly every habitat and elevation. The Halmahera python is closely associated with forested areas. So it sounds like they might be able to go. So pretty much they said, yeah, it could be anywhere. And I don't know, you know, how much, do you know how much the island of Halmahera varies in terms of elevation? I mean, are there big mountains on Halmahera? I don't know.

I mean, they're fairly smaller islands. I don't know how much of a mountainous range they even have. I mean, they're smaller than the bird's head peninsula they're you know bigger than you know biak but they're you know they're fairly good sized islands um and there's what one two three you know so they went from not that big to a fairly good size well so and they're not in papua new guinea and they're not australia they're smaller islands i'm not Ari. I admit it. I haven't gone out and I haven't hung with the natives and the Tracy out there.

I get that. I'm just saying. Okay. So I'm sorry. I apologize to all of you. Dave and Tracy, if you ever happen to listen to this, not talking shit at all. I'm just saying that, you know, from what has been described and what people have tried to garner, I don't think that there was a very, you know, that, that, that,

that their natural care if, if you want to call it that is very well described. So it's left people to say like, Oh, I'm just going to take it from a weather station in halmahera and and if you look at that data halmahera is pretty stable right it's it's warm and it's stable but it doesn't mean that underneath the canopy uh or wherever these animals are residing that that is necessarily you know they're not maybe they're not 87 degrees or 88 degrees or 85, whatever it is, right? They're low, they're low, stable. And, and, you know, it's largely nocturnal, you know, it's very equit, it's equatorial. So you're not getting large shifts. Um, you

potentially have rainfall year round. So you, you have stable. And so for me, in my mind, I thought, okay, so they're an average everything, right? Steady state economics for the animal. So if you don't necessarily hit the temperatures right, but the temperatures are stable and they're close, then you're probably okay, right? That's what makes sense to me. And I'm sorry if I've offended everybody and that I'm now a pariah. I think that's an automatic disqualification. Listen, the guy pulled the book that I don't even own out on me.

So, I mean, what do you want from me here? I have this book and you don't. I'm doing the best I can. Listen, I have the picture. I have a home of hair in here. You have the book. You have the book. I have the snakes.

Oh, my goodness. There you go. It's gorgeous. No, it's fine. I prefer the babies. home a hair in here you have the book you have the book i have the snakes there you go gorgeous it's fine i prefer i prefer the baby i mean it says the local collectors report that the species is usually encountered on the ground but as general arboreal it is often encountered at fruit fruit bat recruits so i don't necessarily think it needs to eat fruit bats to be successful with it you know but maybe if you learned you know this the cycle that the fruit bats take you know that might help uh promote reproduction but i think i think

that's a potential that's a potential avenue i don't necessarily i mean i mean someone would have to prove to me the dominance of their yeah obviously you didn't do that and you were successful with them and right you know think about the fruit bats but i mean you know food cycling can be useful for a lot of species and i think that was another huge incorporated some of those yeah absolutely and that was that was something also that came from terry and and and you as well and i i i i dare say ryan and i uh young and i even talked about that a little bit and um you know you know, just kind of doing, um, you know, um, you know, when I was getting ready to a month or a month and a half, maybe two months away from, um, cutting off their food. Um, and generally I correlated that with my wet,

with my wet period in, in, in Southern California, which is very pronounced. It's only a couple months. So potentially for me, if I have a bad wet season, I feel like I probably have a bad breeding season. But I would feed very small, very frequent meals, feed, feed, cue, cue, cue, and then I've cut it off. And that seems to be very successful. So like I said, you know, I, and that also can mimic a natural cycle of, of the ebb and flow of, of, um, prey of prey, prey availability. So I think there's probably some good, you know, rationale for doing things like that. Oh yeah. I think, I think one of the most important things, especially for something like a Tracy or, or, you know, that you and chain hit on was leaving them alone, reducing their stress. And, you know, I think there's multiple ways to kind of achieve

that. You know, you can kind of just, you know, handle them a lot. You know, you hear that from everybody. Oh, you just handle them a lot and then they get used to handling and they settle down. But what I'm saying is that's potentially a way if they got used to being handled over and over and over and that, that stress went away because they realized, okay, I'm not getting hurt. You know, this, this, they're, I'm being handled gently. They're not jerking away or, or swinging me around or anything, you know, and the, and the stress of the handling or stress of interaction with people goes away.

Obviously, it's easier just to leave them alone and let them settle. But I'm saying it's possible and maybe some species never settle down. Maybe Tracy is one that would never settle down. But maybe if you handled it enough, it realized, okay, this is just the food monkey bringing me food and it's just, you know, getting me out of my cage. Let me get out in the sun and being handled. And so you're, you know, you're, I love that. I like that.

That's funny. Michael, yeah. So anyway, you know, if you're handling and reducing that stress load, they're not feeling that stress, then, you know, maybe that serves the same purpose. And so you could say, oh, you have to leave them alone or, oh, you have to handle a lot to get them over that stress. And, you know, you don't have to do either. You could do either or, and it would work, but the principle is the same. You're reducing their stress load either by leaving them alone and not touching them or interacting with them or whatever just feeding them occasionally or you're um you know getting them over the other way and and both

could work potentially equally equally well so so you gotta shout out to mike's monitors who always talks about the food monkey you know mike's a great guy Yeah. So please allow me to retort. Um, I do, I do, I do think, I do think what you're saying has some merit. I think you're going about it the wrong way. Uh, I, what I chose to do with my Tracy, a was that I stuck them in very plain cages. I took away all of their hides. So they had to exist in that closure openly. And there is and always will be an amount of stress that comes from that. But you're not

being handled by the food monkey. You're not being encroached upon as the food monkey opens the door and grabs you with this metal hook or whatever, but they're allowed to exist in a certain level of stress that to them is... And they would, they would find, they openly find their favorite spot to sit in and they would sit there. And I did that with them until all of a sudden they went from this shy, you know, almost like a biot chondro where they tuck their head and they hide. And if you touch or go in there, they'll freeze. I think that what, you know, what Bob Rock said about Tracy A freezing

when they're highly stressed and spot on, spot on. And I think we take that for like, oh, but we think when it's stressed, they're going to start striking at us. And that's, that's panic mode. That's way beyond stress, right? They're, they're over the top at that point. Or a food mode. Maybe they're very comfortable. But that's not been my experience. My experience was that when they flipped, when they became comfortable, and it's much like you see in baby carpets where they're bitey, they're nervous, and mine now are at the glass, they're inquisitive, they're seeing what's going on there. You know, they, they see movement, they'll be, they'll be hitting, they'll hit the glass, um, trying to, to eat or, you know, they're,

they're not, they're not this idea that there's some thing different than anything that we've ever experienced. I don't buy that. It's not been, you know, in the interim, there's something that we recognize, but not something that we're used to in scrubs, right? But they're not wholly different. They're pythons. Just like Tracy said, incubate the eggs just like regular pythons or treat them just like regular pythons. And I think once you can get them established from being completely stressed out and you don't kill them, then you can start to treat them much more like the Somalia family of pythons that they are. Right. Well, and you didn't disagree with me. You said the exact same thing I was saying. Like you did something to give them a certain level of stress until they

realized it's not really stress. Maybe their behaviors were, I don't know. Linda, Linda, Linda, Linda, Linda, listen, you walked right into my trap. No, I didn't walk into your trap your trap was crap it was it was a cheap it was a cheaply made trap that that did not that did not hold me sir it did not hold you off your foot right now because you're in that trap you are trying to chew off your foot call me linda come on no i i said that they you could handle stress two different ways you could either help them get used to the stress of you which you did or you could or you could just have them right away or you could handle stress two different ways. You could either help them get used to the stress of you, which you did,

or you could just have them hide away from the stress and you can ignore them. Or you could kill them by grabbing them out of their cage. No, that's not what I said. I said doing things to get them used to the stress of captivity, like handling them often, or like putting them in a cage where they have to see you and have to understand the stress that it's not worth freaking out about. Or you can say, get rid of all the stress.

Have them in a solid container with plants for them to hide in. And you put in the rat in a little trap door where they never see or smell a person. Like there's ways to do these things. And I'm just saying, stress is a very important thing. And if you handle it one way, or you handle it the other way, you're taking the stress as a factor of their well-being and their reproductive success into account. Okay, Linda. Thank you. You chewed that leg. Listen, leave my leg alone. You're the one chewing on it. So I think those people who want to hide those animals in plant cover and things like that,

they're taking a strategy. And as long as you're consistent with that strategy over the long period, I believe that strategy will work. I also believe if you take my strategy of... There was another scrub reader that was on Radio that was talking about that same thing. Go for it, Linda. Can I finish? Wait, no, wait. Are you Karen? No, you're Linda. You're Linda. I'm that little boy who's like, no pow-pows, no pow-pows.

You can be Karen. I'll be Linda. I'm that little boy who's like, no pow-pows. No pow-pows. You can be Karen. I'll be Linda. All right. Wait, I don't know if I want to be Karen. That is not a good name. I think I'd rather be Linda. I apologize to be Karen's list. Yeah, exactly. Or Linda's. My bad, too. So, no, I think whether you go with the less stuff going on, get them used to it, lots of stuff in the enclosure. The only point I was really making is I think we've seen people who have been more hands on with them, tried to keep them like other pythons. And I don't really understand outside of something viral or something going on that we are not kind of – if the mortality rate of Tracy A is highly tied to stress,

then I would say that you're going in and getting them used to handling probably is maybe a threshold too far. Um, so, um, that was kind of my only point with that, Linda. Oh boy. Well, I think you missed the point because that was the, you know, it was, it was about managing stress, managing. And you walked right into that, you know, to say that you disagreed with me. And then you talked about how you manage stress. No, no. Listen, I do disagree with you because there's multiple appropriate ways to manage stress. That's the point is what you're saying. And what your side is saying is that there is, you know, specific things you have to do.

And what I'm saying is that, yes, in managing stress, but how you manage that stress can be variable, right? But there are certain thresholds that you just cannot cross because I don't think that they lead to good outcomes. With certain species, yeah. With certain species. And so that's what I mean. You have to find the detail that works for the species you're working with.

Absolutely. Well, if you're not, if you're not, yeah. Managing stress is critical to doing well with them. with where they come from, the minutia of what is and what is not important, yeah, I would argue that you absolutely will not be as successful. If you think you can just be like, well, it's a Python. I just treat it like any old Python. Now, does that mean that all Pythons don't have similar physiology because they're Pythons, right? But can you treat every Python exactly the same? No,

absolutely not. But there are certain commonalities and there are certain things that matter, but there are certain things that I don't think matter. And I think sometimes people get caught up in the things that don't matter as the keys to success, where the long game the the consistency um the the the the student of the serpent finding those things that work well over time and and cause a you know steady state economics with that animal right and that is probably your best leverage to have success. That's what I'm saying. Okay. Yeah, I mean, you can settle down a little bit.

You got me fired up with the bear trap, man. My foot hurts. I understand. My foot hurts. My name is Karen. Sorry. No, so I would say- I understand. My name is Karen. Sorry. I've uh, natural history, to find the elements of their natural history that are static or that are very critical to their, um, reproductive cycling.

And, and I mean, you can, you can build off of other people's mistakes. I mean, uh, Tracy, you're a great example of that. I mean, how many people have tried to keep them and they've just died on them, you know? And so you can kind of talk to them. Oh, how did you keep them? Oh, I kept them 88 to 90 degrees, you know, and, and I, and I fed them, you know, twice a week and you, okay, maybe I don't want to keep them that way because that led to demise of the animal.

And so, you know, you can learn from the mistakes of others. Now that's the hard thing is getting you, you have to almost get somebody on the phone and start saying things that you've done wrong for people to feel comfortable telling you what they've done wrong or how, you know't know. I thought I was doing great and it died. And they can tell you their keeping regimen. You can think, okay, maybe to learn and be a student of the serpent and learn about the animal you're keeping, um, there, there are probably a certain number of things that are critical to their reproductive success and to their care, to their long-term wellbeing. And if you can identify those things, I think you're going to be much more successful. Now, if you get caught up in the minutia, if you get caught up in the,, okay, am I going to, am I going to do this? Am I going to feed, you know, eight meals a year? Am I going to feed nine meals a year? Or, or am I going to feed during this month or that month? You know, it might not work out so well for you, but if you say, okay, what's the principle, a cycle feeding, okay, I'm going to set up a cycle feeding regimen.

I'm going to feed, you know, this many at this during these months. And then I'm going to try that out for five years or something and see what happens. I'm going to, you know, key in on, on storms. If I've got storms coming through, I'm going to throw them together and see if that results in more frequent copulation than when I put them together together when there's no barometric pressure change, you know, and have ways to monitor that. I don't know. There's, I mean, infrared cameras are cheap as dirt. You know, you can buy a little remote camera, put it in their nest box and you can see them. You know, it might be crowded in there or may not get the right angle or you may not get the right view.

But there's ways to try to, you know, monitor these things. And like Shane said, sometimes they'll stick their tails out of the nest box and you can see what's going on and they'll, they'll give you a little hint, but, and you know, sometimes like you can look at the behavior of your animal. If your male's cruising around the cage, like Shane was talking about trying to get out, oh, maybe that's a good time to, to let the animal out and go visit the female, you know? So there's cues that maybe are imperceptible to us, but looking at the behavior of the animals can give you a clue. Maybe the female is putting off pheromones like crazy saying, I'm ready to breed. And your male's cruising around the cage and you're like, oh, what's wrong with this stupid

male? I don't want to let him near the female. He'll probably kill her or something. You know, it's like the best time to let him near the female. So our interpretation of behaviors is sometimes problematic and sometimes we get in our own way, but you know, as we gather information and that's why it's really, um, you know, sometimes we like to claim success all on our own. Like I figured this out, I did this or whatever. When in reality, we're basing a lot of the decisions we're making off of either other people's successes or their failures. And so we don't have to go down the same bad, you know, down the road that they went that led to a bad outcome.

And so, you know, there's there's different ways to to do this. And I do think there is some plasticity in some elements of keeping them, but others, it's a static, they need this, you know, a colubrid needs to be cool or this colubrid needs to be cool. Maybe other colubrids don't, you know, I'm, I'm very generalizing with colubrids is a huge family of snakes. So, um, but you know, there's certain aspects of, of some species that are almost required for them to breed and be successful long-term over multiple generations. Oh, that's one other thing I wanted to bring up. Sorry, I forgot. I was going to bring it up earlier and I want to bring it up kind of in the closing as

well is as we reproduce animals through multiple generations, we're moving them more and more towards a domesticated creature, right? And so we change things that maybe are more or less necessary or make them less necessary, put them into a more adaptable state, things like that. So, oh, did you? I said that! I said that! That was my whole epigenetic thing. Nevermind. I'm sorry. I didn't mean to go into your, I'm hit on that. That was my whole epigenetic thing. Nevermind. I'm sorry. I didn't mean to go into your, I'm sorry. Fin. No.

Yeah. So, you know, there are things that as you, as you get them more and more, um, adapted to captivity or domesticated, whatever you want to call it, um, you know, maybe those things go down in number and the, and the critical things become less critical and they become more adaptable. So that's, that's what I'd end on. Yeah. I, I wholly agree with that, that part of it. I mean, I think that, you know you know, and you know, you think about it like, you know, animals in the, or snakes in the wild, it'sier in the wild. They don't experience the same climate every single... I mean, in an equatorial region, it is absolutely fairly stable, right?

But it's not the same exact year to year. It does change, right? And especially when you get away from equatorial regions, there's animals that have vastly different... They have a drought or a huge tropical storm. So from decade to decade, or, you know, they have to have plasticity. So this idea that you can't, you know, you cannot have variation in what you do to reproduce something in captivity just doesn't track with, with what animals have to do in the wild even, right? And I would say that we can probably give about the same stability if you have a well-controlled

captive environment for them. I think the hard part about stuff is you got to have the balls to risk it sometimes, right? Like, you know, if everybody's keeping, you know, Tracy and they're killing them, you got to have the balls to do something completely different. And it's kind of like, crap, man, like these things are dying on people left and right anyway. What am I, you know, like if I risk like running them all at a lower temperature or doing something that just sounds like that doesn't make sense from what I understand about where they come from or whatever, like, well, challenge that. That's okay. You know, and, and, and, you know, I think for me and, and, and, you know, everybody can come to their own conclusions, but for me, I feel like I made some insights, right. And, and maybe I'm wrong, but I'm, I'm having some

success. So I want to ride that out and see where it goes. And if it continues and, or if I can talk about it with other people and they do what I do and they have success, then maybe that's, you know, that that's not just what knowledge that's wisdom. Right. Um, and, and that's, you know, that's not just what knowledge that's wisdom. Right. Um, and, and, and, you know, I think, I think the other hard part is man, when, when you get like bull and I that are 10 K or, you know, like, listen, man, like we don't even know how to breed this shit and we're already trying to turn it into a profit pyramid scheme. You know, let's, let's, let's get our shit together when it comes to breeding these things and and not make it a profit base you know we can make it a profit base thing after we got it figured out well the people want the people making the money are not the ones trying

to breed them either they're importing them and saying these suckers are going to pay 10 grand a piece for and i'm going to say something unpopular. Maybe you're kind of a dickhead, right? Me? Well, no. Are you importing Bull and I trying to sell them for 20K a fucking pair? No, I'm just saying it doesn't make sense. Listen, what are we doing here? What are we doing here, right?

And I get it. It's about making money. Is it? Is it really? I mean, is that? Like, I get it. People got to make a living and shit. But can people make a living and not charge people 10K for a single mail that's imported and really is suspect, whether it's even been captive hatched, you know, that what it costs that importer to

bring it in or what that, or what that retailer bought it for and what he's selling it for is bullshit compared to what he's trying to charge the consumer. And so that's the thing. If we support that and people buy them, then they're going to keep doing it. That's the bottom line. You know, it's supply and demand. If people are going to go for it, then have at it, you know, good luck to you. Hopefully you figured out and you don't just have a dead 10 grand snake, you know, that's, that's the, that's the challenge, but you know, and, and maybe, maybe that's what it requires. Maybe they'll, I don't know. We had that topic already. We already discussed that. Yeah. And, and I think, and you know, I also think like for me, one of the things that helped me really be successful is giving animals room to make choices. Construct your habitat, construct your plan with a way to let the animal figure it out and give that animal a safe, you know that seems to meet all its needs, but allow that animal to make those decisions, right? And design your enclosures, design your setups and your plans

for those animals around those things, because you don't know what the fuck's going on. They do, right? And so you have to meet, like we talked about, certain criteria around what these animals need. And some of that's a best guess. Some of that's kind of well known. But if you design it in such a way that the animal just takes it from there, then you're going to have much more success. But this idea that you're grabbing the male out and throwing him in with the female. And if that's, if you're talking about highly stressed animals, you're,

you're not helping yourself doing that. So, you know, do something like pass-throughs or, you know, do something like, you know, cohabiting or things like that. And, you know, kind of think around those things, better ways to kind of get stuff to work together. And I and, and, you know, kind of think around those things, but better ways to kind of get stuff to work together. And, and I, you know, I do, I, I think this has been good. I do think that you are a hundred percent right, that there are just certain hard, you know, nopes that if you cross that threshold, it's just not going to happen for you. Um, but, but, but there is certain plasticity that has to be there in animals. If they were unforgiving, they would not exist as a form on this earth. So that is all I have. All right.

Well, good topic. We took up a good chunk of time. We did. We did. Got pretty impassioned there. Well, we had a bunch of nonsensical you know um non non non-reptile ish talk earlier so we did yeah hopefully we we delivered in the end bear trap and all yeah i think it was a good topic yeah that was it was good discussion good fight good fight

all right well um so yeah let me let us know if what you you think, what you got from this, if you have any input to it. We love feedback and love getting new topics. We've had some really nice feedback lately and some really good topics. We got some people lined up to come on and discuss some of these topics. So appreciate your feedback and your interaction. That's kind of what makes this more fun is people's interaction and, you know, hearing, hearing the guys on carpets and coffee talk about, you know, the, the opportunity to fight each other and, and, you know, Lucas wanting to, I want to get in people's ear. We're making that happen. That's like, yeah, we'll have them on as soon as they

want to come on. Yeah. Maybe the 20th episode. I don't even know what episode we're on. I mean, no, we're, we gotta be close. So I feel like that episode's coming folks oh yeah yeah i don't think we want to wait 50 episodes no no come on guys people may not even be willing to listen to us at that point so let's let us let us strike while the iron is hot yeah but i think the the nice uh thing is is there's no end to topics. We can continue on. There's so many different things. And I think that, that the, the interviews we did at the Anaheim show really bear that out, you know, show that, man, there's things that you haven't, I haven't even considered, you know, up some topics that you've been thinking about and that are important that you want to have people consider or think about. So let us know. We'll get you on. Yeah, please.

Like we talked about on our last episode with talking to Ryan McVay and hearing his you know, his impassioned, you know, plea on different aspects of things in the hobby. You know, there's a lot of things that are, you know, maybe that we're doing that aren't quite that effective and we need to change and develop and grow. And I think this is a good mechanism for that to get people to think about things they might have not considered. So, you know, tell your friends, tell your enemies, tell everybody, you know, that there's some good fights going on and they need to listen. So let's try to grow, grow the audience and, you know, get some more listeners in here and, and get them thinking because the more, the more we contribute and the more we interact and discuss these topics, the better we can do, the more we can grow and the more we can, you know, fill some of these things out and do better for the animals.

So that's my plea to you. And thanks for listening. And we'll catch you next week for another Reptile Fight Club. Linda and Karen are out! so Outro Music