12/27/2025
RIP Kelce 🪦⚰️
[ 🚨 TRIGGER WARNING ‼️ : the second photo is of a deceased snake. I like to be transparent about both our successes and the bad days.]
2025 has been rough.
To add insult to injury; I just last night went to check on our hognose snakes in brumation.
Nerd notes :
• Brumation is the natural dormancy phase reptiles enter in in the fall and winter, and stimulates breeding activity in the spring; as well ovulation cycles in female reptiles, and s***m production in males.
One method to simulate this artificially is to use a wine cooler (that should never be able to get *too* cold by design) and store the snakes inside - in this case for an overwinter period of 2-3 months at between typically 50-55° F •
The Hognose were due out Christmas Eve after 10 weeks in. It stank as soon as I opened the wine fridge and i knew things were bad.
I found one of four hognose i had cooling since mid October was dead. 😭
All the others were fine. She shed just after going in, but was fine a few weeks ago. Plenty of moisture in the substrate. Like, the tubs have considerable condensation, so i know it wasn’t a dehydration issue. Maybe it just swung too cold? There’s no real way of knowing at this point anyhow.
My first season breeding colubrids is shaping up GREAT.
It happens to everyone at least once, but I was hoping it wouldn’t be my first year and with 1 of 2 total breeding pairs. And not with a ready to breed adult female. The only caveat is we acquired her as an adult and hadn’t spent all of her 4 years raising her, only to die in such a manner. So it’s not *exactly* 4 years down the drain - but you’re buying time when you acquire adults instead of hatchlings, and that of course comes with its own set of risks. You also pay accordingly when you purchase adults; so there’s of course a monetary consideration regarding ever replacing “losses”, still.
I know I did everything by the book because I second guessed myself every step of the way - I took notes, consulted with friends and respected breeders, watched countless hours of long format podcast interviews on this very topic.
