Morelia Python Radio

The Boelen's python roundtable

In this episode we are joined by Ari Flagle, Fredrick Averback, Kasper Fonager and Chad Gray for a round table discussion about Simalia boeleni. We will discuss keeping, conservation of the species and thoughts about the breeding of this species in captivity and in the wild.

Duration:: 2h 58m
Broadcast on:: 25 Nov 2015
Audio Format:: other

Hey Chad Brown here, you may remember me as a linebacker in NFL, when I was a reptile breeder and their owner of Projak. I've been hurtful since I was a boy and I've dedicated my life to advancing the industry and educating the community about the importance of reptiles. I also love to encourage the joy of breeding and keeping reptiles as a hobbyist, which is why my partner Robin and Markle and I created the reptile report. The reptile report is our online news aggregation site bringing the most up-to-date discussions from the reptile world. Visit the reptilereport.com every day to stay on top of latest reptile news and information. We encourage you to visit the site and submit your exciting reptile news. So as a link, we can feature outstanding breeders and hobbyists, just like you. The reptile report offers powerful branding and marketing exposure for your business and the best part is it's free. You're a buyer or breeder, you gotta check out the reptile report marketplace. The marketplace is the reptile world's most complete buying and selling definition full of features that help put you in touch with the perfect deal. Find exactly what you're looking for with our advanced search system, search by sex, weight, more, or other keywords, and use our Buy Now option to buy that animal right now. Go to marketplace.the reptilereport.com and register your account for free. Be sure to link your marketplace account to your ship your reptile accounts or earn free tokens with each shipping label you book. Use the marketplace to sell your animals and supplies and maximize your exposure with a platinum med. It also gets fed to the reptile report and our powerful marketplace Facebook page. Buy and selling and ship your reptiles.com to take advantage of our discounted priority overnight shipping rate. Ship your reptiles.com can also supply you with the materials needed to safely ship your animal successfully. Use ship your reptiles.com to take advantage of our discounted priority overnight shipping rate. The materials needed to ship your reptile successfully, live customer support, and our live, on time, arrival insurance program. We got you covered. Visit the reptilereport.com to learn or share about the animals. Click on the link to the marketplace. Find that perfect pet or breeder. Then visit shipreptile.com to ship that animal anywhere in the United States. We are your one-stop shop for everything reptile related. [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] Good evening everybody. Welcome to another episode of Moralia Python with radio. [Music] Great. It's off to a good start. I see already. It was the episode already. Totally started on a crap. Do it over. Start the music you get. [Music] Oh man. Anyway, I predict that this episode will be one that people will go back to and listen again, and again, and again, and again, because we'll be talking about the Boland's Python's. We've had a lot of the guests that are on tonight have been on the show before. Yeah, but this time we're going to do it in round table style, which is going to put tons of info. The guests will be able to talk to each other back and forth because like we always said, we're not experts by any stretch it means, but tonight we are joined by, dare I say, the pinnacle of the keepers of the Boland's Python? I mean, yeah, and that's the other thing is that we're really out of our element now because I do not have Boland I and neither do you. So it's like we really have so freaking idea what's going on here or like no one really wants to hear our interpretation of Boland's Python, but out of the people that we got on here, you're talking about all these guys have them, all these guys seen them, some have even gone to the wild and tracked them down. So it's like this is the brain trust of Boland. I mean, this is pretty much everybody you want to talk to. So if you're considering Boland's, this is definitely a show to listen to. What should you do? What's the matter? Did you mute? Where are you? So I'm right here. Don't leave me there anyway. Don't leave me in my own devices. That's all right. So yeah, there's a return of you as well. I mean, last week you left me high and dry to do the show all by myself. You put me in my accident. I know I felt so bad. It was one of those, I'm like, I talked to you really in the week. I'm like, hey, I got to go to a family dinner thing, which most of my family knows that you never schedule anything on Tuesdays because of the show. But every once in a while, I get like absolutely like outvoted to like extreme. So this is one of those times. So you were just going to be the show as Zach. And then Zach had the family emergency. So it was just you. And I'm coming back from the restaurant with my father and listening to the show. And I was very tempted to call in like as I was driving in the car with Jim, but I refrained. I kind of held it back. But yeah, you did well from what I hear. You know, you don't need me anymore. Jesus Christ. So no, I do because clearly it is very hard to talk for three hours by yourself. Well, I did have Chris along with me. But oh my goodness, that was quite a quite a quite a feat. But we're back. Awesome. Yeah. Yeah. So yeah, we're going to hit on various topics. And you know, hopefully we'll be able to hit on all the topics and that we have coming up. So what we'll do is we will just go through and let these guys introduce themselves and you know, tell us really kind of what got them into bowling spythons. I don't know if only you have anything else you want to hit on before we get going or I got nothing. So let's jump into this because I don't want to waste another second. Talk into you and I. So very well then. Yeah. All right, go ahead. Oh, and you take it away. All right. So guys, welcome everyone to the show. This is the most guess we've had on the entire time at once is probably the biggest round table we've had cooking. So what I want everybody to do is once you guys introduce yourselves, I want you to talk about, you know, a few points of what got you in the bowlings and what size of a bowlings do you actually have? And we're going to go down the list. So we're going to start with Ari. I got to be first one. You do because, yes, do you know the drill more than other people here? So what got you into the bowlings and how many work with it all? So I feel like I'm in the middle of an interview right now. My name is Ari. I like bowlings 500. I think what really got me into it was being young in a ever-increasing hobby and coming across these very few images of this snake that there was hardly any information basically pertaining to at the time or even still now it's still limited. But back then it was like nothing. And to get how incredible this animal looks, how it captivated me as just an animal that I'd never seen, never heard about. If I mentioned the name, the whole room would basically, you know, shut up and everybody would be like, what are you talking about a bowlings pipeline, you know, come about that kind of a scenario. So I think it really had that mysticism with it. Just the way it captivates somebody when you walk into a room, you see this animal as opposed to something else. It's just really draws you to it. And it's a very different animal from everything else I've ever had a chance to work with. And that seems to be a very familiar statement by bowlings keepers that it's just something that's different. It's a different entity. So I guess that would probably be my little spiel right there for you. So, next. Well, how many are you working with right now? All right. I currently have 2.2 and they're ranging from a early 2012s and late 2013. All right, so let's move on to the Viking cast. What is it that brought you to bowlings and how many you work with? Well, pretty much what got me into bones were the the Morellia genus. When I saw the first picture of a jungle carpet python on back in the days, I of course used the Google to search a lot for information about Morellia in general. So, I stumbled across the first picture of bones, python, back in the days and could not believe my eyes. So, it was lost from first sight pretty much. Okay. Back then, I searched a lot of information. There wasn't a lot of information out there, but the information I gathered was that they made crappy captains. So, I pretty much gave up the whole idea of ever keeping them, which in 2011 changed when I bought my first pair and later went, so went nuts when Frederick produced the first quarter. So, that's pretty much it. I mean, right now I work with nine, nine peas, nine bow and I. Yes. 10-year-old male, that's pretty much just for education. When people want to see a bow and I always take that male and show them and then I have a pair of 2011's that are what you call "fawn babies" and then I have 1.2 from Frederick's first clutch in 2013 and another pair from his second clutch in 2014, which was from another pair. And then I have a single female from 2012, which is also a fawn break. Okay. That's pretty much it. Very cool. All right. Chad, your next up on my list. Chad, why don't you tell us what's going on with what brought you to Bullens and how many you got kicking around? Well, when I started doing reptiles, I think I told you guys the last time I was on, my technical species to get to was always a green trip, I think. And that's because I hadn't seen a Bowens python yet. As soon as I did, I really knew that that was an animal that I wanted to gravitate to eventually. And then I got to see one. The first one I ever saw in person was in Daytona. Early 2000s on Chad and Robin's table of control exotics and my instant reaction was, "Holy shit. There's a Bowens python in person." After I saw it in person, the air distance 10 foot long, I was like, "That's got to be the pinnacle of my collection whenever I get it." So right then, seeing early 2000s, I knew that I had to start working with them. And I started working with Bowens about six years ago. I'm working with an adult pair at the moment. Nice. Very cool. I've seen your pair there. They're very nice. So, like, yeah, I'm trying hard. I will get through this interview without wanting Bowens, Bowens, python. I swear. Yeah, right. You want them. Yeah. No, you won't. No, you won't. No, anyway. All right. So, why don't we go to, I got Frederic, your next on the list of what brought you to Bowens and how many you got working with right now? Yeah, first up, I want to say hello. Thank you for inviting me to the Moralia python radio, even though we are, even though we are similarly right now. Yeah. And actually, the first time I saw, I think it was the release of the Richard Ross book, the reproductive husbandry of python and Bowens. I saw the picture of a Bowens. I think it was about over 20 years ago. And me and my friend, we were talking to each other until told us one day we will get a bow on our collection. And it went a couple of more years. And then in 2007, I ordered a pair and I got them in March 2007. So I had been working with them since then. And then in 2013, it was the first time I reproduced a clutch of Bowens. And then I acquired another pair from the same clutch that I bought my first pair from. So that's about it. And right now, I have about 19 Bowens in my collection. Wow. But that includes the 14 babies from this year. That's awesome. That's awesome. Did you ever think that you would be able to say that you had 14 babies that you're holding back? Or I mean, is that all that you produced? Yeah. I mean, yeah, 14 Bowens that I produced. No big deal. That's all. It would be nice to keep all of them up. Yeah, that would be a lot of space. Yeah. Very good. All right. All right. Pete, what brought you to Bowens and how many do you got kicking her out? Well, I actually started with Bowens back in the late 80s, early 90s. Back then, when we were keeping reptiles, everybody wanted to have a pair of this and a pair of that. There was no morphs, there were no different colleges or anything like that. So I got the Houdak. They used to be up in Rochester, New York, and they had an importation from Indonesia. And I went towards blood plants, but I had gotten Bowens in back then. But then they were coming in with larger animals. And they came in usually with mouts being swollen, very dehydrated, and just in a really bad shape. And they were quite expensive. Back then, there was $6,000 to $10,000 a piece back then. So I gave the shot with one animal and didn't fare so well. And I then went into blood plays bonds, which became my focus for many, many years. But I always knew one day I would go back, and again, I think of them as the pinnacle species of python to keep in captivity. So as my blood and short tails kind of got the best of me. And I'd made a decision about three years ago to get out of them and back down and start slowing down in life. And I knew I wanted to take on the challenge again to the bowline. And I sold a collection of all my blood and short tails and used the money to purchase three pairs. So I have six animals. And my oldest animal is from 2009. And I don't really know the documented age of the other animals. But so I have an adult pair that is from 2009, 2010. That's my focus this year for breeding. I have a younger pair that I may put together based on what Ari is found in the wild with a grab of female on a clutch of eggs. So I may try the younger pair I have also. But I would like to point out that for people that don't really understand the accomplishment that Frederick has made in bull and I, I always used the analogy of more people have walked on the moon and have successfully bred bull and I. And Frederick has done it three years in a row. It's quite an accomplishment. It's our Super Bowl. It's our World Series. It's everything right there as a python breeder to see their man pull that off three years in a row. So my hat's off and kudos to Frederick for sure for accomplishing that. That is a very good analogy actually. It's like holy crap, it's right. So I mean, you know, more people like, you know, a lot of very dedicated people have kept them and not been able to breed them and either given up or just resolved them to be in pets in their collection and never produced them. You know, so the challenge is what has brought me back aside from the sheer beauty. But now that I've slowed down and cut way back on my collection and bull and I are my focus. I figure what better animal to to try to crack the code on. Nice. That's awesome. Very cool. Very cool. So me and Owen, as we said, both do not have bullens by thumbs. Yeah. I'm really surprised though and that you don't have them yet. I mean, I don't know. I kind of thought that I would have them before you, but I don't know. I guess we're in an arms race to see who wins, who holds out the longest, but yeah, yeah. So the question that I'm going to start with Ari with is, so where do you see the species, both in captivity and in the wild, which your experience with this question, specifically with the wild, is priceless. Where do you see species in 10 years from now? Well, it's a great question. First, I want to kind of add to with what Keith said also about committing Frederick on his incredible accomplishment. Not only was it just the fact, I mean, just its dependence that he was able to replicate this several times, but it also kind of instilled a lot of hope in people that, you know, there are animals that we, you know, that even though they're so terrible in captivity at certain points, we still can kind of triumph over that and really figure out it's almost like going back to the basics. And I talked to people about how we're so preoccupied with all the bells and the whistles of every sort of scenario in life that going back to the simplest sense in being observation, hold the key in somebody aspect. And I really, you know, it's awesome first off to be on this panel with all of you guys on there. I mean, talking positively about something that we're all so passionate about. So, you know, thank you all so for having me on it. It's great. So, now we're going to go back to the question after everybody is done tearing up after Monica, our post in comments. So, you know, it's an interesting question because in captivity, I want to say that I think just because of with what Frederick's been able to do and the attention that it's gotten and the hope that it's given people that it's like, "Okay, we can keep these animals now. We know what we're doing," or to a point now where some people know more than others what they're doing and they're allowing people to know what to do. In turn, it allows us to be able to keep them alive and maintain them successfully. So, with that being said, I would assume that these animals would continue to flourish in captivity and find their ways into people that are, you know, able to continue, you know, continue what Frederick started. In the wild, it's a different aspect, obviously, because we're not in control and everything, in a sense, is, you know, dependent on us, how we're going to change the environment and whatnot, you know, what's going to be done with the animals. But just from what I've seen in the number of years that I've been going there and just from this last trip a couple months ago, the environments dramatically change. There's still places, obviously, that are so remote, you know, that you can't access. And I would hope and want to believe that there's populations of these snakes that are out there that you just haven't been able to access or haven't been able to see or whatnot. And that's my ultimate hope. But some of the areas that I've been taken to have just been decimated because of, you know, habitat loss in development with just the approach, you know, just like, you know, the Western Way is taking over and building and all that stuff, which is expected to happen. So I don't know. I would like to say that they'll be around forever, which would be great. And ultimately, I would suggest they would be. But we ultimately don't know because we don't know what a population is and how far their range actually extends or where it ends. I mean, we assume that they, you know, inhabit this and we assume that they prefer this, but we don't really know. And that's where I'm hoping to come in with all the work and the time that I'm spending over there just to kind of give us a better idea. So I hope that answers the question. It's kind of up in the air. I would hope on a captive point that we continue the success that's been started. And we're able to bring in some animals that aren't represented currently. So we can have a new bloodline into what's currently here. So we just don't get to the point we're just breeding, breeding, breeding, they're saying, you know, clutch mates, patching forth, or if it even affects that. So, you know, time will tell. And I think we're at a really positive point in the, you know, fork of the road, rather. And I think we can go either way. And it looks like a lot of it is turning toward the positive end. So I mean, I hope that answers it, or at least starts some better answers from somebody else. No, no, I think that's good. When I get through, I do have a follow-up question that I'm going to ask you, but that I think only you can answer. But we'll go through and see what Casper has to say. How about you, Casper? What do you think? Men years, where do you see bones by sound? I pretty much said it all. So we just give some next question below. All right. No, really, I believe, of course, they are still a niche animal because of the price, of course, but also because of all the negative boomers that have been around for years with Bolani. And I think it's very important for the future, keepers just to know, make a positive, what I want to call it, a positive bubble around the Bolani, because people need to understand that it's actually a super easy snake to keep. And that's the first way in the process to actually keep them is to learn that these snakes will not die in your hands a few weeks after you get them. They're super-hotty creatures and will do just fine. Breeding is another helm of a chapter, but Frederick is doing that so well. So if we continue this route, I think more people will keep them and eventually we will have more people like Frederick breeding some Bolani in the future, hopefully. So I think in captivity, it's a very positive future. And as Ari said, Frederick made some hope in people. Great hope. Awesome. He was the chosen. Fair enough. All right, let's see what Chad has to say about it. What do you think, Chad? I'll be honest with you, man. I am glad that they are just hitting on countable cats for set about the price. I'm glad they're expensive. I'll be honest with you, because to spend that kind of money on the snake that you don't have very strong probabilities of breeding means that you're truly passionate about what you're buying. So I really do appreciate the high price home. Even as we become more successful, and we take notes from Frederick on what he's doing, I hope that the price kind of stays there because of the past that takes the bottom. You know, you don't want this to turn into another and it never will, but another situation, you know, like we're in with the the ball fights on the stuff. So I definitely respect and appreciate the price aspect. I do think in the next 10 years, they will be more popular just because hopefully some of the mysteries of breeding will be further unlocked, so to speak. Give us some more success, getting more captive animals available to the public, show the the general public that wants to get these guys that they're not as hard as they've been thus far, unlocked some mysteries. Honestly though, I mean, it's just one of those snakes that I believe it's really going to grow with popularity as more people have them, more people are successful with them. More images and stories and books are hurry up, are published, things like that. I mean, I'll really see them just growing in in every aspect. So yeah, I would think that the the only negative with the price would be the fact that, you know, I think maybe we'll people try to chase that, but the good thing is, is that they're not that they're not easy to breed. So, you know, very true, very true. And that might be one of the more disturbing things about them, but I mean, honestly, what more could you ask for in a species of python that abolance. I mean, everything about them is great, they're beautiful, they're not very big. I mean, they're just they're the king of pythons in my opinion. So other than the breeding, and it's not other than the breeding that we don't know, it's not it's not anything that's that should keep people from buying them. I mean, it's just one of those pieces that it's crème de la crème and I hope that they stay the way they are. Just with more popularity. But in the over 10 years, as fast as herpet culture is growing, I don't see them not being on everybody's want or wish list. Right. Well said, well said. All right. Let's ask the now dubbed king, Frederick. What say you? Where do you see bones in 10 years from now? Well, we thought to tell, but I think there will be more common and there will be more people reproducing them. And I would be really surprised if there's not if there's no more than if there's not anymore that people that are breeding them this year, because I think I've shared my information for for a lot of people. And I still don't want I feel wonder why why they're not more really incredible over the world. And I think the future looks good for captive breedings and I think it will be more readily available. I kept the born babies, but I think the prices will stay high for a long time. And the demand is very high and there's a lot of people that are interested in them. So I think the future is good. But about the wild population, I think Ori has the best answer to that question. Right. This is sort of a I'm going to ask you because just like Ori only has the wild aspect of it, you have the captive breeding aspect of it. The more and more that that these are bred in captivity, do you think that they're going to follow suit as other python's has and become easier to breed in captivity? I think I think not everyone is going to breed them because they need some big temperature variations. So you can't keep them in your snake room along with other species. Right. I think I think not everyone has the possibility to to maintain them in the same way that I do. Right. So I think you really have to go for it and I really work just for the species. So you have to keep them in a single room. Or like I did sell all of the other species and just focus on the bollum. Because I don't have that much space so I can keep I don't want to have one whole room. So. Right. Yeah. Hey, Eric. Yeah. Hey, I don't want to cut off Frederick at all, but I wanted to to add into what he was saying. Hey, Frederick, how's it going? I think I think one of the I think one of the things that Frederick's really kind of not he's rediscovered, but kind of like re-addressed to the hobby in itself as well as a lot of the newer keepers that are coming up to it is that we're that we need to get back to the basics in terms of observing animals for what they are and what they do. And I think that in itself has been my mental and Frederick success because he's observing animals for what they're doing and what they're requiring as opposed to what we thought that we needed to provide for them. Frederick's found out that it's it's a lot of most of it have to do with the behavior of the animal itself. So you have to really be patient with the animal and be able to observe it for what it is as opposed to what you're trying to get out of it if that makes sense. Yeah. Yeah, absolutely. Yeah, is that working? Okay, you can mute me now. Okay. All right. Let's see what let's see what Keith has to say about where he sees the bones in 10 years. Keith, what say you? Well, if you were around when the blood pythons were just starting to take off in the short tails, they were species also that were very difficult to maintain in captivity. And a lot of people weren't even having success maintaining them. And then breeding them was, you know, people were just hoping to keep them alive and get them feeding. And then breeding was way down the road in everybody's book. And we can see nowadays that's become a very common place. But the difference between species like the blood and short tails and bolognaise, as Casper touched on, is they're not an animal that you can really keep in a room with other python species and expect to achieve the goals that you need to achieve with them in order to have success with blood pythons. You can tend to do that with, and you can be a lot more successful with them. So as far as captivity goes, I think once people see that a few people are breeding them, more people want them in their collection to have. But as far as the number of successful breeders, I could see that being limited to the very dedicated that are willing to give them in their room. And I'm sure we'll all touch on what we do husbandry rise later in discussion. But it's very different from 90% of the pythons that I've ever kept. And I've kept many. And these guys definitely have a room of their own in my collection. And, you know, like I say, I'm focusing solely on them. And the other animals I have are more on a back burner. And if they breed for me great, and if they don't, they don't. But the concentration is on these guys. And I think that's really what it takes. And as I already and Fredrick can attest to, you do have to be really in tune with your animals and what they're doing and what they're showing you in order to capitalize on those things with this species. So I don't know how many people are going to be that dedicated to it. But people are looking for a quick buck. It's not going to be there. So I'm hoping that the prices do stay high and do that day where it's put in more dedicated keepers. Right. Which is good. Okay. Absolutely. All right. So what do you think? I think of a lot of things. It's again with the whole, I don't have these. But could they become something that's a high level species? They already are. A high level species, in my opinion. They're like Cadillac. And I'm still running around with my Ford Fiesta. So it's like, it's there. But I remember at one point diamond pythons were there and they were high and they were, you had to do all these special things. You were worried about killing them every time you touched them and all the other fun stuff. And we figured those things out. So I do believe that we're going to see an uptick with the successful breedings. Especially when the babies that Frederick has already produced are old enough to breed. And that's all good with me. But also I think the fact that you can't keep these guys properly like you keep everybody else is going to kind of limit who wants to get into them. So they will stay as a higher, you know, echelon, which I'm totally okay with. Just not sure if I'm going to do it. But yeah, that's what I think. How about you? I think, I think, I think it was already brought up. But when I think of bones pythons, I think of, you know, I'd have to agree with Ari and Frederick is that, you know, it's one of those things where you are in touch again with your reptiles, you know, you're not really focused on, you know, Facebook and, you know, the drama and this and that and all this other stuff, you're really just trying to figure out the species. I mean, like when I think of, I think I heard this analogy before, like when you think of like ball pythons, you think of like a fancy car and the paint job is nice. But when I think of bones, it's like you're looking inside and how does the engine work. And to me, that's what, that's what's so fascinating about, you know, I mean, that's kind of what drew me to Morelia to begin with. And I think until I sort of, you know, wet, wet my toes with the easier, you know, even though they're not a Morelia, but they'll always be a Morelia to me. But anyway, even though, you know, I would just sort of, you know, become successful with the easier species in that genus and then sort of move my way up until, you know, being able to one day work with them and keep them correctly and you don't want to run up by like 12. I mean, jump right in. No, I'd, I'd be happy just having, having won, honestly. But I guess my, I guess my follow up to, to live quality. All right. I'm currently going to our Bentley's, not Cadillac. Yeah, what's wrong? I don't know. It's a lot of things. Sorry. My question would be it's like, as far as the wild goes, are we looking at different localities of these guys or are they, are they pretty much coming from the same place as far as, you know, what we're seeing in captivity? Well, for what I've, for what I've been able to determine and see firsthand, the animals that are, that are in private, well, I mean, the animals aren't kept to be currently all the young animals and whatnot or the a little bit older animals. None of the, obviously, the original like late 70s, early 80 adults that came in are, I don't think a month, many of those are live left, but everything that we see now are originating rather from three collection sites. The collection sites are relatively close in proximity. I mean, it's still a distance, but it's not, you know, you know, hours and hours and hours away if by any means. And that goes with some of the population study I'm doing too to find out if there is any different, but I don't know. I think there's a, there's a possibility. I know that's a really big debatable question, some of the bollum community. And it's tough. Personally, if you were asking me, is it individual in my belief? I'd say yes, but I don't have any data to support that or back that statement up. It's just my, my gut feeling and just my observations. And if somebody were to say, well, what would make you suggest that? I would say, well, you know, I think visually I've seen some differences. I've passed some photos around through Casper and Frederick on some of the individual animals that I've come across or that have been collected. I've been able to see it. They look unique and it could just be, like I've said, from individual animals themselves, but I think it's a little bit more to it. I've seen, you know, some of the head scales are really, really pronounced, really baldness looking, even some animals from some areas are really kind of more like a long gated snout or really big labial heads or whatnot. So I think yes, but there's, there needs to be, you know, another lifetime or two lifetimes to be able to prove that in my point. Just with how vast and how difficult it is to access it in the wild. I, you know, by no means am I an expert on it. I've just been lucky enough to be traveling there for, you know, 2006. I've been able to see this stuff. So these are just observations that I've made. So, and there's been some, you know, specific specimens I've come across to in private collections that have already kept hitting that look different from things that I've come across as well. So, I would say yeah. But like I said in the beginning, I don't have anything to back it up to really say yes. So right now it's just a personal opinion of mine. But everything that we see currently is all coming from three, three, maybe four, typically three collection sites. Okay, I know. And one of those sites I visit regularly, it's a constant supply of animals. It's a really healthy population of nesting females every, or twice a year actually, that are producing. Oh, okay. And my follow-up question is... I hope that wasn't just rambling, you know, just rambling. No, no, no. My follow-up question would be this. And I think only your experience could touch on this. And I think maybe this will, we'll get into this a little later as well, once we talk on maybe captive care. But I was talking to Rob Stone today, and we were talking about how Mahair scrub pythons. And he was showing me like data and stuff that he's been looking up and researching and such. And it's crazy that a lot of people thought about how much it rained there. And when you look at the, when he actually looked at the data that was the average rainfall, it really didn't rain that much. There was also a thought about as far as that you have to keep them hotter and warmer. And again, the temperature data doesn't back that up. So my question would be, do you think that people really don't understand, because you've actually been in their habitat, do they not understand really what it's like to be there? I agree. Yeah. I really agree. I've had people, it's funny, and I don't be this in any kind of a negative way, or me, kind of anybody, because I'm not like that. But I have people that have never touched a bold platform that are like, you know, okay, I've got, you know, all this money I want to buy these, these snakes, and I'm going to be, I'm going to be one of the few people that have produced it. And when I first started working with these animals, like in the late 90s, I remember every time it'd be like, I'd hear, or me to do first, I'm going to be the first one. And this is way, I mean, this is before Frederick, you know, was, was cranking these things out. I mean, he's probably getting tired of seeing eggs. So I know how it is. I'm getting tired of seeing them in the wild. So there you go. But, but it's, you know, get these animals and they're like, I'm going to build this gigantic facility, and I'm going to create their habitat in this facility, and I'm going to breed them. And I remember thinking to myself after I've seen this place and climbed to the habitat and dealt with it, I'm like, there's no way in hell that you could be able to replicate it. It's just so intricate. It's so unique. I don't know how you'd be able to do it. I'm sure you could maybe get one aspect of it to be correct, but I don't think it would work out aside from being just a pretty diorama, if that makes sense. And I just don't think it's possible to do that and to answer more of the question, you know, captive animals tend so well, or these young animals that we have access to in the last 10 to 12 years, fare so well like what Catherine was saying. They're a rock solid animal. I mean, of course you're going to get your flukes, you know, every once in a while, you know, a situation of an animal that, you know, comes in with something and it dies, unfortunately, or you have some ailment that you've got to deal with. That's what any kind of a captive, but as far as maintaining these young animals, they do flawlessly. I mean, as long as you maintain them in a typical python manner like with, you know, these other burrelias, they do fantastic. But it's not like we're trying to acclimate these important animals like Keith touched on early with these horror stories that basically developed this, you know, this image of these snakes that were unobtainable. And if you were able to breach that wall, you'd get this animal that would never live and you'd get these animals that come in and they'd just be beaten up and they'd be so acclimated to this incredible environment that you try to bring them into setting and you try to do this and that and they just die. So I think I would have to totally agree with you by saying that, you know, I don't think people understand, you know, where these animals live and what they go through and even their behavior in the wild is so compared to other snakes, in my opinion. And it's very interesting. I'm wanting to take Frederick would be so bad because he's, you know, been able to witness the behavior keys and quarks from his animals to be able to, you know, get these animals to reproduce for him. I want him to see animals in the wild and see if they mimic that same behavior or if it's something completely different. So it's exciting. So yeah, I'm done. There you go. Okay. All right. Real quick. We're going to click on Evan Waxler. He's joining the conversation. His phone died. Now he's back on. Evan, what's you doing? Hey, guys. How you doing? Pretty good. And that's Evan Wexler. W-E-X-L-E-R. Wexler, got it. So basically, I mean, I'd like to first say, you know, the group of guys on here are probably one of, you know, I hold them in high regard. They're all great guys. Casper, good guy. Chads awesome. Ari's become a good friend. Presently, I have 3.3 bones. I should have a lot more. Unlike some of the other people that are listening in or talking, I'm more of a collector than a breeder. I primarily, you know, I want things that other people don't have. And I heard you guys mention the Bentley of Snakes. And I have a picture of mine on the front hood of my Bentley. I presently have a 2011, a 2012 pair that'll probably, that'll be the first ones that I'll try to breed. But I think as far as, you know, newcomers to the Bolins, and yes, they are easy once you get them started. I've probably, which, you know, without mentioning or hurting anybody, you know, where most of the Bolins in the United States are coming from, I've bought probably 14 of them in the last two years. My first group in 2014 that I bought from them, I've had dehydrating problems. And I thought it was over misting or watering them. And I don't think that that was the issue. They just dehydrate as babies. They really, really need a lot of water, you know, and it's a dry atmosphere and not a wet atmosphere. The second group that came in in 2015, for my birthday, I bought myself seven baby Bolins out of the seven, three survived, and they're named Ari, Katberg, and his rhetoric. And then there was the only three out of the seven that survived. The group had pseudomonas. So I do recommend, you know, anybody that buys, you know, a Bolins there, again, expensive, it'd been like a python, you get them checked out right away. Don't wait necessarily for a lot of symptoms. Once you get them started, they're super easy. They're super interactive of any snake that I have in my collection. As soon as you come in the room, everybody's looking out of their hide spots. And they're not looking at you more as like a retic where, okay, I'll open that cage and maybe I'm going to get bit. None of my Bolins are really like that. My little guys are a little on the aggressive side, but overall they're an inquisitive snake. I feel that my larger ones actually recognize me. And I don't know if it's my heat source, but I can stand in the room and somebody smaller or larger, you know, can stand in front of the cage with me and the snake will most normally come over my way. They're just very smart, you know, they're the top of the line, you know. And having the internet and having stuff like this, in the past, I did basins, emerald basins. I had a collection of 15 or 20 of them, but I was on my own, you know, this with the internet and the group of people and able to exchange information and just hanging out and talking to good guys and, you know, like I say, Ari Casper, Frederick, I talked to all of them on Facebook quite often. And it's made the hobby of owning a ball and just so much more fun. Very cool. All right. I like it. You have to unmute, Owen, for him to talk. Yeah. You're talking to yourself and and I strive for intelligent conversation. Anyway, what we'll do now is we're going to move on to the kind of like the elephant in the room when it comes to Bowens and that's the infertility when it comes to eggs. It's probably one of the issues that a lot of people do bring up to you guys about Bowens and about breeding Bowens. I just want to kind of get your take on it. We'll start with Ari. What do you think's going on with the infertility as well as Captain breeding Bowens? Well, to be honest with you, I don't have a lot of experience with this question. I don't know. I can base it from things I've seen in the wild and cleat clutch sizes. I've seen anywhere from, I think, the smallest clutch I saw was 10 and the biggest clutch I saw was 14. And the small clutch was from a young, a small young female, probably her first time reproducing. I think we spoke about that before one of the interviews. And then the 14 that I saw was from a really big 8 to 9 foot female that obviously this wasn't her first rodeo. But as far as fertility infertility, I don't know. I mean, you compare captivity to wild animals. It's considerably different. You've got so many things to consider. Obviously, you've got an animal that has everything that it needs. And it's been using it for eons realistically in the wild. And we're trying to provide something to replicate enough for us to be able to reproduce. So in some areas, we're not going to be able to hit on that all the time. So I don't know. I mean, like I said, I don't have a lot of experience with that kind of question. I feel like Frederick would be the person, the man to be able to talk more on that. But it's kind of interesting from your standpoint of you said the biggest clutch you see is like 16, 14 eggs? Yeah, 14. And that's like I have carpet pythons that are not even the same length of a ball and size. And it's like 3,240 eggs. So you're telling me the big clutches are like in the teens. And that's interesting enough, is I would expect more out of them, really. And you know, and I've seen, I want to say, I've seen about, I want to say, I've seen at least five clutches of eggs in the wild now. And they were right around that range. I mean, that was the extreme at 514. It's not to say that, you know, there's not that one out there that's spitting out 20 eggs, but, you know, who knows? That's a thing. But as time goes on, and, you know, I certainly agree with Frederick about his comment about the, within, we'll probably see some more captive success this year and next year with people to have them too. And, you know, maybe we'll start to see some kind of variation in fertility and infertility if we haven't seen it already with prior people that have been reproducing or have it or not. And maybe we'll see different clutch sizes too. But, it's definitely interesting. I don't know if we're even at that point to even consider it. It's something abnormal or normal. But it's just interesting in general. All right. Let's move on to Casper. What do you think's going on with the infertility in Bolins? First off, I think I'll have to say that I have not tried to bring Bolina yet. This will be my first season. My oldest animals are from 2011. So I'm pretty new to this and I still think of myself as a newbie in the Bolina world, learning from all the great guys around me here. So, but I'll give my five cents on what I think that people should do. First off, I think most captive Bolina are way too fat, which works in a negative way when they're trying to develop follicles. And I've spoken with a lot of people achieving Bolina. They maybe have a peril, a tree or something that is two or three years old. And they're like bragging about them being 10 feet long, weighing 15 pounds, which is insane from a three year old Bolina in my opinion. And just they are like a lapidol retriever. They will eat everything all day long. But that's not the way to go in my opinion. Next thing I would say is probably cheating them way too hot. And that's even for the cooling period. A lot of people get their Bolina to develop follicles, but you rarely see slocks. You always hear about people having their Bolina ribs or their follicles. So I think that the cooling period, if you should even have it in a period, it should be way longer than maybe just three months. Because when you start heating them up again, you might burn the follicles of the female or make a reabsorbed. So in my opinion, I would keep them cooler for a way long period. I don't know if that's the way to go yet, but I think I'll I'm going to try and do it. Of course, I'm going to try and do the same as Frederick does, but he's still a bit up north for me. So he lives in the mountains, gets some nice cool air in. I don't know if it has anything to do with breeding Bolina or what, but yeah, I'm just going to try with what I've learned from Frederick and talk with all these great guys and hear their opinions. And hopefully one day I'll see a Bolina clutch. Good luck with that. Are you kind of like nervous and excited that you're taking a whack at this? Are you nervous that you're going to be trying to breed them this year, Katherine? I'm not really nervous about it. If they don't go, they don't go and I'll just wait until next year. I'm not in a hurry. I actually just them for because I think they're so awesome. Every time I go into my bowl and I will, I can't stop smiling. So that makes me happy. And I'm very stressed at the moment because of several things. So to be honest, it's not my first priority this year to try and breed them, but I will see how the animals react to each other and take some notes. And if I see a huge follicle growth, of course I'll keep putting the melons to the female, but I'll just take it nice and slow. Very cool. Well, again, good luck with that. We hope you get some good luck there. Okay, so let's see what Chad has to say, Chad. What do you think's going on with Bolins and infertility? Obviously, I've not been successful yet either. I didn't buy last year. They didn't, they didn't produce on it. I'm going to try to do it again this year. And one of the things that I adjusted to try this year is one of the things that Casper hit on and that was temperature. I don't think I keep them too warm. I just don't think I got them cold enough to go. I keep them cooler than everything else that I work with with the exception of the Malukins crops. I keep them alukins the same way. I keep them relatively cool. I mean, they do have a hot spot in the age of about 80, but they're ambient on one side of temperature stage, you know, about 68. So I try to keep them relatively cool, very, very high humidity in there. So I do try to keep them cool, but I think that might be a big problem is that we don't keep them cool enough. So I think Casper definitely hit the nail on the head. And there's the other thing that I have to agree with is his overweight snakes and captivity are not good. I mean, we learned our lesson many, many times over with blackhead pythons. I mean, if they have any fatty tissue around the collect, the female doesn't breathe. Or she does. It's an infertile slugged out clutch. So we've learned our lesson with that time and time again. And I think because they are such a, they have the potential, I should say, to be such a heavy-bodied snake. We oversee, we might not diversify the meals as much as maybe we need to with, you know, rodents being so plentiful and other meals, maybe not chicks, quail, things like that. I think could definitely help with keeping them slender, but still giving them a meal. But too much weight on the snake is not good. And that could be a big issue with a lot of people keeping these or trying to breathe these. I keep mine fairly slender. I mean, I feed my guys every 10 days, normally I feed, you know, mostly everything else I have every seven days, smaller meals. These guys don't get anything ever bigger than a medium rat. I mean, I just don't give them that not all from quail chicks. Sometimes they get small rats, sometimes they get medium rats. But I think, honestly, the coder that we can get these guys without putting them into a situation where we had to worry about respiratory issues and small, regular meals, I think would be the key maybe to see further more fertile clutches than infertile or infertile again gentle with these guys. But again, I have not been successful yet. So I can't weigh on too heavy of what I've seen in a clutch. Personally, Frederick will be able to enlighten us more on that, but that would be my opinion of where we're at now. Awesome. Now, I know Chad, you have a pretty diverse collection, and you may have seen your malleukins. So you're pretty much kind of keeping them. The malleukins would probably be the closest to another animal that would be kind of kept the same way. Yeah. Okay. Yeah, I keep them exact saying they're doing the same type setup. You use the same, I mean, I like they're literally the same size cage, same size water bows. I even use the same UV bulb, link bulbs, everything that I can say. They are kept the same. Potspot about 80 and getting into the mid 60s of the of 1/5 of their cage. And I'm going to try to cool them down the exact same way this year as I do the bones. Cool. Thanks. And I guess, Frederick, why? Because you've actually had a lot of success with the bones. So why do you think infertility is an issue and has it been an issue with your clutches? Yeah. I would come up to the conclusion that, well, when it first, when my first clutch in 2013, I got of 10 eggs, I got four, I think it was five for a tie legs, and I hatched out for four of them. Okay. And everyone was contacting me through Facebook and through expos and everything. It was just asking me, but how do we breed our bowel and how do we get eggs? And I was just like, but I was just wondering about the infertility problem because when you read around the internet, you can read other people's experience from the few times that they have had eggs from a bowel on this, a lot of issues and problems and infertility and low hatch rate and everything. And because I only had four adults bowel on, that's just makes them focusing on. So I have them in the exact same way. I have them one by one in each enclosure that are exactly the same. They have the same type of hotspot and hiding place and everything. And as I only have these four other snakes, I watch them a lot and I just focus on them and see how they behave. And they actually do the exact same thing at the same time, almost every time. So if one is basking, all four is basking. And if one is hiding, all four is hiding, even though they're not in the same enclosure, I know what the other ones do. So I watched them a lot and see how they behave and what type of pattern they are going for. And what I saw with the first, she got the first clutch, she was basking a lot when she was bouncing to develop follicles. And I know that it's not good to get the follicles overheated. But I thought, well, she want to bask and she wants to bask more frequently than she did before. And she was still producing follicles and I was growing and she looks very big, almost like she was full of egg already, but it's just the follicles growing. But she kept on basking and I thought that was okay. But then when she got the eggs, it was not a good that I was hoping for. And then the next year, I got another female and she actually didn't bask that much during the follicle stages as the other female. And that actually, she had a better result with seven fertile eggs out of 10. And this year, I got the opportunity to get both females with eggs. So I could see how they behaved from each other because the first female, she basked a lot again and the other female, she almost stayed away from the hotspot during the whole follicle development process. And she actually, the outcome was that the female that basked a lot, she showed the produce two fertile eggs and the other female produced 12 fertile eggs out of 13. So wow. Yeah, so I think they cannot really regulate because regulated temperatures by themselves in captivity because I think it's like they are programmed in the wild. If the sun is up, they will need to bask to survive because it's so cold. And they go out and bask and they go back to the hiding places where the heat is constant and they need to go out and bask. So I think they're just like they programmed to bask when it's offered. So actually, what I'm doing right now is I'm lowering the basking times and I've been speaking to the other guys as well. And I think Keith is trying to keep the basking spot a few hours per day at different times and we are trying to experiment with the basking because before this, everyone has been really big hype over UV light theme and it should be a hot hotspot and they like to bask and they just do. But I don't think they cannot regulate it by themselves. They like that. Excuse me? No, they like the basks so much that they're actually hindering the follicular development. I think so. I think I'm on that way to see because I could see the difference with these two females at the same time and I got a lot better result with what a female didn't bask so much. And I think it's also the males will bask as well and that's not good for the sperm production either if they get too hot for a long period of time. Yeah, I can see that. That's awesome. That's really interesting and that's you guys are just cutting down the time that they have access to a basking spot and we're going to see if that improves the infertility. Oh, that's what I'm trying to do right now because I don't have an audio computer. I don't know what to do. And of course, what are the other guys saying about obesity? That's also something I don't think it's good to overfeed them. I might think so. I'm not happy for them. There are slander snakes and I think that's the way they should be kept under. Very cool. We'll see how this goes if you get a better yield this year out of cutting back on their basking. That'd be awesome. Yeah. Okay, cool. All right. So let's see. Keith, what do you think about the infertility given what you know about bones and what you see from your guys? Well, I have to rely on since I haven't bred them either yet. I have to rely on my experience with all the other pythons that I've worked with over the years. And to me, two factors always come into play, temperature and heating. So yes, I'm trying to figure out how to mop these guys. And I've talked to Frederick about it and posted a quick video of him hiking up to the bologna country. And that quick video told me so much about this species, believe it or not, because I'm like Frederick. I like to key in on decals. And just that walk changed my whole mindset on how I'm keeping my animals. And I've talked to Frederick and what I've done is I've actually limited my basking to a half an hour in the morning and it goes off for two hours and the basking comes on for half an hour. It goes off for two hours and it cycles like that throughout the day. I use a radiant heat panel. So I use a very mild UV fluorescent bulb just to provide lighting in the cage. But the heat panel cycles on and off throughout the day to give them a basking spot. Because if you keep that basking spot at 90 degrees, typically those snakes are always under and I agree with Frederick that the way they possibly regulate in captivity is way different than they do in the wild. And I think we have to adjust our captive environments to try to accommodate that. And the animals are designed to gather and store as much heat as they possibly can. You can tell by the full black color and design maybe the iridescence of the animal and everything. We've all designed for that animal to take advantage of when not light and heat is available. We've gathered as quickly as we can store it for as long as we can. So I think basically we've been killing the snake of kindness. We're all in great. I think in general, we in the United States keep our reptiles too warm. We have for a long time. And it's very hard. I mean, I've walked into my, I don't recommend this, but I've walked into my room in winter and it's been 48, 49 degrees. And it's very hard to walk in that room and say, I have a python in this room. You know, right. So I don't think, I don't think very cold temperatures are really a necessity anymore. From what I'm saying, I just basically think overall, cooler temperatures day and night, not just nighttime, but day and night, are going to be a factor. Now, where I do disagree with everybody a little bit, and it's hard to disagree with a man who has been successful is, I don't disagree, I don't disagree with weight, but I can tell you when Paul Miles bred his animals, he was the first ever to truly breed them in captivity. I went to his place, walked in and he kept his bow and I with his Argentine bow as another species that likes low and cooling period. And when I walked in there, I was blown away at the size of his female. I mean, to me it looked like a berm used python and I'm like, oh my god, I had no idea they got that big. Yeah, and that was the first year and, you know, first time anybody was successful. So I always keep that in the back of my mind now. I'm not saying that the animals need to be heavy. I agree with everybody that the animals need to be slender. But I've wrote about this in some of my posts that most animals have such a high metabolism, generally need frequent caloric intake. Like, I think of a hummingbird in a shrew that seems constantly. And these guys, I don't know yet in captivity, do they have such a high metabolism because we're keeping them too warm? Or if nature has designed these guys to break down the food quickly because of the cooler temperatures, but I almost feel like to keep that machine running, you need frequent, smaller meals possibly to keep the core, it can keep the skin and keep that running while maintaining a slender body weight. So it's a delicate balance, but that's something I'm also experimenting with with my animals. And I do believe that these guys are probably very key on as the food is prevalent is the time to reproduce. So, you know, a fasting with a, you know, work very well with blood pythons too, and then you start hitting them hard with the meals when you want them to produce their clutch of eggs was a very good stimulus for the female. So those are two items that I'm keen in on with some feedback, obviously, from Frederick that I'm going the right direction, is definitely temperatures overall and feeding machines. Awesome. I think Ari had a quick question about some of Paul's animals, did you mention the big, big bull and I that he had? Ari, did Eric click you on? Yeah, yeah. I'm on here. Hey, Keith, how's it going? Hey, Eric, how are you? I'm doing good. Yeah, so the the the Paul Miles reproduction is like the classic one that everybody I think goes to. And do we do we know where his animals were acquired from or yeah, well, Tracy, yeah, Tracy Barker had received the gravity of female when these adults were coming in and and that's right. He came from the gravity. Yeah, and he got, he got a pair of animals from Tracy and raised them up and then, you know, back then, you know, we always, we always said you got to feed him to breed him and it was, you know, and I think Paul had that mentality with his animals and I can tell you that his feet, I have a picture that I've posted of me holding the male. I would not hold his female because at the time it was just too much. Well, I was afraid I would actually think and drop the animal on the floor. So I'm like, I'm not holding that female, I'll hold the male, but the female, the female is so large. Like I say, when I walked in, so I was like, my god, that looks like a small bit on his bike. And, you know, it was, I've been such a large animal. I've heard of several edibles with that kind of a description and my curious, or my thought behind it is the region possibly or where those, where that female came from that produced those eggs. If there is any kind of variation in those, I hate to say locality specific, but being larger animals, because I know I hear so many reports, I'm going to totally get onto this questionable debate about, you know, the white face, the yellow face, because I know a lot of keepers have their own opinion on it. I've come across a lot of data, not just in the past, but from the locals, like the hunters that are out there and see them, and describe these really gigantic snakes, like these big, big bollens python from further areas east, like below Oxibel and bit crossing over to PhD. And unfortunately, we can't really trace it any further than just the reports of the speculations, because it's so damn dangerous to get over there and being able to observe snakes or collecting snakes over there is really, really regulated. It's just a difficult scenario. So everything we've got to deal with is everything on the western sides, which are these typical like streamline bot animals. So that's why I was curious, is so far where that, where that female came from, if we were able to determine if she in fact was just a different, an animal from a different area that potentially was just genetically designed to be a larger snake in turn, or in fact it was, you know, feeding them to breeding them, you know what I mean? That's cool. If it's a different locality, it'd be kind of awesome to see that kind of different body types between the two animals. It'd be kind of cool to have the big mountain type or whatever the tell you you want to call them, but that's awesome. So I don't know if we have a, I don't really know. Yeah, I don't know if we have a lot of data really to suggest, you know, that there's like types, but definitely observations that would suggest, you know, that there's, you know, observations that are saying that these animals look differently, different physically. And I think I've talked briefly about it on one of the interviews I did with you guys before a year or so ago about a, and a lot of the, the stories with the locals from some of these different tribes, they describe the snake as either being yellow or they describe the snake as being either being white. And there's two distinct words for yellow and it is a word for white. So it's not being confused as a snake that has been given too much flash when taken a photograph of and it's bleached it out to look white as opposed to actually being a cream or a white colored snake being observed out of the mountain. So it's just kind of like, and I didn't mean to take us off topic, I was curious as far as if Keith knew more information on that, that'd be great. Yeah, yeah, I'm actually still friendly with Paul, and I'll try to pick his brain a little bit further on that. But I did want to note that if you do experiment with your UV bulbs, if you have your animal in normal light, the animal gives an appearance of being stark white against the black contrast. But when you get them under like a 10.0 UV bulb or like a replica sun, the yellow pops on them, you can't even believe it's the same animal. Hmm, definitely. Yeah, that'd be great information if you're able to get a Keith, that'd be awesome. Yeah, I can definitely talk to Paul and see what else I can find out. Cool, research is happening on NPR. That's similar to what, when I was down at the Southern Carpet Fest, Bill had taken out his chondro, and we were in his reptile room, and you really couldn't see blue on the animal. You took it out into the sun and it was like staring at a completely different animal. It's just crazy on like the colors that popped out when you just changed the lighting. So it's interesting. Geez. So, all right. All right, back on track real quick. Evan, what do you think about the infertility when it comes to blowing? I know you haven't read, but you kind of had some experience with these guys. So what do you think based off of what everybody else said and what you already know? Uh oh. I clicked them on, Evan. All right. Riveting. All right, so we'll circle back round. All right. So I guess you're next up, buddy. Yeah, so whatever you're ready. Gee's driving us Bentley. So I guess we hit on this a little bit, but let me click Ari on. We clicked on this a little bit, but what are your thoughts when it comes to age and weight for successful reproduction in both captivity and in the wild? Well, like I said, I haven't been able to reproduce them. So on a captain's point, I would assume you know, leaner animals would obviously be better for reproduction, bones, pythons typically will just eat and eat and eat and eat. And a lot of people think that's just because the animal is hungry, so I'm going to keep feeding it. So obviously it's not because I mean, obviously the wild, they're going to be feeding differently. So, but observations have seen in the wild. I've seen animals that are, you know, a python. It's not a gigantic snake, but any beans from the places I've been. But they are a big animal. I think one of the largest snakes I've seen was, it hadn't been like, gosh, I want to say like close to 10 feet. I mean, it was a big animal. She might even have been bigger. She had been, she was just a really old, you know, animal. And she wasn't, she wasn't a gigantic snake in, in girth by any means. But yet she wasn't a wimpy, you know, a little thing that was hanging around in the mountains. And she was, she had, she had eggs that she was watching to. The one thing that was interesting was that when I took measurements on her clutch and everything and waits on it, when I took her off the eggs, she did not appear to be, if I would have not seen the eggs prior, I would have never thought she would have deposited eggs. That was one thing that was really interesting to me that I caught right off the bat. Like, I would have thought she would have shown some kind of wear and tear, I guess, so to say that she had been past these, these eggs. But it didn't appear to me that she had. So I don't know if that was just her, you know, she lucked out and got a good, a decent sized meal prior to depositing the eggs and just kind of would hold her off. But I've seen, you know, typically the body, body's slender, but certainly muscular. It's just a typical healthy looking animal. It's not obese. It's not thin. It's just nothing that would indicate otherwise. But I don't know how it would necessarily reflect or work in captivity since I haven't been fortunate enough to do it yet. Gotcha. Any thoughts as far as age when it comes to captivity and acclimation? It's interesting to say that I started a ultraviolet light study several years ago at the zoo and I did it for about three, three and a half years. Essentially, in a nutshell, I was monitoring UV basking routine or just behavior from a group of three females and they were very in age. One of them was like 10, one of them was 13, and one of them was a really young animal. And she had just turned, I think it was, she was almost five when she, when I put her in the group with everybody, that kind of monitored. And they were all separate closures, kind of very similar to how Frederick has his animals, you know, same water dish, same hive spot, everything's positioned in the same place. So that was the control experiment. Same kind of UV lights, I was using the zoomed at 10.0 because I kind of were really reliable, you know, small basking light on the other end. I was able to detect follicular development in all the animals with use of ultrasound equipment and as well as just behavior through certain times of the years when the females were building follicles. And where I'm going with this is that the older animals obviously we saw follicle development with. But we started seeing the behavior that the other females were doing where they would gravitate towards that ultraviolet light area for periods of the day where normally they'd been, you know, hiding in their nest boxes or somewhere else or cruising around or something. But they'd all kind of been like stacked underneath their, their lights. And the younger female started to do that and she was close to five. And she had, we ultrasound her and for a whole season she had developed perfect follicles, follicular development through the whole stage of, you know, growing them and then absorbing them later on. It probably is related to giving your access to improper basking sites like everybody was counting on. So, but it was interesting enough to see that. And then in the wild, a couple years ago I found a really young female that we were able to observe that had a clutch of eggs. It was probably her first collection. She was, she could have been more than six feet and she was probably maybe less than your wrist and diameter of a girth. And she was, she was pretty small. I wasn't able to, we weren't able to really pull her out to see because she was really kind of defensive over the eggs because it was her first time obviously. But she was pretty small. So that was pretty interesting to see because everything I've seen up until then was large animals. Let's see. Let me see what, yeah, there he is. Oh, sorry. Casper's taking a minute to load up here, of course. There he is, Casper. I'm back. Sorry, you took a minute to load up there. Oh man, I'm sorry. I know it's late there for you. What are your thoughts on age and weight? What do you think? I pretty much almost don't see my snakes. So, I'm on the same level as you, Eric. I think they should be leaning mean pretty much. Can you hear me? Yeah, yeah, I got you. Oh, okay, good. You know, my snakes, I don't, I never weigh my snakes pretty much. When I look at a snake, I can see when it's ready to breed. So, when I've bred all my carpet pythons, I would never even measure them. They're length. I would never weigh them. I could just tell them on the face. You know, as you have said some times before on another show, you can just tell the thickness and the proportions from the head to the body. And that's pretty much just, you know, a goal for me. So, what I would suggest is not to feed your like your bowline. So, it's a balloon heavy body and a small tiny head. That's not what they should look like. They should have a fist for a head, a long slender body. So, that's what I'm going for. And I have absolutely no clue on what my snakes even weigh. I've asked Fittrick just because I was very curious about how big his animals were. So, I've asked him so how much do your snakes weigh? I mean, he just told me the same. I don't weigh my snakes. I can just tell. And I think we focus way too much on weights and length. You know as a reptile, keepers and snake keepers and breeders. And I think age is pretty much the most important factor when it comes for different species. Just like the bird lie, they simply won't go before they're five years old. I think it's pretty much the same for ball and I. Five, six, seven years old, I don't know. Of course, I've seen my male. He was super ready last year. He was cruising around in his cage, leaving sperm at plaques, trying to court its height and stuff like that. But I think females might need an extra year or two just to be totally in tune with their own follicular developments and all sorts of stuff. I'll take your time with just like other scrub pythons and stuff. The bigger old Morelia, take your time and do not sew them after a couple of years because they're not like a covered pattern or ball pattern that will be almost instantly after you get the babies so round. It's not for the faint high, it's for the months, the keepers that will last. I think it's a good thing. Okay. Very good. How about you, Chad? I would be honest to say that I don't think that the size has as much to do or nearly as much to do as age. I think it takes a while for these guys to become sexually mature regardless of their size. I think age is the key with not only the balloons but a few other species that kind of come from that area. I mean, Ari said he saw a six foot female mix but who knows how that six foot female is because how much food does she actually get in the wild? How much does she consume? How large are the meals? I mean, that's when they could have been six, seven, eight years old and only six foot. So honestly, I believe it's definitely, definitely more so age and allowing them to become sexually mature much more than just size because I mean, you can power feed any snake to get it very large very fast but that doesn't mean it's developed internally to be able to sexually reproduce successfully. So I definitely believe it's age just giving them the time way, way more than than the actual size of the snake. Okay, let me see what Frederick has to say. Frederick, what are your thoughts on age and weight? Obviously, Casper said you don't weigh your animals but do you have any thoughts as far as, you know, when it comes to age? Well, with my feeding regime, I feed my adults about every third week with quite small praise for the size. So I think in size wise, I think they would be mature around four and five years of age in the way I am raising them. And that's about that I'm thinking about their size. And actually, my adults have stayed for quite a long and the same size. So they're not huge three meters long animals and they're on the right size, I want them in. And about wild animals, I don't know but I think you would need one or two or three years put them to nature, I think. Like in other species, so I don't have that much to feel in there. Okay. How about you Keith? I'm with these guys and I'm very happy because I was afraid everybody's going to come on here and have like all these records and data sheets and exactly this happened when four minutes to nine and stuff, you know. And I'm like, because that's not me, man. My animals tell me everything I need to know. And it's always been that way and served me well for 30 plus years of breeding animals. But off the top of my head, just from Frederick's success and everything else, you know, I would guess to make the animals neat and minimally be four better five years old. And I'm going to put a guess on the weight of about nine pounds, I would say, for the females, before I would consider. But you know, you try young animals that are ready and they're just not going to show any real attempts to being bred. So, you know, if there's attempts going on, I'm thinking that they're in the range of being ready to be bred, you know. So I think that's still to yet to be unfold on really how young these animals can be. I've had blood pythons, which most people will tell you need to be 10 to 13 pounds to breed. And I had a female that was four pounds drop a clutch of 10 fertile eggs and they all hatched. You know, more less the weight of what a normal blood pythons consider to be reproducible. And in the 80s, I can remember getting animals, different animals in from the wild that you would never think nowadays would have dropped eggs. And back then, you know, nobody in the 70s when I was getting the lizards and whatnot, I would get like brown baskets that were literally the size of your index finger. And they dropped two, three eggs after a week being in your care because they were bred from the wild. You know, I think so these animals breed and reproduce a lot smaller than you think. And it's only, you know, I'm going back to the days when I was getting imported stuff and just to keep as a pet and lo and behold, you'd be getting eggs from it. And I think you were the master breeder. Meanwhile, you only have one animal, you know. But everything came in. Everything, you know, things were collected back then, you're around and brought in and nobody was looking at the CFOs grab it or held onto it. And when you bought an animal, chances were nine times out of 10, you got something that was already bred in the wild and dropped eggs or live bees for you. You know, so I was definitely surprised through the years on the signs of the animals that could be reproduced. But I would guess four or five years and nine pounds would be an appropriate size to start a pet. Okay. Very good. Evan, do you have any thoughts on age and weight for success or reproduction and captivity? No. That's, that's strike two, Evan. Okay. All right. Good. Anyway, um, age and weight, I, I'm a firm believer in waiting and you and I both know that sometimes I wait too long. Like you'll come over and be like, why isn't this animal in your breeding rotation? Like, oh, if you eat another year, you're like, you could eat it. It's like twice the size of some of my breeders, you know, get it going. So, uh, there's a few things he kind of, and especially with different species, I mean, not everybody fits into cookie cutter. Um, like, I've experienced that with scrubs and white lips where they're four years or two years might not be enough. So, you kind of got to hang tight and hold on. So, and what do you think, Eric? Well, again, I don't really have, you know, I've talked about on the show as far as age. I think I'd have to agree with Casper. I think that these are one of those species that probably take a little while to mature. And I think that, um, I think maybe some people have these grand illusions, whether it's from ego or whatever, that they're going to be the first, no longer the first, but, you know, one of the people that are successful and they're going to be able to do it. And I think it has people run out and pick up these, um, snakes and they're not doing it because, uh, I think Chad hit on this earlier is that, you know, if you're passionate about it, you know, you're going to buy a snake for a lot of money that really, you just accept the chances of breeding it, uh, you know, are, are, are very slim, but, um, right. So, you have to really be into the, uh, into the species. And I think what happens is that, um, I think it's similar to what you see in scrubs. Um, you know, people get rid of the scrubs before they're either acclimated to, um, you know, your environment. And, um, yeah, I think that keeps people, you know, they think that they're going to be able to turn them out, uh, ball python style and, you know, grow them up. You don't put the food to them. Blah, blah, blah. And I think that ultimate. Then it doesn't work out. The bad approach, um, what I find funny is that when you're at a reptile show and if you go to reptile show long enough, eventually talk to a guy who is a friend of a friend who bred bolems in his garage in, like, someplace, somewhere. And it's like, and just listen to this guy talking, you're like, really? You're yet the strokeer, you go that much that you have, like, no freaking idea. Anyway. So yeah, I mean, yeah, I think, uh, I think that that's a big thing. And I think that, you know, you have to, you have, I think it's a, it's a patience thing. Um, you, and I think that you see that the people that work with, with this species in particular, um, really, uh, for lack of a better term geek out about the species and what makes the species tick. I mean, they're really trying to figure out what, what is going on and what, what are the cues, what are the signs, what are the, what are the, uh, you know, all these little things that the animal will tell you. I mean, because basically I would think that they're no different than any other type of animal in that they want to reproduce. I mean, everything on the planet is pretty much geared to want to reproduce. So it's just a matter of, uh, I guess, uh, giving it the right conditions for it to, uh, to be successful. And you know, I think one of the thoughts that, that they don't feel comfortable, I know we've talked about on the show multiple times where if they had a nest box and they were able to get down and secure, I think that that comes with, uh, any species of python in particular, maybe any species of reptile that they need to feel secure in order to reproduce. Um, so. That's my thoughts, Owen. Go ahead. All right. So the next question we're going to have for everybody here is, uh, what are your thoughts on the possibility of wild males having a territory of civic range? Um, I know already it's probably going to, like, seem this in person, but the other guys might have seen it just by interactions of their boys in the cages. Um, so are you think boys kind of have a range? Do they kind of travel pretty far distances to find girls and things like that? That's an awesome question. Um, I don't know flat out. Um, I've been going to this site for the last three years now. Um, I mean, I've seen, I've seen snakes prior to that, but I've been going to this site for the last three, three and a half years, or it's had this really, um, healthy population of multiple animals that have been reproducing. In that time, I have never come across a male. I still have not come across a male on any of my trips. And I don't know, just because, yeah, seriously, and I don't know if that's just because I'm just be lining right to the nesting area or if it's that they're not there. Um, I don't know. I, I've got photographs that were sent to me, um, from my, uh, my guides of snake, uh, of a pair breeding out in the wild. Um, a couple pairs, actually. Uh, so they're there. I mean, obviously, they're getting it done because they're producing. Um, what my gut is telling me, and this is just my personal opinion and observation. Don't quote me on this, but I really think the female stay stationary in these nesting areas. And I think there's probably three to four females that are hanging out in an area, probably, you know, half a size of a football field and it has perfect everything that they need. And they have nest sites and they're using them over and over every year or switching back and forth to other females in this area. And they, they leave, scat, they leave sheds. And this has all been documented on, you know, on my trips and just some of the writing and stuff I've done and, and photographs and they're leaving these biological markers out there, uh, for a reason. Um, it could be either to ward off the other female saying, Hey, this is my site. This is my area. You know, stay back, or it could be a factor for males to cue in on when they're passing through the area. Um, but ultimately nobody really knows. And, uh, it's just one of those things that I've always, and, you know, ask you myself on these trips when I'm out there. Um, because it's like, I go out and I have a group of questions. I always write down in my notebook with me. And then I sit there and I go through my questions and I, and I sit there on the side of this mountain looking at this animal and I'm like, okay, I'm trying to answer this. And I'm like, I can't even answer the, the question at all. And then I start thinking of another question to answer that might help answer the first question that I was trying to answer. So, um, nobody really knows. And I think over time, uh, we'll kind of understand it a little bit more. And, you know, with this project that I've been working on, um, uh, last year, late last year with trying to do a population study to kind of get an idea of what we're really looking at in this area, how many animals are actually there. Um, I'm hoping that we will come on some males that are hanging out in the vicinity rather, um, uh, than, uh, that they be passing by. But I don't really know. I, I think obviously they're queuing in on something, you know, it's probably, because it's interesting, once you get to a certain level, a certain elevation level, you start seeing signs. And, uh, and it's like right away, like, you know, around that 65 to 75 hundred, uh, you start looking around and you'll see scat. Uh, and then it's like, okay, there's snakes around here. And then you kind of follow that around. Uh, I saw, you know, a full skeleton last year, uh, you know, 200 feet from a nesting female or 100 feet from a female sitting I'm asking from another nest site that had eggs in it from last year. So they're leaving, they're leaving signs, they're leaving markers for males to find. That's my opinion. Uh, so I, I will assume that there's probably several males that are cruising that area or in that area that hang out, um, and that are, um, that are just breeding with these females and, uh, I don't know. I mean, and the other weird thing is I've never seen an abundance of prey items for these snakes, either on these trips. And I don't know if that's just because I'm the clunky white guy with the giant backpack that's climbing up the hills and, you know, climbing up the hills screaming, you know, every profanity that I know, and I'm scaring everything away. Um, or if it's just, you know, everything is just, you know, just not out at that time. So I don't really know, but I, I feel that, uh, I think there's multiple males, uh, that are, that are cruising around in certain areas that just routinely, uh, pick up on those signs from those females and breed with them. So that is cool. That'd be cool to see if they kind of have a whole range. That'd be awesome. Yeah, it'd be interesting. Yeah. Cool. All right. Uh, Casper, I know you haven't seen these guys in the wild, but what can you tell us, uh, you think just by the interactions of your guys at home, did they have a range to your males like the crews? To be honest, I have absolutely no clue. Uh, I think this question is pretty much, uh, Ari's question, but, uh, in fact, I would have a question for the other guys. Yeah. All right. I would know if, uh, if anybody have tried to, uh, to do male combats or have, and have, uh, are you seeing males come back in the wild or have heard about the, uh, combats between males from the tri-folks? Uh, I think that is, uh, that could be pretty interesting to know. Okay. Um. That's a part of their, uh, uh, breeding, uh, trials or whatever you could call it. Uh, I, I, you know, it's important for certain morellia. So, uh, I want to say that it could possibly be important for the goal. That's a good question. You're better than Eric. Good job. Um, sorry. Have you, have you noticed, uh, male combat? Um, I've never seen it. Like I said, I haven't been, I haven't done a male, um, but, uh, I've, I've been told, uh, stuff like that, um, that there's, you know, there's, like, one or two, uh, on a female. Um, I'm, I'm actually, well, I'm talking, I'm trying to find the photo that was sent to me so I could post it, the group for us to, to look at. Um, but, um, I've never witnessed it myself. But, I mean, these are, like I said, like these are observations that I'm being told that are like, um, the simple thing, you know, simplistic ideas and, and concepts for these people to, to relay. So it's, it's not like they're taking it out of contents for saying, oh, you know, he's asking me if this and that. It's like, oh, I saw three snakes that were twisted around one snake, you know. So, it's like, okay, you know, they're not going to be taking that out of any kind of, uh, situation. So it's either, you know, it either is or it isn't. For them to come up with that concept, you know, oh, I'm going to come up with an idea. I'm going to tell them this is what's really going on. It's just like, yeah, that's really what's going on. So, you know, I've tried it with a captive animals and I've never seen any, like aggression or biting. Um, I've seen that, that typical, like, uh, arching of the back, uh, that kind of real quick jetting kind of posture, but that wasn't about it. And it wasn't really, um, and I don't know, too, if it's, if it's in captivity, um, if, if it really, um, relates to the size of the enclosure that the animals are all included into, I mean, obviously, if you had a larger enclosure, maybe you would see more of a theatrical kind of display going on where animals are moving around more and twisting and spitting and all this or whatnot, or if it has something to do with being in a smaller enclosure, you see this and that. So, but, um, yeah, I don't know. I mean, um, this would probably be a good Frederick question, definitely, or Keith, um, maybe, uh, I don't know how, uh, blood pythons, um, if there's any kind of, uh, aggregated aggression during reproduction or anything like that, or, or maybe it might correlate to Bolinai or something that, that would, uh, think possible, certainly. Am I still on, but, uh, guys? Yeah, you're on. I, um, I was just thinking about the male combat because of the diamond pythons. I know several people keep them in, in the logic groups of, uh, four to six adults in one cage, of course, a huge cage, but, um, and the, and the males are not aggressive, like, some, uh, carpets, species, but, but they will, uh, fight and, uh, and it will, you know, uh, get the females going. So, I was wondering if, if anybody had thought about, you know, keeping Bolinai in, in, in groups, like in, in maybe a 2.2 or 2.4 or 3.3, um, if that could be, uh, another, uh, maybe, uh, no, uh, way to breed them. Hmm. I never have thought of that myself because I imagine it would just be, uh, big, big cage, but if you got the space, why not? Yeah, of course, of course. Um, but it's, it's, I think it would be a, a good question with the, uh, with the territorial thing, uh, of males. Um, Yeah. Yeah, because I don't know what, what, what the other guys, uh, have to say about that, if you think it's a good idea because it has always been a dream of mine to, like, make a huge cage with, uh, with all sorts of, uh, of, of awesome stuff in it and, and keep them in the large group, but, but I know, I don't know if it would be effective or, or just with the volunteers. Right. Hey, okay. We'll see. I mean, why not? You, you go do that, Casper, and we'll see how it kills. I mean, there has to be one that has to try it at some point. Yeah. Somebody who does it. Yeah. So, very cool. Um, Chad, what do you think about this? Do you see these guys kind of having a big home range and moving around a lot? Um, well, before, before I hit on that part, I would like to jump in kind of like what Casper just said. Um, as far as keeping them in, in, uh, larger groups, I definitely think that he has the ability to do so as his animals age, because he has such a large group of them. Um, and maybe that could be something he could experiment with because we're not, we're not far enough along to say this works or this doesn't. Um, so maybe I give us some perspective insight in a few years as his animals grow in age and kind of, um, let us know how that works. Um, I don't know if that's necessarily the key to it, just because Frederick has been successful. Uh, I believe in, I don't think he's combating his animals, um, from the conversation that we have had, but I, but I'm not sure. Um, but as far as the, the original question, I really wanted to hit on it just because of listening to Ari's, uh, speech at Tilly Park, that's one of the things that I automatically picked up that, that really intrigued me was he has never seen a wild male. Um, but he goes, he goes to the same sites and sees the same females, uh, in the same nest year after year. Um, which tells me, or at least, um, I believe it tells me that these animals are a little bit more intelligent than we give them credit for them to have such a vast range and always be able to relocate to the same spot. Um, and maybe, uh, a male does cruise around in a certain area, um, as a territory and breeds certain females in his territory. Um, maybe that's why he doesn't see a male. And from what I have been told, obviously I've never, uh, produced a clutch of bowling jib, or from what I've been told from, uh, different importers that have worked with the, uh, the farmbread, um, and, and different people that have produced them in the past, and I've only talked a couple of those, Palm Isles being one of them. Um, that usually the clutch is, is more female heavy than males, so maybe there's not as many males running through the wild as females anyway. Um, kind of male does specifically take a territory. Um, and, and not necessarily markets territory, but I mean, they do have the ability to musk. I mean, they musk us if they get aggravated, um, maybe musk out of territory as they go. Um, that, that kind of leaves that scent for other males not to come in, uh, so they have their, their small range of females in their, in their, um, area that obviously has been able to find their, their nesting areas and nesting spots year after year after year. So, um, it had become successful that way. So, um, I do think that's definitely a possibility. And I also found it interesting me and a Frederick had a, a very short conversation the other day about it. He, he rotates his male, an unrelated male to his girls, and obviously he is successful. So, I'm kind of giving, again, a single male a range of a couple females that he's been successful with. Um, so I kind of think that does pull over to captivity, um, a bit. So, I definitely think that that's, that's a very strong possibility that they do have a range, um, where they, they breed and allocate themselves to a certain, a certain area that breeds females. Um, so, and I think it would be interesting to, to try as I get more bumps and rotate one of my males between a couple girls and, and see if that makes, even if he doesn't breed all of them, just if he breeds one of them, that he's had opportunity to, to breed with other females if that's, um, if that's a key to success as well. Because, I mean, it's obviously working for Frederick to move a male between girls, um, and obviously they reproduce the wild and already find them in year after year. So, maybe that's one of the keys. They have to have a, um, uh, a rotation or territory that they feel, um, where they have ample opportunity to breed different females. Uh, I don't know, but I think it's a very strong possibility that it's, that it is a territorial, uh, thing with, with the species. Right. It makes sense that you're going to have to rotate multiple animals and it's not like we haven't heard of reptiles crossing great distances or having, you know, set territory with all these girls. So, yeah, I could see that. It's kind of cool. Um, Frederick, what do you think from just looking at your animals? Um, do you, you see your guys' crews? Do you think that, uh, you need to have males in with different females or cycles that guys through? Uh, well, um, the, the first clutch I produced, I actually rotated them both the females and the males, uh, into each other's enclosures, but, uh, and it worked fine the first year. Um, but then the second and the third time I, I actually let the females stay in, in her own enclosure just, uh, just to make her feel like this is her nest or something, uh, her territory. So I, I just rotated my unrelated male with the females. So, and, uh, that has been working out fine and, uh, doesn't, doesn't seem to need another male to encourage breeding or get better assault or anything, but, um, I did actually get a video clip from, uh, I regale at the London, so, uh, and it, it was from the, uh, enclosure in the exhibition. It's quite, quite large enclosure and they showed me the, the video with two males that were combating and, uh, they were entwining in together and they're raising up high and putting down each other really, really have a fine, no biting or anything, just trying to pull the other male down to the floor all over the ground. So, uh, that was actually the only, only time I ever heard about combating between males and bolons, but it seems like it's due, of course, of course. So, yeah, you don't, you don't, uh, if you're, if you're only your pairs wasn't really kind of breeding or you didn't really notice, would you consider combating your males? Yeah, but, uh, that's not the problem with bolons. They breed, uh, all the time. Right, you find that you just breed with it, it doesn't matter. Yeah, yeah. I think, I think it would breed, breed all year round if I put them together, but I, I don't do it. See, it's like everybody else is having such problems and you can't get yours to stop. So, I don't know. Well, well, breeding does, maybe it's the wrong word, they are mating all year round, I think. Okay, no babies, but they're, I got you. I got you. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. Um, Keith, what have you seen from maybe other animals that you've worked with, like the blood, um, uh, what, by means of combat being essential or, uh, I'm having a range or something like that, where they need to cover some ground. Um, well, as far as the rings goes, I think that could be a big key, um, to being more successful with the animals if we really understood, um, if, if they do have that, um, because with the blood pythons, um, a subordinate male kind of gives in to, to the dominant male and, and you'll think you have a pair and they'll actually look like they're locked for, for quite a long time and you realize it's just a dominant male serving dominance and, and I haven't seen any real combat with them, but, um, you would think you had a pair and I know people that have done it for years thinking that they just can't get their female greed and lo and behold, I tell them to take the subordinate animal and put it in their cage with a known female and, it winds up breeding. Um, right. Bow and I, um, the reason I say that is because I go to sperm retention. I've, I've had, I've had bloods and I've had bermi's pythons lay a fertile clutch, um, not be with a male in the following year, it did me another fertile clutch. Um, their masters at sperm retention. So if we knew if these males, um, traveled looking for females that are in season or do they travel and find females at, um, just an opportunity and, and breed in the email can retain sperm to the correct, um, time when it's good for her to produce her clutch of eggs. That would help everybody helpful for us, uh, to know that because, you know, bloods, I'd put them together in October through December, but I was getting my eggs May through July. Um, and I've had them go a full year, um, on one breeding and, and produce eggs, but I also bred Tanzanian and Doubles ballers and, and those guys, I seem to have to keep together for extended periods of time because the window of opportunity seems so small that if you didn't have your male with the female at the right time, uh, you weren't getting fertile clutches. So I wrestle with that with keeping my male with the females for a longer amount of time, um, because I, I have a feeling with Bow and I that there's a shorter window of opportunity than say the blood pythons where you have months in between a breeding when the female will use the sperm to fertilize her clutch. Um, I, I do like, uh, Frederick was saying though, I, I started introducing my males to the females based on things that I've heard from Ari, uh, Ari and, uh, feeling that the, the males are more on the prowl and the females retain in their local area and the males find them and I do notice my males are a little bit more aggressive breeding when I do that scenario. Um, I've even had males, I showed a picture on Ari's, uh, site where the males actually curled over his own back and, and he's using his spurs and spurring himself, um, because he's still worked up being put into that female's cage. Um, I do also tend to leave, it seems my females on their nest box, I have a, a top access into the nest, uh, or whatever you want to call a chamber and the female is only put their, uh, ear rates up the top around the whole of that, um, hide box and it's almost like it's the invitation to the male. Here I am coming at me. Um, weird. So I, I tend to leave, I, when I clean those, uh, tops off, I tend to leave a little bit of residue behind because she's going through so much, uh, trouble marking that area that I tend to leave it there for, uh, just extra stimulation to the male. As Frederick says, the males, uh, don't seem to lead, need a lot of stimulation to go to work. Um, so, uh, I don't really know where Ari would really know better than I as far as the wild, but it definitely seems like I get better breeding activity when I put the male to the female's cage, which would suggest that the males roam more than, uh, the female still. Okay. I can see that and according to Ari, they, they do that stuff in the wild. So it's, uh, we may be on to something. All right. So, um, Evan, what do you think? Do you think that they're more of a ranged animal? Do they kind of cruise around? Do your guys move constantly? Yeah. My guys are on the move constantly. Uh, I could find my females move a little, a lot more than my male's do. Uh, the male stay in their lives quite often and, uh, just don't move around as much as the female's do. Uh, I guess I have four, four females and they're all super active. Now, you see more than my younger one. Well, you said you guys are kind of on the younger side, right? Um, I mean, I have, uh, you know, I have one that's about, uh, 2011 and I have, uh, a male that's, uh, 2012. Uh, the rest are, you know, yielding at two years old. Um, those guys are always active, but I mean, if I go look at the, you know, the few that I have, uh, and just looking at them, my female tends to be a lot more active than, uh, than the male is. Maybe they haven't established their ranges or, I don't know. So here's, it's so true. It's really listening to everybody because as much as everything's the same, everybody has a lot of different opinions. Oh, and I think also depending on your setup, you know, um, I mean, my female, you know, as soon as old, uh, you know, the cages have been searched on the, uh, between them. Uh, the female will be always the one that'll move over into the male's area before the male will move into her area. So that is true. We'll talk to you to, uh, you know, males looking for females. Um, this girl is always looking to take over space. And you know, it's funny when I do do that and I let them together, you know, for a day or so. Um, I find that the females, you know, and they have a couple of different spots that they can, you know, hide in their cages on their closures, but, the female always goes to that male favorite spot. And the male gets pushed to the other side to where the female, uh, you know, into the female side of the cage, but never actually, uh, seems to take root in her path. Okay. So he has interesting, because you're like, you said, everybody else does this. Your guys do that. But it's like, again, everybody's animals are different. Everybody's setup is different. Everything's totally different. And you might have guys that just act a little bit differently. So who knows? It's all this. They're 10 million ways to skin the cat. So Eric, what do you think? Oh, never mind. You told me to skip you, but you didn't type fast enough. Good. Good job. Anyway, this is what happens. Eric and I have a constant window opener text back and forth that he does not send the instructions. Pass it up. So I'm going to move on to the next one. And that is, what do you guys thought on prey size? And how it relates to growth rates? Um, are you having any prey? But what do you think these guys are eating in the wild? And how does that dictate to how big they get? Well, yeah, I haven't, I haven't specifically seen too many prey items out there. I think this last trip, I found a skink and that was the first other reptilian life. I've found when I was out there and it was a little one. So I'm like, wow, maybe the babies are feeding off this, which I'm sure they do. But I'm told that they feed heavily off the common couscous or the spotted couscous, which is like North America's version of the opossum. And they actually will nest in their, in the couscous nests in there. They take them over and they're perfect for them. They maintain the temperature and moisture levels and security and all this. And they're kind of mounted like on these kind of steep inclined areas that the sun hits down perfect. And they're relatively large prey item. They also, I've been heard feed off of birds, but I would see them as being very opportunistic, whatever they come across, because realistically, we don't know what their frequency of feeding is in the wild. In captivity, they have, you know, they have, unfortunately, a lot of people feed them very heavily because they think they're always hungry, but it's, you know, bones, pythons will always eat like we talked about earlier. So that's not necessarily the best thing for them. But in the wild, everything would suggest to me that, you know, they feed whenever they have that chance, like that opportunistic feeding. You know, if they find something, you know, it could be a month or two before they get another meal. I don't see the females that I'm visiting are pretty stationary. So for them to be having that high metabolism that we see really in captivity on a lot of snakes where they're constantly shitting, passing your aids and just constantly cruising around as adults, I don't see that with the adults that I'm seeing out there. They're very meticulous. They're very deliberate in their movement, in their behavior. They're out early morning with the sun clear, with the sky clears open in a bath, and then they're gone when the cloud cover comes over and they're back in their nest. So I mean, an animal, you know, certainly could survive a long time with behavior like that and not having to feed constantly as some of these higher energetic species that we're used to working with. So but yeah, I don't know. I hope that answers the question. Aside from that, I don't really have anything else. I mean, but it's better than most people. I mean, you know, I do what works. You can't ask me that question. I would have no idea. So, but yeah, it'd be very interesting. I've thought of doing like a stomach content analysis, which would be neat. And I've talked to a lot of the guys and the hunters out there. You know, if they've caught one, you know, if I come across, you know, they hear them coming, they're like, oh, you know, we'll find one. I'm like, no, no, no, don't catch it. Leave it where it's at. I don't want to disturb it. I want to I want to observe it what it's doing naturally. And that way I can, you know, see what's going on. So don't bother. But they've told me that before before I've come out there, they feed animals and they've, you know, picked it up and it's regurged like a couscous or a bird or something like that. But, you know, nine out of 10 times is the couscous that comes out. And I mean, there's a decent-sized meal for anything out there. So I would definitely, I wouldn't be surprised if a prey out on that size would sustain an animal, you know, for a good amount of time. It's not having to constant, you know, that's not, you know, constantly cruising around looking for stuff. But I don't know. I mean, it's still an area of interest. I hope we hope we have better understanding or soon to be, or, you know, who knows. Yeah, it'll definitely be cool. Okay, Casper, what are your thoughts on diet, prey size, and how do you think that would regulate your growth and what are you feeding your younger guys? No comment. No. As I've said before, I feed very sparingly just as pretty much all the other guys. I feed my young animals around every 10 to 14 days. And my adults, once every third week or a month, pretty much. And I try always to feed smaller prey items and just several prey items at a time. Instead of a huge fat rat, I would go with several small rats instead. Their metabolism is extremely high. And if you feed them a lot, they will ship a lot. And they're pretty much to feed them that much other than to get a huge goal when I was just not my goal. So that's pretty much it. I think they will grow way more healthy, a way more healthy rate if you feed them this way instead of feeding them a lot. And as we have said before, if you feed them a lot, they will not get very old and probably die of fat or liver or some like that and get a lot of weird diseases which will not happen to healthy slender specimens that eat a lot less and will get a lot older. Just like Eric has said before small Chinese people. I'm pretty sure he stole that one from Nick but we have to give that one to Eric this time. This is a fantastic quote because it's so right. And we often don't forget about the whole feeding machine and how you should do it because we just want to feed our snakes. I don't have a comment about their growth rate because I have not kept them long enough to really know how different they grow if you feed them different kinds of prey. And I've only fed them quails and small rats and pretty much I've done that with animals. I have never tried them to feed them big prey items so I can't compare to how they would grow in that order compared to what I do. Eric, do you have something? Eric, do you have something? No. I thought you are commenting, are you back in the basement? Anyway, Chad, how about you? How do you feel about your guys with the prey items and how their growth is affected? Small diverse items. Like I said earlier, I do small rats, medium rats, chicks and quail. I feed them the exact same thing. If I feed them, if I do a small rat, they both get a small rat that meal. If I do a chick, they both get a chick, etc. As far as growth rate, my female is definitely gertier than my male. They eat the exact same thing but she definitely has more sizes. They are the same length but she does have a heavier body mass but it's not heavy in a unhealthy way. As we spoke on earlier, she's a lean, healthy, muscular tone snake where he's the same way he's just not as gertier. But yeah, definitely smaller diverse meals on a frequent basis. Like I said, I feed them a little less than I do everything else but on a regular basis. I feed them every 10 days but sometimes a chick or quail only weighs a few ounces so they're not getting big meals every 10 days. They're not getting heavy meals. The biggest thing is a medium rat and I think my medium rats are using about 125 grams, 30 grams, something like that. That's the biggest meal they ever get. Small diverse meals on a fairly regular schedule and I believe the snakes are healthier that way. You have a higher chance of being successful in breeding if you keep them healthy on smaller diverse meals. That makes sense and I've heard that approach with scrubs and other animals as well. I do that with a lot of other species that I work with. I mean, I get some of my carpets, quails and chicks which are kind of along the same thing. I give green trees very, very sporadic meals. I don't feed them a lot at all even though I'll offer them chicks sometimes because they're naturally bird eaters in the wild. I do my whitelifts the same way. I'll give them small meals and then the blackheads I definitely do. I diversify the meals and typically just to keep them lean and muscular. I mean, they get everything. They get reptiles, you know, rodents, chicks, quail, fish. I give them everything to keep them diverse and I think that's a big thing with pythons in general is keep them healthy, keep them thin with small diverse meals. That's cool. I've heard that kind of stuff and I've thought about it a few times but that's awesome. Thank you. I'll get on that. Frederick, how about you? What do you feed your guys and how large do you keep their pry atoms and have you seen that affect their growth especially with the little guys, the actual? Well, when I first acquired my first pair, when they were human eyes or babies, I wanted them, of course, I wanted them to grow as fast as possible to breed them as fast as possible. We'll try to breed them but I actually got the problem quite fast with them, regurg for me. So I put back the size of the prey and I started to feed them more seldom but I was amazed how fast they were growing although they got small prey items and not so frequently. So I kept it that way so I've always cut my bowl out with a smaller prey and not very often. So I've feed my adult about every third week with a medium five strats around 200 to 250 grams so that's not a big rat for a large snake and when it comes to hatchlings they are actually very hard to start feeding on rats. So I actually was very frustrated with the first clutch because I couldn't get them to feed and they started to get very thin and the skin was getting loose and I was really worried so I actually contacted the camera on Tepadella on a bush monster because I know he has hatched out some eggs from some wild females and he told me that he had hatched about over 150 babies and he didn't get anyone to feed on the rats for the first time as a first prey so he tried everything like I did before and the babies get scared of live food that they just want to get away from live mice live rats and they own the strike in the fence they want like a green tree python you can trigger them to strike and then they will coil up and start to swallow the prey but not bowl instead they will get scared they will get away and they will own the strike in the fence so he started to get some success when he started to send the rat pops with the chickens and then he started to get some of them to eat and eventually week after week and other ones starts and the rest came along as well and that is what I'm doing with my with my baby bowlers they are actually it could take up to 10 or 12 weeks before they will accept a rat pop with chicken sounds and I only leave it on the on the cage floor and they will actually slowly start to time flick it and then just stop swallow it very easy and very gentle no striking no coiling or anything they just open them up and so they are very strange wow yeah very very special so I would really I would really like to know what they are feeding in the wild as first place because unfortunately I'm not I'm not I cannot get any quails over here or any quail or any quail babies no I have actually some people there's been a lot of people contacting me for around the world and some people they have bought some import babies and they contact me they're frustrated they are not feeding and I'm trying to to explain about the chicken sounds messed up to the rat pops and some are contacting me again and it doesn't work and and I told them try try some quail babies newly hatched quails and then I'm actually hard at they have actually strike the praise and coil up around it so it seems like that's more like something they really like yeah so one natural I guess yeah so yeah but that's my experience awesome so big girl freight despite having smaller prey that's uh that's kind of cool so um Keith what have you seen when it comes to feeding bollens their pry atoms as opposed to other animals you've had in your collection um well like everybody says they will not refuse a meal I mean when you open the door that's what they're looking for they're coming out they're either saying who's coming into my territory or what do you have in your hand that's going to be good to eat you know they definitely open for flu low time but I I keep my prey items smaller on a smaller side too but there's a lot of factors that go into your feeding regimes of your animals other than size or frequency I mean the temperatures that we keep the animals and other variables come into play for how they're utilizing the food that we're giving them efficiently to go into growth and not becoming obese so I try to look at all the factors but I definitely keep the animals on the smaller side and like Chad said I try to do diversity but the way I do diversity is um and a lot of this stuff is just to make me feel better I'm sure than than the animals but you know it's part of a hobby right I mean I always say like like tropical fish you know people in tropical fish they'll spend $10,000 on a set up to keep a hundred dollar animal where in the reptile trade we don't have that mentality we we spend $10,000 on an animal to keep it in a $10 plastic tub you know so yeah a lot a lot of the mentality going into the hobby is I think just for us to feel better about ourselves so with my prey I'm able I have a local breeder that brings all my rodents for me and and when I was with blood python you know I was buying a thousand rats at a time or whatever but now they don't buy 20 rodents a week or whatever but I get them alive and and I can feed them different things to basically gut load them with different uh things throughout the year so that they're getting a varied diet you know um so I experiment with that and like I say it's probably for more me just playing around with things than the needs of the animal but I do agree with Chad that diversity is very good and I do feed smaller items one thing I did like want to comment on though is I not only Frederick has tried this but with young animals that are especially nervous or skittish like blood pythons are extremely most people think of them as aggressive animals but it's really that they're insecure and nervous animals and that's why they're so aggressive and once you've learned to take it around that you know you can handle your animals without a problem whatsoever but with the babies um what are found animals that are shy and reclusive like that and they're straight feeders and usually are shut down at the slightest disturbance what I would do is I'd give them a small plastic hide and we'd fill their uh top aware with sagnum loss dry sagnum loss and and the animal would get secure in that situation and eventually starts sticking its head out in a hunting mode and when you put a small rodent in that um container that rodent would be walking on that sagnum loss but the snake felt secure and it almost lacked like a spider web like it the snake was secure but it felt that walking and and calling in its confidence would build up to the point where it would take and I'd say you know out of a couple hundred baby blood pythons that I'd raise every year you know you'd have 10 of the most stubborn animals but when I resorted to that they would take prey almost every time and I'm just wondering if that would be some kind of a method to go to um with the bull and I being that they seem almost phosphoryl in some way that they're always in their nest sites and and underground when the temperatures are right I wonder if a feeding mode may be for them to hunt more from the ground up maybe you know what I mean um like corn pythons which you guys know all too well when I used to breed carpet pythons the best way to get them feed was from a purge elevated purts where they're striking down um you know if you didn't have that in out a lot of the cages with those guys they they wouldn't take off but you put that in there and they're feeding right away so sometimes it's not so much the prey item but it's the attempt of introducing the prey item into the neonates cage to to get them started to feel just secured a feed you know just uh just wanted to throw that out there but again I keep my prey item small um I probably freed a little bit more frequently than the other guys but um my animals definitely are long and lean um and uh trying to keep them that way for sure very cool and uh this magnum must thing I can attest to I use it for my uh salus so I agree with that one it kind of makes small feel a little bit happier um Evan what do you do with uh your guys what do you guys what are you feeding your guys when I come to prey and size well my my small ones my yearlings um on small rat tops um you know from from my point of view you know as more of a collector hobbyist opposed to uh the you know group that we have here and a lot of people that might be listening that are looking to get into a uh bowlings uh I've found from uh you know buying uh a fresh you know one of these farm farm animals um that when I fed them every four days for a period of time um and get them out of that stage where they're you know they feel and they're much more delicate when they're babies they have a very uh velvety soft texture to their skin um and trying to get them out of that that stage in my opinion you know as quick as possible because that's when they're the most honorable so last year's last year's group that I had um with dehydration problem they blistered um and I tried a million different things I listened to some of the best tell me what the problem was Bushmaster Cameron said to me feed the shit out of these things he says get them to shed get them out of that that delicate skin and that's what I did um and lo and behold the blister shed off that female I lost two out of that group uh the female survived um and the group that I had again this year also blistered a short time after I had them but I wasn't doing the same things as I did last year as far as missing them um they had they had a suit of moments moments which I mentioned earlier the ones that I fed more aggressively uh grew quicker got out of that that juvenile stage um and now they're beasts as far as my health I feed them you know uh every ten days or so not huge not huge meals uh one thing that I do because I get some again the hobbyist every one of my animals has a feeding card every time an animal it shed heat it's recorded and as long as I stay within the perimeters of the size prey that I'm feeding them um like clockwork I know like my big girl she's gonna shed every 35 days and it's within a day or two um getting the animals into that type of cycle you know gives me that comfortability that uh you know they're they're in good condition they're growing the right way um and you know the consistency um you know once in a while with the bigger ones uh I'll give them an extra week off just to clean out um but you know from my point of view and you know people that are going to buy you know new you know animals that just came into the country um they probably you know haven't had their first meal yet uh the ones the bushmaster this year uh didn't have uh in my opinion they said you know that they uh that they had their first meal I was forced feeding these things for months until you know I really uh you know they started dropping it tried my best I had already done cultures and whatnot but uh you know feeding them at the beginning and getting them out of that fragile stage you know get them stronger and once they get to that point you know they're gonna eat and they're gonna be nice they're gonna be just aggressive aggressive uh babies that you know are gonna do well and easy to end he's needed to deal with at that point you know getting them started that's the hard part the quail yeah it's a big big factor you know and uh um centing centing them at the beginning they tend to like rats rather than mice at the beginning um but the centing is a big thing I actually found using uh the you know cutting the animal opening just smearing the liver of the kidney of uh the quail I got a better response doing that than um just uh keeping the animals hot and the forcing them both together I've heard about putting um um down feathers from the quail you know on the first prey or you know for a bowlings it's not eating um but I found you know the blood in the kidney you know I got a completely different response which was you know either that response where they just muddle up and open their mouths and just take it daintfully or you know they come at it like a mamba and a big difference but you know again I my next group of uh you know yearlings that I'll you know come across the next time they're in the country the next time Cameron has you know I'm just you know feeding feeding them feeding them as much as you can and not overdoing it um but Cameron again said to me every four days and I did that and you know this makes a lot there were no issues no problems but you know the ones that are coming in fresh you know they're just they still are fragile yeah yeah they are not seeing that that skin is easily terrible and very very soft so you can go along and I had I actually had one that that shed um that was the last of the four that were not doing well and when he shed he actually shed his skin came off with his shed and you know that was you know part of the whole dehydration thing that uh yeah these bones uh you know that occurs with them in the beginning you know a lot of water is you know essential also for them you know they drink more than any of my other snakes yeah I definitely seen that with uh scrubs so uh now I seen that personally where I ended up ripping this side of an envelope and for just our whole skin came right off and that was yeah they are very proud I mean yeah you know I had sent some pictures of it to Ari um you know and it was just just to flick that picture and just see a baby like that that uh you know had been through so much trauma and I tried everything that I could um yeah you know and taking the money aside you know it's more about the animal and that's why yeah you know I enjoy these things but once you get them going um they grow quick they eat great awesome awesome so uh Eric you had the follow-up question you want to hit that now yeah there was uh there was a couple questions I had for Ari um first um as far as as far as um feeding in the wild um what are your thoughts as far as cycle feeding for these guys do you is that something that you're seeing with the uh animals uh that you're they're the species that you're witnessing when you're over there is there any kind of like cycle to uh to what these guys seasonality hunting or are you yeah like a seasonality more or less you know initially before um Frederick made us all look bad and started producing them I would look I thought maybe that you know because I was thinking that you know we're obviously overlooking something and maybe there's an environmental you know stimuli that's really being a triggered uh to allow the females to go all the way or something we're just missing you know because kind of turned into a game of boxing one of the things I thought it was uh you know a seasonality with uh abundance of food for different times of the year you know signaling you know for the female to kind of load up on fat storage because you know she's going to be sitting in a hole with some eggs or whatever or you know she's going to more or less produce uh during a time where there's going to be an abundance of uh baby uh baby birds or fledglings or or young rodents uh the spring or something like that for the babies to hatch out and start feeding on um so but I've honestly I've never seen anything that's been out of the ordinary as far as a seasonality or a common year where I'm seeing more birds or uh more mammals or anything like that it's just a really interesting part of the world and um and I'm sure you know the area I'm at because I get so many people ask me it's like you know oh have you seen these scrubs while you're there have you seen any of this and that it's like you know I'm not looking for any of that stuff I'm you know I'm I'm straight I'm straight balling's all the way up and it's like you know and I could have you know blinders on from you know I could be walking next to the abominal snowman and not even know it but um I've never seen anything throughout that watch oh sweet cool man we can do that oh you have to let me go to sleep before because I I feel that he's still up but I mean he's desperate to care less about because he's taking the day off so um yeah but um you know I've never really seen anything to suggest you know that there there is but I mean I'm not there every every day I've been there pretty much every month of the year except for a couple months in uh you know even the rain and all that stuff the temperature is pretty consistent throughout the year it might rain a little bit more might be a little colder might be a little longer worth colder might be a little longer worth rainier but I've never seen anything to really suggest there there that there was but I certainly wouldn't say that there isn't um I mean that's with anything so I don't know I mean diets is dietary consumption and what they're feeding on the wild has always been a really interesting area for me to follow through with it's just you know like two lifetimes it'll take if that you know if you maybe even more to be able to really understand it all the way just with with being able to observe them that's just a tough one cool awesome I know when you hit on uh hit on uh Graham's question and then we'll uh then we gotta let them live across oceans go to bed so yeah the uh Graham's question is is uh you'd like to ask uh if the ambient temperature method works for raising these animals up to adulthood or do they need a hotspot and a cold end uh with them being a you miss felt mountain um species that are uh subject to cold periods at different altitudes and are actively that actively shy away from hotspots or do they fast work a few hours a day um like uh say a diamond flight on um with them and with larger prey items will they kind of basket I guess basically what he's saying is um can you do that ambient temperature my room is set for this much and whatever may happen is happening or do they get those these guys need a hotspot uh I guess we'll start with uh Ari oh okay um yeah it's a it's a really good question and uh there's several questions that are in that um in the area as quick as I can so everybody gets a stab at it um yeah I think once again kind of like oh initially we're talking about you know trying to replicate this exact environment is just you know the difficult past and I don't know if it's a task that you can even actually do accurately so I mean obviously I would suggest if you were maintaining animals and as with how I've done with my animals and I know a lot of other people have as well is maintain the animal how you're going to want to maintain the animal as it's an adult um you know I definitely would provide access to certain things that you're going to want to provide later on in life that's my personal opinion if I'm going to be allowing this animal to bask I'm going to be providing a basket if I'm going to allow this animal to have a nest box I'm going to have a nest box when it's a young animal so it has that as it's growing as it's maturing as you're learning to distinguish different behavior with the animal waltz in your possession and such so there's mine in a nutshell so that way you can jump on to the next person all right well Casper bailed on us because he's oh Casper I know so we're still just going straight to Chad so um Chad how do you think you guys do they need a hot spot or can you kind of run an amp you know um I keep mine I do I do give everything a uh hot spot but with the bones I do keep the hot spot cool then I do everything else um with the exception of the malleukins um like I said they're hot spots only about eight degrees um otherwise I do let them run ambient um but I do offer the same thing from from babies um to adults and like I said I've only got the pair and I've and I've kept them the same way the entire time um from from when I first got them when they were just a few weeks old I put them a hot spot in there I kept them in a um one of the starlight like square um boxes not a tub but like it's I guess it's probably about 20 inches tall or so um now there's some PV purchase in there put a small hide box in um with a a warm warm spot and then everything else I just let them uh maintain an ambient room temperature I do the same thing with them now they have a hide box or nesting box whatever you want to call it um a warm a small warm spot uh in their cage and everything else it runs ambient and the way that I've got them set up I have it so a bit of a breeze comes on one side of their cage to keep them in the the mid to high 60s so they're the other side of the cage um so that they always have that cooler area to go to and believe it or not that that cage that area of my cage always stays a little bit uh I keep the water bowl on that side um so it always stays a bit more humid on that side of the cage than the other um and they made a lot of times they stay on that side of the cage more even though their their nest box is more so in the middle it kind of creeps over to the warmer side um but I definitely I definitely agree with the um ambient motion but I still get my hot spot but I don't have a uh I don't have a heavy basking area to be honest with the only lighting I actually use on these guys is the UV um I use a zoom in 10 um but I don't actually have a basking area just a uh just a warm spot cool okay so that's a little bit of a different but they do tend to like the cooler side so okay very cool um so uh Frederick how about you do uh provide your guys a basking spot or do you kind of just let them do it whatever the room temperature set um my my baby snakes are kept in the room temperature they don't have a hot spot or anything I just uh oh I can't do this in foreign night but I have around 27 degrees Celsius during the days and around 24 degrees Celsius during night for them and they are thriving and doing fine so so when I get a little bit bigger I moved into a larger cage where I can offer a hot spot so um that's that's the way I'm doing but uh I was going to round this off a little bit quick because I really need to go to bed and get some more work and I just I just want to thank everyone and uh I would also like to say that uh I will uh soon have an auction of one of my baby bolums for uh and uh I will auction it out and uh all of the funds are going to Ulrich's project with research in the wild wow so I hope uh oh you the man yeah I hope you're sleepy you don't know what you're talking about yeah he's walking fine wow well I think I think I've been uh I had my my share of success here so I think I can share a little bit on that I want to give something back to to the bolums I stole from the wild in the beginning that's that's incredible that's awesome that uh we were able to get this group together and just kind of you know answer or try to help answer a lot of these questions and and just talk openly and just a bunch of friends just you know enjoying what we do and I mean that's what it's all about that's that's what it's always been about for me and uh it's just really uh a great thing I'm hoping because we did this it's really going to just you know open up opportunity for other people and uh uh and for everybody else so that's a good thing yeah and I and I was thinking this auction could be going worldwide because I think I can I can bring it to to to the to the NRBC showing in in the states in February I think so yeah so uh the horrible thing to get the checkbook out always no burning and so so stay tuned for my my reptile site on facebook where I'm going to put it up pretty soon so it's ads already put bids in that's good it's very good cost yeah I appreciate that wow wow so so we'll definitely link all that on maralia thick of the weekend it's all the facebook pages for the radio show try to get as much traffic over there although I doubt you'll need that much help um you just once someone says boner's auction I'm pretty sure they're going to be coming out of a woodwork so that one so that's awesome yeah it would be would be nice to see what happens yeah so I'm just going to round this up and go go to belb so yeah thank you thank you guys yeah yeah we'll talk later okay thanks bye bye all right so I guess we'll keep moving down the list real quick um it may yeah damn it Eric you don't need people to early I'll see what you think about the ambient temperature versus um if you get if you have to provide these guys a hot spot when you're raising them up I told you guys I got a tough act to follow coming after Frederick and his advice you know it's hard to follow up on that um I have a yeah super super super sophisticated method of ambient temperature in my room it's called a window and I'm lucky I'm lucky that you know it will pal and placement of my room and everything else for the bow and I that the window method is working wonderful for me um my highest temps in the room ambient are 72 and like I say I can go down into the 40s if I want at night so I'm just using that and the animals that I've had and raised have all been black already they they weren't red phase like what Evan has worked with his insight on that was very helpful to me going forward I hope um but the animals at the black stage um are already pretty established and I cycle them just as my adults um because I definitely believe that years of um being in the same routine is going to be very helpful for for breeding attempts down the road so I cycle all my my animals so whether they're um a year old or or 10 years old they're all cycling the same um and I'll wrap that up because I know you guys are getting tight on time just a little bit so uh Evan uh real quick how do you uh you worry about the heat with your guys do you just keep it kind of ambient or do you give your guys a hot spot um my guys you know there is a hot spot I mean I keep the their enclosures around 84 um you know is that basket spot but you know their hot spots and you know the bottom of their enclosures are between 79 and 80 degrees um and the ambient temperature in in the room itself is anyways from 76 to 78 okay so it's about kind of the same pretty consistent not too not too hot for any of them although you know Casper had said to me it when we first met um I do keep the babies just a little bit warmer and uh it tends to stimulate then they're a little bit more active um so the babies I've kept um as far as you know those caps of red uh import um I've kept them you know 86 87 in a hot spot um but uh you know so the bottom of their enclosures are you know between 79 and 80 degrees okay that's pretty that sounds pretty much like python ambient temperature stuff so cool yeah so all right real quick before we run out of time we're pretty much gonna blitz down the list and everybody can also have their information what the hell they're doing what they're excited about anything else they want to throw out there so let's start at the top um Ari yo um yeah I've got a um first off uh sorry it's late hey uh a great um facebook uh group that uh I've gotten up I think it's been up for a little over a year now we've got like over 1300 members and it's just like fantastic it's a place for people to come and talk about bold pythons I'm posting you know new data on there that I'm finding for my trips and you know Frederick's on there and Chad's on there Evan's on there Keith's on there you Casper's on me we're all you know everybody aside from you know the people that you're listening to tonight you know we've got all these phenomenal uh questions that are constantly on this so check it out it's um the uh sorry brain fart uh the bold python uh Somalia bologna group uh and uh you're welcome to come on there and just you know it doesn't you don't feel um threatened at all by being on this kind of a fight it's you know for everybody with any kind of intent of any sort as long as it's for enjoying these snakes I mean you don't have to be an expert by any means um I also have a uh go fund me uh set up for my research stuff that really really helps out and it's posted up on that site as well if you're interested in donating it's always greatly appreciated and um just uh got another trip coming up in January that I'll be heading back out for a couple weeks and visiting another spot checking some more population stuff and posting more stuff up there for everybody to enjoy it um wrapping up this book uh the end of next month uh finally so uh it should be good too so um onto the next cool i'm having back all when you get the books done all right so get Casper Chad what's going on with you and all your stuff and what do you want to throw out there um you know I'm in the in the cooldown period right now cool and everything down um working on obviously trying to reproduce the bones this year if you want to reach out to me you can get on my website cheggoryreptile.com or you know message me to facebook cheggoryreptile on my contact info is on there um but I don't want to elaborate too much on myself because it's not what this this particular show is about I just kind of want to re-elaborate uh what Ari said just definitely um we need to to keep funding his research and his knowledge and what he's learning is imperative to us as keepers and breeders with the partner so definitely check out his go fund me or you know even maybe buy one of the awesome skills that he's producing uh down there just to help fund the research that he's providing obviously another book is coming out so anything that we can do to to help further him along in the field that gives us knowledge and information that he comes back and learns more uh let's definitely try to support that um so I definitely appreciate you guys having me on the show and getting a chat with all you guys um so I really appreciate you man let's just keep uh keep moving forward to species um and helping to help and already get over there and and learn as much information as you can to come back and share with us very cool very cool and I'm I'm on weight committee at chat list as it is so if he starts bridging bullets I'm gonna be in big trouble so all right um so let's go to Keith why don't you toss out what's going on with you out there um well Bo and I are my focus uh tree Bo is on my second passion nowadays um I'm always willing to talk snakes so anybody uh wants to shoot me any messages on Facebook please feel free um always willing to talk snakes to anybody at any time and helping anywhere I can so please reach out and I also wanted to reiterate everything Chad said about uh Ari's research and uh getting on his site to the GoFundMe and donating some cash if you can and if not buy some of his artwork man because that's a great thing to add to your collection and it's helping him out uh raise money to to get over there and do what we need him to do so let's support people that are really supporting us and um big believer in getting everything we can to uh anybody doing this kind of research so I'm pushing that myself so anybody that can do it but let's get on it and get it done definitely and uh last but not least Evan you want to throw your stuff out there you can yeah let's not least no problem um I guess what I'm working forward to is I got four predict babies uh it'll be added to my collection uh in the next couple of months and uh I just picked up a female today which I haven't named yet and it's uh Eric and Owen want to do like a rock paper scissors type of thing and uh you know I have no problem naming her uh either Owen or uh Eric I wouldn't take this one um I'll get the next one all right so I think maybe I can call her or or or need something like that yeah I love it but you know overall I'm making the best effort to uh travel a little bit you know to uh make uh shows that are not you know local to me you know like our white planes or hamburg shows but I'll be at the uh webpile uh Super Show in California in LA uh in January and uh also make my way of Frederick's serious about you know stepping on to American soil uh I'll be out there at the uh N-A-R-C-B uh that he'll be attending and uh you know trying to talk bones as much as possible and you know doing the snake things awesome so all Eric it is of the feeding card there you go yep good man uh very cool so all right we have absolutely two minutes uh before we go and I just wanted to uh to thank everybody that came on and donated their time and um I think it's very very important uh one of the things that I always hear from people back that listen to this show a lot of new people listen to the show a lot of people that are just getting into uh sometimes people that don't even keep carpets or morality or anything like that and they just get in it and they hear all these crazy stories about whether it's bollins or chondros or um the more uh you know uh niche type uh pythons that are out there and um you guys sharing your information and your knowledge and whether it's from the wild aspect or the captive aspect or the breeding aspect is uh it's just priceless uh I I I can't thank these guys enough uh I have to chime into and just say that uh you know uh did it cut off I don't know it didn't you still there I'm right here.