# Breeding stimsons



## Rocksher (Sep 3, 2019)

hi all

Just wanted to ask advice and how to? 


When is breeding season for Stimsons in Melbourne, Western suburbs..

How much do they need to weigh? What length? And what size mice/rat should they be in when breeding? Both male and female? 
What is the process? Conditioning? 
Temps? 

We are new to this hobby and excited.. 

Please no nasty comments.

Thanks


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## Neil j (Sep 4, 2019)

@Sdaji


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## Sdaji (Sep 4, 2019)

Haha, not sure why I'm being tagged here!

These are pretty standard questions which google will give you answers to, and you'll find that if you ask 10 people you'll get 10 different answers to, but I've been tagged so I'll give you a quick answer.

Breeding season won't change depending on which side of Melbourne you're on, but it'll change depending on how you cycle them and what locality you have, and to some extent between individuals. I used to breed Antaresia from the same lines as a friend, both of us in eastern Melbourne, and mine consistently went more than a month early every season. We never worked out why. Stimson's are usually about the latest of the Antaresia, ovulating anything from around now to around November or sometimes even a little later. Cool them down starting from something around April/May, cool hardest in June/July, start putting them together around June (earlier if you want) and keep pairing them up until either ovulation or until it's clear they're not going to breed that season. You can vary this considerably.

Weights/lengths and age are arguable, my views aren't typical. Most people will tell you to wait until they're 2.5 years old to pair them up, I generally do them a year earlier, although I grow mine much faster than I would recommend a newbie try to copy. I first bred Antaresia over 20 years ago but I've never weighed any of the ones I've bred. By the time they're old enough they should be comfortably large enough.

You can use a huge variety of feeding regimes. Basically, if they're overweight feed them less, if they're underweight (which is rare in adult captive snakes) feed them more, and if they're about right keep doing what you're doing. Smaller feeds more often or larger feeds less often or a mixture is up to you. For a newbie it's probably safest to keep feeds between about 10 and 20% of the snake's weight, I personally go substantially larger pretty routinely, but decades of experience tells me which snakes are and aren't going to do well with that at what times, and smaller feeds are generally a safer option.

Temperatures... you can go as complicated as you like, but basically, a hot end in the low 30s. 20-24 hours of heat in summmer down to about 8-14 hours of heat in winter depending on your local conditions (if your house stays warm at night in winter you'll need/want less time with the heat switched off). How low the temperatures get isn't too important as long as they're going to notice the difference. To some extent it depends on locality of the animals but generally it's no big deal.

Welcome to the hobby, I'm sure you'll love it


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## Neil j (Sep 4, 2019)

Because your a scientific intellect my friend. An asset to this forum.


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## Sdaji (Sep 5, 2019)

Neil j said:


> Because your a scientific intellect my friend. An asset to this forum.



Oh, you! <3

Haha, thanks  Very kind compliment.


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## Rocksher (Sep 14, 2019)

@Sdaji 

Thanks for the reply. 

Give you a general gist of our stimmies.. 

Our Stimmies are over 1.5 years of age got them from a Melbourne breeder from the reptile show in march this year. 
- Our locality Tibooburra 
- They are currently eating small mice every 2 weeks. 
- Weighs about 250-300gs
- During winter we had there enclosures with normal temps 30 in hot end during night and day as they are housed in our double garaged and there are little drafts that come through so us being new to this hobbies we didnt want the temps to drop so low cause of the winter weather.. 

have we missed our opportunity or can we still try to breed them?


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## Sdaji (Sep 16, 2019)

Rocksher said:


> @Sdaji
> 
> Thanks for the reply.
> 
> ...



Stimmies usually ovulate later than other "species" of Antaresia. It's late but it's not impossible to mate them now and get a clutch. Worst case scenario: you try but don't get a clutch. Not cooling them won't have helped but if they're in a drafty garage they probably noticed the cold air anyway. Stimmies in most of their range naturally experience very cold temperatures in winter. They come from some very harsh environments.


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## Rocksher (Oct 14, 2019)

So we’ve put our pair together today... we notice Female is wagging her tail... 
we’ve left them together tonight in a container..

would they need a hide? 

And how long do I keep the male in there for? 

when do we put separate them and put a lay box in with the female?


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