Several current and past subjects on the MVF have revolved around this discussion with out truly examining this issue and making it the center of the discussion.
Thoughts?
Buddy B
                        
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How would you improve “Captive Fitness” for Green Tree Pythons?
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 BuddyBuscemi |
How would you improve “Captive Fitness” for Green Tree Pythons? |
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Posts: 747 (11/02/09 08:06:42)
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Andrew Kelley |
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Posts: 458 (11/02/09 08:08:41)
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Larger cage, less food, more exercise, more irregular stimuli.
Thanks,
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chondroguy1998 |
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Posts: 348 (11/02/09 08:10:19)
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I have changed my feeding schedual to every 14 days(for adults), and have noticed an big increase in movement. Instead of the typical "S" coil and
just wait for their weekly feeding, they now cruise the cage.
Scott "The Pol" Wysocki
www.IslandArboreals.com If you're Polish and you know it clap your hands(stomps feet), stomp your feet(claps hands). |
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RipRice |
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Posts: 372 (11/02/09 08:14:23) |
interesting, I just put one of my animals in a larger cage and it was obvious he/she did not like it, so I have decided to keep it in the tub for now.
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Andrew Kelley |
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Posts: 459 (11/02/09 08:33:43)
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RipRice wrote: We would feel the same way if we had been kept in a small box for years. In your example Rip I guess the right answer would be less food. My animals that I keep in small boxes at night have no room to prowl and move around - I always think if I just let them have the run of my entire snake room (impossible) how fit they would be. I was always amazed how much destruction and escaped snake would do it one night out of the cage, all sorts of things knocked over they would always leave a "path of destruction" showing what they did the night before - must have been amazing workouts for them. Also breeding does a great job in that the females get one heck of a workout and so do the males, and provides fantastic changes and exercise and lack of food also. Thanks,
Last Edited By: Andrew Kelley
11/02/09 08:44:18.
Edited 4 times.
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kylemillsap |
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Posts: 208 (11/02/09 08:47:35) |
I agree with Andrew. I have been a proponent of feeding less often for as long as I can remember. That is true for almost all snake species.
People love to watch their animals eat. In the long run , more food means a shorter lifespan. |
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John Romano |
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Posts: 3590 (11/02/09 08:48:50)
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Andrew nailed it on the head. Cleve had mentioned ways to do this in a post and I am currently trying implement this.
I am raising neonates in a "natural" vivarium. The plants growing offer new and different cage stimuli, new and different perches, and change the snakes environment without me having to manually move anything. I feed on irregular schedules, sometimes short periods of time (a week) between feedings and sometimes long periods of time (a month) between feeding. Offer more hiding spots than just perches.....most of mine now hide in the pothos during the day and only perch when they want to hunt. The downside is that if you are managing large collections this is near impossible to do. However I have noticed there is more than just the s-shaped hunting when food is not available for long periods of time as mentioned in an above post. |
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Morelia Viridis |
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Posts: 1031 (11/02/09 08:50:18)
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I think I'd figure out the dew point and the actual animal temperature ranges which represent long lived collections. Both data points are rarely
presented yet are the simplest two points to consider.
greg schroeder WWJD |
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chondrohead44 |
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Posts: 308 (11/02/09 09:01:59) |
Very interesting topic! It's no wonder chondros seem to be healthier in larger cages with more naturalistic setups. Could weak muscle tone could be a
possible cause of death for breeding females developing follicles? Could a "fit" body and healthy mental state improve a chondros immune system
resulting in less diseases and deaths? Maybe even healthier offspring?
-Jacob 1.0 Pygar! |
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Brook Berntson |
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Posts: 242 (11/02/09 09:28:18) |
I've been thinking of this topic for some time now and was considering building some enclosures that were 6' tall or even taller (floor to ceiling).We
all know Green Trees like to come down from their perches and cruise.I really like the idea of my animals climbing up 5,6 or 7' feet to their perches after
cruising the enclosure all night.With a large collection this would be very costly and take up alot of space but I would like to experiment with a half dozen
enclosures or so.It will be a year or two before I actually execute this idea but I will keep everyone posted.
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BuddyBuscemi |
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Posts: 748 (11/02/09 09:34:08)
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Good Responses so far, but I was thinking along the lines of increasing the hardiness of GTPs by selective breeding.
For example, what if we could produce chondros that are less susceptible to RI's or prolapses. Buddy B |
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chondrohead44 |
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Posts: 309 (11/02/09 09:53:32) |
Brook,
Please keep us posted! I would love to build a 8' L x 8'H x 4' D cage for my chondros. Good luck! Jacob 1.0 Pygar! |
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chondrohead44 |
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Posts: 310 (11/02/09 09:57:31) |
Brook and everyone,
Check out this video! http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XQasLCLOmQ8 I'm guessing that cage is about 8 feet tall. Jacob 1.0 Pygar! |
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John Romano |
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Posts: 3596 (11/02/09 10:36:29)
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I have been debating on letting some chondros loose in our greenhouse on campus. The problem is the teacher who is connected to the greenhouse does not like
snakes!
This greenhouse currently houses 4 turtles in small pond and my pair of redfoot tortoises. 
There are no small openings for animals to slip through, but the downside is the other half of the greenhouse is not jungle and I have a feeling that chondros being chondros will result in us looking at a chondro perched on a flourescent like fixture as opposed to the multiple foliage choices it would have. |
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BuddyBuscemi |
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Posts: 749 (11/02/09 11:09:07)
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John
If this turns out to be harsh winter for us in the Mid Atlantic...can I spend a week or so living in the greenhouse? I promise I won't perch on the flourescent light tubes. Wishing it was still summer Buddy B |
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Joao.chondroforum |
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Posts: 388 (11/02/09 11:09:59) |
Andrew Kelley wrote:Plus John Romano wrote:So, based on these ideas: 09´s in exo-terra12*12*18 
and they use the area 
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GTP |
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Posts: 214 (11/02/09 12:00:06) |
In the hopes of not pissing anyone off....
I believe that the larger, more naturalistic cages are a big plus...been a fan for 10 years. But I also believe that a certain amount lies within the bloodlines and breeding. If you are breeding only for your own asthetic purpose and not for health or the betterment of the species....than to me it is equivalent to a puppymill. You can not breed unhealthy or genetically f'd up lines and just exercise them more in hopes of making them healthy and giving them a more substantial life. I just did a necropsy on a 400 gram animal that was lean and muscular....and I mean lean. The fatty tissue inside of her from midway back was unreal. Imagine what the obese Chondros look like..... I have a huge female...she has a head like a mastiff and a body to match. She is not "chunky" and weighs 1900 grams....that scares me. She is active and does utilize ALL of her viv space, but still. It was brought to my attention by my Vet that maybe someone should do a study on breeding females according to body mass size and not weight. I think that it might prove some interesting points....JMO Ame
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John Romano |
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Posts: 3605 (11/02/09 12:26:29)
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Ame,
Here are some photos from a female I lost while gravid, she had not eaten in 2 months, check out the amount of fat around those eggs.... 
I have sinced curtailed the amount I feed animals. FYI: Count the amount of eggs developing there.....some serious eggs that would have been laid. j |
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GTP |
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Posts: 215 (11/02/09 12:38:50) |
Holy crap! She looks almost exactly like the animal we did today...less 50 eggs.... Do you recall what her "weight" or body mass was at the time of
breeding? I'm curious because of the amount of eggs.
I guess my point is this..... Unhealthy human who is obese, diabetic and horribly out of shape, etc, etc...gets pregnant...has horrible pregnancy and either loses child or has baby that is born with the disadvantage of starting life in an unheathy state. Healthy human who exercises daily gets pregnant...continues exercising...eats a extremely healthy diet...delivers healthy child that gets a great start at life. YES it CAN flip=flop...but the PROBABILITY of a healthy baby are so much greater! Chondro's are not obese in Indonesia....not on Biak, Numfor, Supiori or in the freakin Cyclop Mtn area...or whatever. I think we should focus more on the fitness of our breeding females instead of their weight. They are not extinct animals in the wild....maybe we need to learn a little more about their natural habitat and daily living????? sorry..for the typos....i still have acst on..lol Ame
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John Romano |
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Posts: 3608 (11/02/09 12:44:00)
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Ame,
I think she was around 1400 grams, but she was a big girl. She was what I would call a "healthy" girl. Maybe a plus sized model, fit but with some meat on her bones. I was actually very susrprised by the amount of fat that was in there considering how many eggs she had. I agree with your thoughts. Terry Phillip turned me on to this idea of leaner, more fit chondros years ago, around the time of this animal's death. j |
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GTPfan |
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Posts: 808 (11/02/09 12:58:21)
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I agree with most of what's been said already. But we have two discussions here, and only one that was intended by Buddy. There's external fitness,
which is what we do through husbandry to keep them as healthy as possible. Then there's internal fitness which is controlled by selecting animals to breed
that have natural strengths of survival, instead of breeding for appearance only with potentially "weaker" animals.
I think it's tough on a single breeder level to exclude any adult from potentially breeding. While the intentions may be there to breed the most fit animals, and they may not all be first choices, every animal in my collection is a potential breeder if they are healthy and old enough, regardless of internal fitness. It is also difficult to fully consider all internal fitness requirements. Some issues that may disqualify an animal as unfit may only be displayed for certain periods of time (like neonate feeding), or under certain husbandry conditions (like getting an RI at temps below 80 deg), or may not even be visible (weak internal organs or cancer prevelance). I think Andrew pretty much nailed the external fitness issues. But the internal ones are far more variable and difficult to track. It seems like it would take years of data collected on several generations of breedings to see the impact (if any at all) that can be gained by selecting animals for breeding by internal fitness. In other words, it may be discovered that clutches of weaker animals come along just as frequently from strong parents as they do from weak parents. But that would take lots of data collected to answer those questions. Ben Evans
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