Diet manipulation in incubation via scenting...any ideas?

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Zach_Lim
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Diet manipulation in incubation via scenting...any ideas?

Post by Zach_Lim »

Fellow herpetoculturalists,
I have a question regarding an idea that I read about sometime ago involving popular lizard eating kingsnakes such as zonata, pyromelana, alterna, etc and the possibility of swaying eating habits during incubation. From what I remember hearing/reading, it was proposed that some breeders felt that prone-lizard eaters can be acclimated towards a rodent diet during incubation by placing soiled/nesting rodent bedding (scenting) in with the incubating eggs. I personally find this hard to believe, but it is intriguing. Has anyone heard more of this or have tried this?

My skepticism is varied, ranging from innate predispositions towards lizards (reptile diet) outriding human induced manipulation to the actual permeability of eggs to food scent.

Any thoughts?

Zach
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Don Becker
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Re: Diet manipulation in incubation via scenting...any ideas

Post by Don Becker »

Do they assume that lizards are crawling all over the eggs in the wild or something? Even if you had mouse scents all around the eggs, why would the snake have any reason to associate it with food?
Zach_Lim
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Re: Diet manipulation in incubation via scenting...any ideas

Post by Zach_Lim »

psyon wrote:Do they assume that lizards are crawling all over the eggs in the wild or something? Even if you had mouse scents all around the eggs, why would the snake have any reason to associate it with food?
Exactly. I am very skeptical of this and your reasoning was one of mine as well.
Aaron
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Re: Diet manipulation in incubation via scenting...any ideas

Post by Aaron »

The idea comes from an actual scientific study, or possibly studies. I remember reading a summary of one where they used strawberry scent on alligator or crocodile eggs. The hatchling alligators or crocs were more likely to eat strawberry scented foods.

So it is not exactly the same as what some herpetoculturists are talking about but some herpetoculturists have wondered if something similar could be done to induce lizard feeders to eat mice.
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Don Becker
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Re: Diet manipulation in incubation via scenting...any ideas

Post by Don Becker »

What is just that they were eating strawberry scented food items that they would normally eat if they weren't scented, or were they taking things that alligators did not normally eat and scent them with strawberries?
Aaron
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Re: Diet manipulation in incubation via scenting...any ideas

Post by Aaron »

Pyson, that's a very good question. I was trying too but I'm sorry I can't remember for sure. I want to say they were eating the same thing though. As in whatever it was they would be offered it unscented and then offered it scented and they took more of it or took it more often, when it was scented. I really wish I could remember. I think the study was done at a zoo though and I want to say Philadelphia but again I can't really remember.

I have personally tried putting pinkies in the incubator with eggs of graybands, mexicana and pyros but when I tried it I wasn't very consistent. I would just put a deli cup of live pinks in there overnight and the next day feed them off to my other snakes. I could never stay on top of it enough to keep the pinks in there all the time. The total exposure time only amounted to 5 or 6 days during a 70 day + or - incubation period. I noticed no difference in the percent of babies that would take pinks right off the bat but I don't think I ever did it enough to have an affect.

I think I will try it again someday but with something like orange peels. They last a long time. It would be easy to just eat an orange once a week and through some peels in there. Also orange peels are very aromatic and it would be easy to scent pinks with them. I will definately report the results here if I do it.
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Kelly Mc
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Re: Diet manipulation in incubation via scenting...any ideas

Post by Kelly Mc »

in egg/embryonic diffusion , output exceeds input , so i wonder how that (molecules of scent) correlates when it is scaled down from gator eggs to small snake species . i also think of the trigger when we compare feeding vigor of the two species - one a prey species themselves with built in risk trepidation and the other at the top of the chain
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tspuckler
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Re: Diet manipulation in incubation via scenting...any ideas

Post by tspuckler »

Zach,

There was an article on this in "Vivarium" magazine. If I remember correctly it was published during the last year of the magazine's existence. It does seem to me to be a "too good to be true" idea. I think at the time a company was making a liquid lizard scenting product and liquid rodent scenting product - meaning you could (in theory) take a mouse and feed it to a lizard-eating snake by using the "liquid lizard" scenting product. In the "experiment" the "liquid rodent" product was applied to snake eggs being incubated. Supposedly this caused the normally lizard-eating hatchlings to accept mice instead of lizards.

That magazine folded at least 10 years ago and I think if the experiment had validity, then by now lots of people would be influencing their gray band and mountain king eggs during incubation, but I never heard of anyone using this method.

Tim
Robert Hansen
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Re: Diet manipulation in incubation via scenting...any ideas

Post by Robert Hansen »

Jon Coote suggested this in an article published in 2000 (you can download a pdf from here: http://www.sierraherps.com/bibliography), but did not follow up.
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Natalie McNear
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Re: Diet manipulation in incubation via scenting...any ideas

Post by Natalie McNear »

Aaron wrote:I think I will try it again someday but with something like orange peels. They last a long time. It would be easy to just eat an orange once a week and through some peels in there. Also orange peels are very aromatic and it would be easy to scent pinks with them. I will definately report the results here if I do it.
Aren't the oils in the peel toxic to many things? That's why they use it as an insecticide. Might not be a good idea to put it with baby snakes, IMO.
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Kelly Mc
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Re: Diet manipulation in incubation via scenting...any ideas

Post by Kelly Mc »

what a succinct save of an insight

ecological Artemis
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