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breeding mambas
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by spnx on June 28, 2004
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I just picked up 1.1 east african green mambas and am curious to different breeding techniques. How long and at what temp should they be cooled? when should I introduce them? Justation and incubation info?
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RE: breeding mambas
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by Chance on June 29, 2004
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Disclaimer: I have never bred mambas! The following is not a personal account of my experiences breeding or even attempting to breed mambas. It is merely information I have gathered from keeper who have tried it, both successfully and unsuccessfully, as well as my own reasoning. That said, it should be taken with a grain of salt.
As of now, no US keeper has ever successfully bred and produced any of the green mamba species, and only a couple clutches of black mambas have been produced. There are seemingly plenty of mambas to go around and have been for quite some time, so the fact that hardly any have been bred suggests that they aren't exactly the easiest snakes to breed.
Mambas are incredibly active snakes that spend lots of time up in the trees and scrub, even the blacks. For this reason, a very large enclosure is going to be necessary to make the snakes feel comfortable and "natural" enough to want to reproduce. If I were going to give it a shot, I'd try to construct an enclosure roughly 6 or 7' in height, 4 or 5' in length, and 4' or so in width. Have numerous real trees and dead branches in there to give the snakes plenty of things to climb around on. Of course, under normal circumstances, with incredibly dangerous species like this, you'd want to minimize cage furnishings, but in this case it's possibly going to be necessary. Also, have a couple of hide boxes placed sporadically around the cage, both in low and high elevations.
From the people I've spoken with that are actually having some luck with their mambas, combat between males seems pretty important. They rarely, if ever, actually hurt each other during this process, but it seems as though you need to have a very dominant snake to want to breed the female. You can accomplish this in a couple of ways. The easiest would be to simply put two males into the enclosure at the same time. Keep a close eye on them to make sure they don't hurt each other, and soon there should be one winner and one looser. The looser will probably be the one spending most of his time toward the bottom of the enclosure looking to get away from the other male. If your snakes just want to play entirely too roughly, you can also place both males into two side-by-side enclosures, preferably with only screen or something separating them. You want them to be able to smell each other and seem in as close proximity as possible. As for the female, you can probably either wait until the males are finished combatting to introduce her, or have her in there the entire time. For her own safety, I would likely try the former first. Once the victor male has been established, introduce him to the female in the large enclosure. He should pretty soon be showing signs of courtship: such as chasing, rubbing, jerking, etc. Once you see this begin to happen and she appears at all receptive, you're good to go. They will likely mate soon and often over the next several days to several weeks.
I would keep feeding the adults heavily during this time, especially the female. Once you are sure she has "taken," separate her from the male and feed her about as much as she'll take. She'll need lots of reserves to draw upon throughout the latter part of gestation and egg laying. Mambas should be pretty similar to any other elapids as far as gestation, anywhere between 60 to 100 days after the last successful copulation. You'll likely notice her swelling considerably, though don't rely on this. Often, thin-bodied arboreal snakes do not swell too greatly. When I bred boomslangs last year, my female didn't actually look gravid until the last week or so before she dropped her eggs. This makes sense, as a thick, heavy body wouldn't do well for a very active, arboreal snake. Once she goes through a shed that seems close to when it should be time for her to lay, add a nesting box to her enclosure and remove the water bowl. The nesting box should be very secluded and feel safe for the female, and should be full of damp peat, sphagnum, or green moss, or really any humidity retaining substrate. Removing the water bowl is important, because when she gets ready to lay, if she find a humid enough area in which to lay, she may choose the water bowl, which would almost certainly kill the embyos.
Once she has laid (check the nesting box, after a week or so after her prelay shed, at least once a day), the hard part is over. Remove the eggs from the nesting box and place them into your incubation substrate of choice. I personally prefer perlite, as for me it is both easier to acquire and easier to work with than vermiculite. By this point you should have your incubator stabilized at between 83 and 85 F, or around 30 C. I have incubated boomslang eggs at this same temperature and every egg hatched. Mambas, coming from some of the same areas as booms, would likely do well at this temperature as well.
Within 55 to 70 days or so, you should have plenty of little dealy shoestrings slithering around. Make no mistake, even those cute itty bitty guys are just as toxic as their parents. In fact, it may be a good idea to incubate each egg in its own separate container. If you can catch the eggs in time, before they stick together, this should be relatively easy. Just get a bunch of those small rubbermaid containers from Wal Mart or wherever, and place a small amount of damp substrate along with one egg in each one. In this manner, you will only have to deal with one baby mamba at a time. I'm hoping to breed my PNG taipans in the next couple of years, and I will be trying this technique out myself at that time. With baby superfast, superdeadly elapids, the fewer you have to mess with at once, the better. Once the babies have gone through their first shed, they should begin taking live or pk/ft pink mice right off the bat. I've never encountered a problematic feeder mamba, so I doubt the babies would be. House each neonate separately for your own safety.
Hmm...well this turned into something quite a bit longer than I had intended. Again I will say, I have not ever bred mambas, so I am not professing to be an expert. I'm just relating information I have received from others, as well as giving my own logical insights. Having to give these little disclaimers is kind of rediculous, but if I don't, some jerk will inevitably have to say something :) Excuse any typos in this, as it is incredibly late and I should be asleep right now. Best of luck with whatever you attempt.
-Chance
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