Another newbie to the forum....

[TammyJ]

Diapause. Learn something new every day! I had no idea about this " survival strategy". Wonderful!

 

[Maddoggy]

Thanks!!!

 

[zovick]

Thank you for sharing your experience with us. The temps listed here for stars are about the same as those for sulcatas. These temps seem to be commonly thought to produce females at the upper range and males at the lower range for most species. At least that is what people tell me when they incubate pretty much any species for male or female. So my question to you is: Why do we see so many platynota turn out all male when they are "incubated for female" by the breeders at 89-90 degrees? I bought 14 "incubated for female" at the temps you listed and got 8.6. @G-stars here on the forum ended up with 15.0 a few years back and all were incubated for female.

I have no doubt about your results, but I keep seeing example after example recently over the last few years with platynota that demonstrate otherwise.

@Markw84 Would you mind sharing your findings? I'd really like to get this sorted out. @zovick is obviously the most reliable of reliable sources of info, but I can't explain what I've seen. I know that you've been keeping track of some of yours.

Do the majority of breeders simply have thermometers that are a few degrees off? Does it have to do with the diapause temps or duration before incubation? @zovick what was your diapause routine for platynota? What sort of hatch rates did you get?

I've produced 50+84+58 to date, but I only know the sex of 2 out of all of those. Both are male. I incubate at a constant 88 hoping for mostly females, but a few males too. My diapause break consists of setting the shoe box of eggs in damp vermiculite on top of the grandfather clock near my front door for 4-8 weeks. Room temp can be as low as 66 in winter and as high as 82 in summer, and it varies day to night. I try to amass several shoe boxes, each with two clutches in it, and put them in the incubator at the same time.

If anyone reading this has bought babies from me and knows the sexes, please chime in. Thanks to all who are sharing their knowledge and experience in this discussion. Thanks to @snowman04 for getting the conversation started.

@Tom My diapause for platynota was to place the eggs in totally dry vermiculite and place the eggs in a cool area for 4 weeks, then place them into my incubators. When I lived in CT, the cool area was my root cellar whose temperature ranged from about 54F in the dead of winter to 64 or 65 in the heat of summer, so it was not controlled cooling. I hibernated my snakes in the same root cellar and they did great. When I moved to GA, I had to make adjustments since it is really hot here in summer. I put the eggs into my basement in the winter where the temp was around 65F. In the summer, I put them in a closet a room with A/C which kept them about 68-72. Again, not a very controlled cooling period.

I personally feel that the cooling period temperatures do not affect the sex of the babies. I believe it is the temp of the embryo AFTER it has begun to develop in the incubator for 3 or 4 weeks or more that determines the sexes. I never wanted to play around with my developing eggs (the babies were too rare and valuable in the late 90's and early 2000's), so did not experiment with temps once the eggs were placed INTO the incubators.

I already had good knowledge of TSD results with the incubation temps I was using from hatching several hundred Indian and Sri Lankan Stars in the 90's and into the early 2000's so figured I would use those same incubation temps with the platynota and found it very successful in my collection. Just yesterday I learned the sexes of two of the babies which I hatched in 2004 and sold as 6 week olds. Both turned out to be the expected sexes. One of them went to San Diego Zoo. It was incubated at 85F and is a full grown male today. The other went to my good friend, Charlie Innis. It was incubated at 89F and is an egg laying female today.

As an aside, my earliest platynota eggs which I incubated without any cooling period just as I did with the other two types of Stars did not hatch and showed no blood vessels, etc. Therefore, my first year's eggs were pretty much wasted and I didn't want to screw up anything else going forward. I just wanted to produce viable babies.

 

[Tom]

@Tom My diapause for platynota was to place the eggs in totally dry vermiculite and place the eggs in a cool area for 4 weeks, then place them into my incubators. When I lived in CT, the cool area was my root cellar whose temperature ranged from about 54F in the dead of winter to 64 or 65 in the heat of summer, so it was not controlled cooling. I hibernated my snakes in the same root cellar and they did great. When I moved to GA, I had to make adjustments since it is really hot here in summer. I put the eggs into my basement in the winter where the temp was around 65F. In the summer, I put them in a closet a room with A/C which kept them about 68-72. Again, not a very controlled cooling period.

I personally feel that the cooling period temperatures do not affect the sex of the babies. I believe it is the temp of the embryo AFTER it has begun to develop in the incubator for 3 or 4 weeks or more that determines the sexes. I never wanted to play around with my developing eggs (the babies were too rare and valuable in the late 90's and early 2000's), so did not experiment with temps once the eggs were placed INTO the incubators.

I already had good knowledge of TSD results with the incubation temps I was using from hatching several hundred Indian and Sri Lankan Stars in the 90's and into the early 2000's so figured I would use those same incubation temps with the platynota and found it very successful in my collection. Just yesterday I learned the sexes of two of the babies which I hatched in 2004 and sold as 6 week olds. Both turned out to be the expected sexes. One of them went to San Diego Zoo. It was incubated at 85F and is a full grown male today. The other went to my good friend, Charlie Innis. It was incubated at 89F and is an egg laying female today.

As an aside, my earliest platynota eggs which I incubated without any cooling period just as I did with the other two types of Stars did not hatch and showed no blood vessels, etc. Therefore, my first year's eggs were pretty much wasted and I didn't want to screw up anything else going forward. I just wanted to produce viable babies.

Thank you for each and every bit of that. Much appreciated.

 

[Maddoggy]

@Tom My diapause for platynota was to place the eggs in totally dry vermiculite and place the eggs in a cool area for 4 weeks, then place them into my incubators. When I lived in CT, the cool area was my root cellar whose temperature ranged from about 54F in the dead of winter to 64 or 65 in the heat of summer, so it was not controlled cooling. I hibernated my snakes in the same root cellar and they did great. When I moved to GA, I had to make adjustments since it is really hot here in summer. I put the eggs into my basement in the winter where the temp was around 65F. In the summer, I put them in a closet a room with A/C which kept them about 68-72. Again, not a very controlled cooling period.

I personally feel that the cooling period temperatures do not affect the sex of the babies. I believe it is the temp of the embryo AFTER it has begun to develop in the incubator for 3 or 4 weeks or more that determines the sexes. I never wanted to play around with my developing eggs (the babies were too rare and valuable in the late 90's and early 2000's), so did not experiment with temps once the eggs were placed INTO the incubators.

I already had good knowledge of TSD results with the incubation temps I was using from hatching several hundred Indian and Sri Lankan Stars in the 90's and into the early 2000's so figured I would use those same incubation temps with the platynota and found it very successful in my collection. Just yesterday I learned the sexes of two of the babies which I hatched in 2004 and sold as 6 week olds. Both turned out to be the expected sexes. One of them went to San Diego Zoo. It was incubated at 85F and is a full grown male today. The other went to my good friend, Charlie Innis. It was incubated at 89F and is an egg laying female today.

As an aside, my earliest platynota eggs which I incubated without any cooling period just as I did with the other two types of Stars did not hatch and showed no blood vessels, etc. Therefore, my first year's eggs were pretty much wasted and I didn't want to screw up anything else going forward. I just wanted to produce viable babies.

 

[Maddoggy]

Wow ! Thanks for the explanation