Who decides its breeding season?

I'm not really looking at getting into breeding right now but I have a question about "breeding season" and what happens when those little snakey brains start to think of getting their lock on. :banana:

What's always mystified me is why captive breeding programs follow the seasons. How does the snake know what season it is if it spends all its time indoors?

Partly, I'm just curious about the whole thing but I'm also wondering what to expect from my snakes. They do get a bit of natural light but, for the most part, their environment is very stable throughout the year. Should I expect behavior changes?

On a related note, I've had an adult JCP for about 6 months now and he's shed twice. As far as his age goes, one person told me he's 3 and one told me he's 8 (yrs). I believe it's male but I haven't seen anything resembling sperm plugs. I haven't been able to re-contact his previous owner so who knows. Should I be seeing those little dried wood-glue looking things around the place?

Some people lower temperatures a bit. Others don't (myself included.) Mine are in a naturally-lit room and yes, the days are getting shorter now.. I figure that this can be their cue to breed, and am starting to pair them up now. This worked for me last year.

Don't forget, also, that these animals have been around for over a million years and their internal clock is almost as good as the nuclear clock at NITS.

Lately there has been some discussion that barometric pressure plays a big part in the BP breeding cycle.

In their natural habitat, equatorial africa, there is very little difference in light cycle or temperatures between summer and winter. However, winter is the rainy season, and along with the rain comes a lower average barometric pressure than during the summer. In fact, it's the lower barometric pressure that draws the rains to the region in winter, and the higher pressure pushes them away in the summer.

So, that's my theory.

It's supported somewhat that people in the northern part of the country, where the weather is already shifting significantly, are already getting successful locks. While people in the southern part of the country, at least from the reports I've seen, are having a harder go of it, and their weather is still pretty nice.

In captivity they can be bred at any time of year and produce offspring. In the wild there's a natural breeding season that they follow... some breeders choose to follow the natural breeding season, some go earlier or later, sometimes waiting for those borderline females to get up to a good breeding weight.

Yeah, I don't see any problems with people breeding them at anytime of year they deem appropriate. We already keep them in relatively unnatural settings and feed them unnatural types of prey usually. As long as things are planned and someone is not just tossing Mr. Snakey in with Mrs. Snakey without researching.. :)

Thanks for the replies! Very interesting stuff.

For now, I consider myself simply a pet owner. If I was to try breeding it would most likely be a one or two-off thing just for the joy of the experience and not really for business' sake.