Weaning?

[Mochelem]

In the care sheet above it says that baby asf's should be weaned by 1 month of age, what does this mean? I thought the mother weans them, the way its worded above makes it seem like I should do somthing?

[Royal Tartan]

just means that they can be removed from the mother , lets mom deal with the next litter , which will probs have been birthed by the time last is ready to wean , if that makes any sense .

ASFs are breeding conveyer belts almost !!

[Mike Cavanaugh]

The answer to this is going to vary by keeper. I have my breeders set up in 10 gallon glass tanks. they are set up in 1.4 ratios. As soon as the babies eyes are all the way open, I immediately pull the babies out of that tank. By this time they are capable of eating and drinking on their own. From what I have seen, usually a mom will naturaly wean around 4 to 5 weeks old... but sometimes the baby will continue to nurse much longer than that, and that means less milk for the tiny babies who really need it.

I pull the babies as soon as their eyes are all the way open because right about that time the mom is about to have another round of babies. If kept in longer then that, it definately gets over crouded, and over crouded is a bad thing! If they feel over crouded, they will cull babies to lessen the population... I believe it also has an impact somehow on the number of babies delivered in the next batch (no scientific data on this one, just personal observation) I also have never lost a baby that I weined at this age..... NEVER!

Some breeders who use larger tanks don't pull the babies at all. ASF's have a good family structure so often times this does work with the older children helping to take care of the babies.

However, the down side to doing this is that once the male babies reach sexual maturity, the adult male will sometimes fight them for breeding rights. The adult male will also get his daughters pregnant, and the younger males will get their moms and sisters pregnant.

I have a few different lines (completely unrelated colonies) and I keep close track of breeders and their age. I want to know who is making who pregnant, so for me the more structured aproach works... compared to the free-for-all that happens with multiple generations kept together.

[mooingtricycle]

This is a good thread, i just had my first litter from my Female, and another on the way from the second female. Itll be interesting to see how quickly they grow up, and how quickly the females have second litters. ( pickle sure wont mind! heck, he even helps with his fatherly duties of guarding the nest!)

1.2 in a 10G is what im working with right now, though it would have been more if i had gotten the correct sexes when i bought them. They were young though, and the person selling to me just quickly glanced, so two more ended up as males * ah well * . I dont want to have a billion ASFs but i do want to have enough to feed my snakes. ( 17 ) So i think two to three groups of 1.3 or 1.2 should do it with the size of these litters at least. ( and the rate at which they reproduce... dang... LOL)

Whatchya think?, for those who have had these guys for awhile. Think those numbers will work out well for my smaller collection?

[Mike Cavanaugh]

This is a good thread, i just had my first litter from my Female, and another on the way from the second female. Itll be interesting to see how quickly they grow up, and how quickly the females have second litters. ( pickle sure wont mind! heck, he even helps with his fatherly duties of guarding the nest!)

1.2 in a 10G is what im working with right now, though it would have been more if i had gotten the correct sexes when i bought them. They were young though, and the person selling to me just quickly glanced, so two more ended up as males * ah well * . I dont want to have a billion ASFs but i do want to have enough to feed my snakes. ( 17 ) So i think two to three groups of 1.3 or 1.2 should do it with the size of these litters at least. ( and the rate at which they reproduce... dang... LOL)

Whatchya think?, for those who have had these guys for awhile. Think those numbers will work out well for my smaller collection?

depends on your snakes, and how much they eat. depending on the snake, big girls can eat 2 or 3 ASF's a week! make sure you figure that into your calculations. Depending on this, I would say you would need at least three 1.4 groups or more. Of course I am just guessing here as I know nothing about your collection.

Mike

[Royal Tartan]

you're female/s will more than likely be pregnant already within days of birthing .....there is no stopping these dudes

the ONLY thing that irks me is that they take a wee while to get to a decent prey size . with having say three females then you are looking at potentially say 30 plus babies every month !!!! thats a lotta chow

in my colony , I only let the females have four ( max ) litters , they will then be , err retired , so to speak

so as to your Q regarding numbers v snakes , kinda depends on ( IMO) how many ya wanna fed per snake , size of ASF etc .

I have two non related groups , 2 .3 and by this months end there will be 60 plus young uns . It just seems four months waiting to get to decent weight is a killer . Then again if I was gonna be prey food , I would DEFF take my time growing

[TekWarren]

I also pull litters sooner than later. They will nurse longer than they need to if left with the mothers. Once their eyes are fully open and I notice them being fully alert, eating the rodent block, and attempting to drink water I move them to what we call the "weener" tub LOL.

[littleindiangirl]

Yup, I pull them out before mom has her next litter. Around 18-21 days of age.