Hibernation, do you bother?

[morg]

I know that some people hibernate their newts-sals ever year to stimulate breeding, while others never bother with hibernation relying instead on giving the animals the correct photoperiod.
I am interested to hear what users of this forum do.
Do you find that your newts-salamanders breed ok without hibernation.
Do you always use hibernation, or only hibernate certain species?

 

[ralf]

What I do is "cool down" most of my temperate zone animals (Cynops, Triturus, Taricha) in sort of a wintergarden during fall and winter. Temperatures go as low as 3 deg. C.. I keep the animals aquatic in tanks with lots of hardy vegetation (e.g. Egeria or Java moss with cork bark islands). This wont work with all Triturus species though. I even feed carefully at low temps. Breeding success has increased since I do this regularly.
I don't do this for Tylototriton verrucosus (obviously), Pleurodeles, Paramesotriton and Cynops ensicauda. For the latter two, slight temperature variations (decrease during the colder period of the year) seem to be sufficient to induce courtship and even reproduction (temps going down to 14 deg. C. during winter).
I've heard of people breeding temperate zone caudates who supposedly don't do anything. When "interrogated" thoroughly though, slight temperature variations have also to be assumed for these setups. However, some sort of domestication effects in animals being kept and bred in captivity for generations have also to be considered (loss of fixed reproduction periods).
Apart from hibernation and photoperiod I experienced that employment of high energy feeds (e.g. pelleted trout feed, white worms) after periods of regular feeding at low levels seems to favor or even improve courtship and reproduction.

Ralf

 

[nate]

Every species I have bred I did not hibernate. Every time I have tried hibernation, it did not work and I have actually lost a couple animals in the process so I'm very skeptical of it at this point. I think for the vast majority of pet species out there, only a "cool down" is required as Ralf explains. I do this by leaving a window cracked in winter, which can cool by salamander room down to 3-10C for 1-3 months.

For things like T. verrucosus and P. waltl, I've heard of people simply doing water changes or flooding the tank quickly to induce breeding with no real temperature variations.