[Cazador]

Hey Hans,
I want to clarify something I said above. I recommended 16 hours of light and 8 hours of darkness and somewhat elevated temperatures to "wake your snakes up." I noticed that you have two species from the Texas area and one from Oregon. Typical photoperiods for Texas on 1 May are about 13.5 hours of light and 10.5 hours of darkness. Around summer solstice (21 June), the photoperiod is about 14 hours of light and 10 hours of darkness.

In Oregon, typical light:dark cycles on 1 May are 14:10 hours, and they reach 15:9 hours by summer solstice. If you're not comfortable giving them a bit more daylight than normal, then bump it down to the photoperiods I just mentioned. My first recommendation (16L:8D) was sort of a "generalized" photoperiod that laboratories sometimes work with to simulate spring/summer conditions. Some folks even recommend keeping snakes on a photoperiod of 12L:12D year around, but I don't consider this to be natural at all.

The transfer to new surroundings as they were coming out of brumation may be a fairly significant factor as well. Make sure they have plenty of good hiding places to help them feel more comfortable, and you should also try presenting food to them at different times of the day/night. Then walk away. Hope this helps,
Rick