Hi Kerby,

You base your husbandry on you controlling the snakes in a way thats proved successful to you. And there is nothing wrong with that.

What you miss is, the snakes have the ability to make their own decisions. As that is what they do in nature. They work different areas, and achieve the same results. As you mentioned. We are lower then you and have warmer winters, yet in both areas the snakes produce eggs about the same time. And yes, it varies a tab from year to year, but not much.

That variation covers our different locals. Your kings are gravid and laying the same time our kings are gravid and laying.

Decade ago when the protocals for kingsnake husbandry was being developed, there were two/three schools of thought.

One was photoperiod developed by Ernie Wagner. The other was hibernation developed by the Tucson gang, Ron Savage, Brent Martin, Steve Hale, and I, theres one more, dang if I can remember his name.

I was also a member of the third school that is, free choice(very primitive then)

Ernies completely attributed his success and it was massive, on photoperiod. Of note, multiclutching was rare. I practive hibernation and all my snakes double clutched.

As a zoo builder, I move to seattle to work on woodland park zoo, of which Ernie was curator of reptiles.

I drove up in the fall and dropped all my snakes off at Ernies, while I found a house and moved in.

Ernie came to my house and I went to his. What was funny was, he kept his snakes in his basement and it was 55F year a round. But he also used heat strips. If he saw a snake active in the winter he fed it, he said they would feed in the winter, but less often then in the summer, maybe four or five times over winter.(individuals varied)

of course our snakes were kept at 55F in our basement and we did not feed them.

Well the outcome was very funny, I told Ernie was in fact hibernating them and said no. His animals fed in the winter. hmmmmmmmmmmm

Well, I guess it was Ernie that allowed me to see it was more about choices snakes make then telling them they are hibernating now. While in fact, our snakes and his had the same low temps. his had a wider range to pick from IF NEEDED.

Well what resulted was funny, my snakes either produced right off the bat or they were done. his bred over most of the summer until fall.

Like if I have a small female, it may not produce that year, his would grow up then produce in the fall. I like that!

So like the copy cat that is me. I intergraded both methods into one. Let the lows be the same, just allow them to gain heat if needed.

Which makes one wonder why those snakes in cold country gather in the hottest spots they can find. Hillsides facing the entire winter sun. Odd I tell you. Where down here, we get that, but in much lower numbers per site.

About your kingnake observations. Do kings ever come up and out in number??? Of course when temps do not permit, kings are below ground level, in fact, thats where they are the vast majority of their lives, including summer. So you make an analogy using less then 1 or 2 percent of the individuals.

I think I would use the other 98% or 99% to back up my thoughts.

I will say, our kings here lay at the same time yours do there. End of may begining of june. Hmmmmmmmmm odd huh?

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