Reptile & Amphibian Forums

Frank
Over time on the forum I have heard bits and pieces of your theories on the reproductive cycle of kingsnakes, but I have never heard the whole thing in its entirety. So maybe its time???

I have heard you mention an 11 month breeding cycle. What conditions did you use to achieve this? Did you control lighting or was natural daylight cycles available? (My snake room has a large window and in the absense of any other changing environmental conditions, the light cycle seems to keep all my snakes on a 12 month cycle.) How did you ensure males and females were ready at the same time of year? Was this with double clutching or did females only ovulate once?

As far as brumation... I know that especially for l.g.californiae and other southwest species you don't feel brumation is necesary. Have you experimented with this, or is it just personal preference? If so what were the numbers like when comparing brumation to none?

Also, I have heard you mention that you believe it is more stressful for a female to absorb unfertilized ova then it is to lay a clutch. Why do you think that is the case? Does this mean that you never give your females a year off?

And on a separate note, every time you post a pic it blows me away. I know you have some more sweet ones... how about that reverse morse code guy you talked about a few weeks ago?

cheers
zach

First let me clarify. When I report something that happened a long time ago, or even recently, its not theory. Theory is thoughts that are not proven. Relating an observations or results is not theory, even if you do not understand it.

Consider, we kept Cal kings and several other kings at 84F and constant lite, 24/7, 365 and they bred every 11 months. We do this for many many years. That sir is history as it happened.

We did that from the mid sixties, to the mid seventies. Then we went in the direction of hibernation. Of course, we went extreme. We did that for some period, I guess until the mid eighties, then I stopped hibernating reptiles and learned to give reptiles choices and let them do what they want. Consider, I did that with all kinds of reptiles and experienced many world firsts in breeding.

The point is, theres a bizillion ways to breed reptiles, in all of them is more about making decisions. Of course colubrids are about the simplest and if you follow an A, B, C, type caresheet, of course anyone can breed colubrids.

Consider, breeding reptiles was not a goal, but a result.

The good news is, I kinda got my scanner to scan slides so I will be posting some kingsnake pics from the 60's on. I have already uploaded a few. Guess what? we had some nice kings back them. Cheers

I, for one, am dying to see those old shots!!

this is going to be a treat Frank.i have a book with a pic of a banana that is credited to you.i wish i had a book with some of the first years stories about what you were thinking and what your expectations were those first years.did you see the banana line coming or did it just peep out and grab you.did you ever pass something on to others and kick yourself in the but later?you have a lot of people who look up to what you and others did in the 60s and 70s.well i'm stoked
jason

Frank I'm curious about the banana kings too. The first I heard of these was by Steve Osbourne. My friend was a couple years behind Steve and almost had them at 95% yellow when Steve started sending out his full color price lists. I remember one year they both had 95% yellows on their tables at a reptile show. Steve was asking and getting $300 ea. My friend had a couple just as good and was asking $125. Nobody bought them and towards the end of the show my friend lowered his price to $75 ea. Still nobody bought them. At the very end of the show he wholesaled them to Steve for $125 and Steve said he could get $250 - 275 ea. for them. Shows what good marketing can do.
Where you producing these before Steve? Did Steve get his from you or where they independent lines?

I was working on many lines of Cal kings patterns(morphs and locals) When I got the albino strain. I move in that direction. I gave many of my normal kings to a real good friend. I then produced all the same patterns and morphs with the albino strain

My friend, John, produced the first 90% percent lemon yellow kings. He produced them from the hi yellow lines I gave him. At the same time I produce the first 90% white(deserts) that were het for albino.

I sold lots and lots of snakes to Steve. But I did not sell him the Yellow line, I set up a meeting with Steve and John and He bought all that John would excess. Of course Steve then ran with it. My friend is not a full on breeder. He would work on something for a few years then do something else. Hes actually a full on fishermen.

John and I did not of hunting and had some very good luck, from Ariz. To texas, to mexico. And I took his son to Australia just for kicks. We still see eachother now and then. Cheers

Bring on the blast from the past, Frank! Can't wait to see some of those awesome snakes and habitat shots!
Todd Hughes

Posted by: FR at Thu Mar 2 18:33:57 2006 [ Report Abuse ] [ Email Message ]

First let me clarify. When I report something that happened a long time ago, or even recently, its not theory. Theory is thoughts that are not proven. Relating an observations or results is not theory, even if you do not understand it.

Consider, we kept Cal kings and several other kings at 84F and constant lite, 24/7, 365 and they bred every 11 months. We do this for many many years. That sir is history as it happened.

We did that from the mid sixties, to the mid seventies. Then we went in the direction of hibernation. Of course, we went extreme. We did that for some period, I guess until the mid eighties, then I stopped hibernating reptiles and learned to give reptiles choices and let them do what they want. Consider, I did that with all kinds of reptiles and experienced many world firsts in breeding.

The point is, theres a bizillion ways to breed reptiles, in all of them is more about making decisions. Of course colubrids are about the simplest and if you follow an A, B, C, type caresheet, of course anyone can breed colubrids.

Consider, breeding reptiles was not a goal, but a result.

The good news is, I kinda got my scanner to scan slides so I will be posting some kingsnake pics from the 60's on. I have already uploaded a few. Guess what? we had some nice kings back them. Cheers

Did they breed them in the numbers that they breed them now with that method ?
I ask because I have some old books in my collection . by old I mean 70s . It seems that most of the snakes even colubrids bred now are listed as not bred in captivity.
The CA king is listed as being bred in captivity but it seems they found it "not easy" to do . They dont give any breeding instructions other than saying they are cannibals so watch them closely.

Most books are normally decades out of date. That is true now, as it was then.

For instance, I breed lots of monitor species, yet the books are written by people who refuse to even come and look. Its sad, I wonder if all information is like that?

By the mid late seventies, most known colubrids were bred. Heck, I found some pics of greenrats hatching. The date on the slides is, 1974.(i bred them) Cool

I see thanks for the info. I think my particular book which is the first Encyclopedia of Reptiles might have been particularly outdated even for its time.

I have other books but they just dont mention breeding at all .

The thing is, that I am a 21 year old (hahaha stop laughing) student living in a tiny apartment and I don't have enough snakes, enough space, or enough resources to try all of the different variables that I am curious about. So when there is someone like you who has been going through the same trial and error proccess for 40 years I can't help but want to pick your brain a little! I understand that there are a bazillion ways to do anything with these guys but with your experiance I figure you probobly know a few of the better ones. Do you keep any kings anymore? If not could you give us some more details about how you would do things today?
Thanks
Zach

When you kept your calkings at 84 was the whole cage 84 both day and night? Or was there some day/night fluctuation in at least part of the cage due to ambiant temps?
I bred Children's Pythons with a constant 90 belly heat but there was fluctuation down to 65 some nights in the winter due to ambiant room temps.
Before that I fluctuated the heat manually everyday in the winter to make the belly heat day=82 night=70 and got eggs every 12 months for 4 years. The 5th year was when I left the heat tape 90 day and night and yes they did produce eggs 1 month earlier that year. The following year I sold them so I could just work with colubrids.

PS looking forward very much to your pics of snakes from the 60's and 70's. Could you post some mexicana and if you do could you say if they were wild caught or captive born? I wonder how much the appearance of our current captive stock has deviated from the wild stock.