Reptile & Amphibian Forums

i don't have any bulls, but after seeing the egg pics i was just sitting here thinking about bullsnake egg clutches. which lay larger clutches (id est, more eggs): bulls in the northern range or bulls in the southern portion? -or is there no diffrence across the range.
daveb

Thats a great question Dave, and one I have wondered myself. I know there can be significant differences in some species, corn snakes for example. The only experience I have in reproducing bullsnakes is with those from a fairly northern lattitude, Kankakee. My average output per clutch is nine. I would be interested in hearing from others on this.

Phil

This is a neat topic. Out of bull clutches last year, I had two clutches of 10 and one of 20. All of these were het whitesides with a red bull parent. The one that laid 20 was of Crumbly heritage of which to my understanding is of Texas heritage. The other two were of Texas heritage also though not related to the Crumbly line. Let's see how many people can chime in on this with their bull breedings and we should be able to get a decent comparisons! Excellent topic!

Jeremy

i mostly keep the northern strains of p.m.sayi which do not get as large as say, some of the texas monsters. that said, my bulls usually lay modest clutches in comparison to their more southerly cousins from what i've seen, maybe 10/12 eggs at best. but here's an older pic of a real big [hywy 277] texas girl who's gonna go this season if she doesn't kill him first! she is satanic to say the least & very, very difficult to please. she looks like she could probably throw about 20 eggs. time wil tell.......

Good point Dan. Something that I forgot to mention was that the eggs and babies out of the clutches with 10 each, were much larger than the clutch with 20. It would be interesting to know if northern babies tend to hatch out larger than their southern counterparts. Possibly a way to compensate for a shorter time period for growth between hatching and winter? There are more food options for larger babies. Just a thought. Take care!

Jeremy