Reptile & Amphibian Forums

Last night i finally paired up my Florda Kings and right off the bat the male started to chase the female around the cage. I had not really seen this in any of the other snakes i have paired up and the reaction of the female was quite diffrent.

These snakes just came into my possesion and were burmated at 55 to 60 deggrese, also before pairing up i made sure they had both shed, had good solid meals, and full defications. Upon being put together, the female will violently lash her tail around as the male chases her, i have seen little nips they have both delivered to each other, but when the male tries to get real close to her the psyco lashing starts over, they had seemed to calm down this morning but as my lights came on they started at it again.

Is this normal in florda kings, or is this something that i should be worried about?

p.s. Sorry for the horrible spelling

Thanks,
Kris

Your female is just not ready to breed yet... When you see this happening just seperate the pair and try again in a few days.. Eventually she will be ready and all will go right!

~ Mike Russo

I do pretty much the same thing but never quite interpreted it that way.

I've always read the tail waving as a sign that they want to breed and see overt (crazy like discribed) tail waving as generally coming from a young, perhaps first time breeding, female or from a female in responce to a new male. I'm not hugely in agreement with the "socialize your snakes" school of thought but generally agree that pairs with a history seem to have more predictable behavior when put together.

Right now I have a pair of first time Bairds rats together. These are animals that have variously been kept together in a display cage but were seperated for a brumation period. The female is ready and waves her tail like crazy but with an intensity that just freaks the male out! Hope he gets over his shyness before its too late.

Hi Tony, hope all is well..

I 100% agree that "tail waiving" is a great sign when pairing animals for breeding... But, the OP stated "the female will violently lash her tail around as the male chases her" and in my experiance this is not a good sign at all.

This happends here very frequently with my Alterna & i have never once had a successful breeding when the female resists at this level.

Mild tail waiving is good, but when my females violently lash thier tails i seperate them and try again every few days until she is more receptive.

~ Mike Russo