Reptile & Amphibian Forums

I'm bringing my Cal. Kings out of cool down this week. Anyone else out there waking up soon?

Mike

I just started cooling some of my 2007's that are now big enough to breed.

I will wait a couple weeks, that is all they usually need. Florida only has a couple cool snaps during the winter and that seems to be enough for Florida kings.

high red Florida king -:

A couple of pairs of my mole kings are breeding now but not all..VA are tearing it up.
Some FL kings showed interest, others.. not so much.
Scarlet kings are early as are prairies...
It has been a cooler than normal winter here in central FL. Dry as hell too.
Good luck w/yours.
:Mark
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Surrender Dorothy!

crimsonking.piczo.com/

Appreciate the luck. Might as well have been at the South Pole here in Ohio this winter.

Mike

Mark, how many pairs of moles you got going this year? 1 pair of thayeri goin' at it, 2 pairs locality splendida, 1 with a hypo male, 1 pair locale holbrooki, 1 pair ww specks, 1 pair high white cal kings. The Mexican bairdi are already gravid, and hoping for the striped meahlmorrims soon. Bulls and gophers not into it yet.
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Todd Hughes

About 6 pairings of FL moles, 2 VA pairs, 2 GA pairs, 1 AL pair (maybe), and 1 SFMK pair...so far..

:Mark
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Surrender Dorothy!

crimsonking.piczo.com/

Wow your a ways north of me and i just started feeding brood stock yesterday it has been a longer than normal winter ,good luck this year

I woke mine up about 10 days ago. Just about everything has been very eager to eat.

I've put a few pairs together, and while most males showed interest (some very aggressively), only one pair successfully bred. It's still early though... none of the females have shed yet.

Within the past two weeks I have woken up my pair of Brooks Kings. This will be the first year of breeding Kingsnakes since 1989! And these will be my first Brooks. I had been holding out to find a gorgeous female and found one last summer. So now that they've been hibernated we should be in good shape to go. The female has eaten 2 mice so far, and the male has eaten 7 large mice. He is about 4 feet long and is CB 2001, the female is CB 2005 and about 3 feet in length right now. I need to get some more mice in her before I attempt to breed her. She also hasn't done her first spring shed yet but is starting to discolor a bit, as is the male.

Sorry for rambling on, but it's just so exciting!

Here is a photo of each of them. The one on the dried palm fronds is the male.

Happy Breeding!
Chris

Well good luck. Let us know how it turns out.

Mike

Will do. Good luck with your season also.

Chris

That male of yours reminds me of the old canal stock in s. Florida.

Thanks Rainer! That's good to hear. I think he originally came from Brandon Osborne stock, and the person I purchased him from in 2003 said he was of Brooks Canal Stock. I have all the old e-mails printed out and have been trying to locate them to verify this info.

I will post another photo after he sheds, maybe against a better backdrop it would show his colors.

What do you think of the female? Any ideas on her background? I know it's impossible to tell for sure. The only information I have is that she was bred by a guy in Prescott Arizona. I would sure love more information if anyone knows! I bought her from Sun Dial reptiles here in Albuquerque, and he said that she was sold to him as a hypo het.

Rainer, do you by chance still breed normal, non-het Brooks? I don't see them on your website. I would be interested in getting more....

Take care,
Chris Anderson

A lot of het hypos are still pure "canal" stock brooks. Mine are from the Krysko line and all look like authentic brooks. Actually, they look a little nicer than most of the wild-caught brooks I've found/seen in Dade County. Unless you're dead set on only producing normals, there really isn't any other advantage to having non-hets.

FYI,"Brooks Canal" can be any of a series of canals in South Dade depending on who you ask.

I have kept most of my PB, axanthics and hypos as locality specific animals. the problem today with hypos and such you don't know if someone outcrossed them to another Florida king or morph like lavender and whitesided. The morphs that came directly from there are the PB, hypo and New England axanthics.

My triple het PB x Hypo x axanthics are all early locality stock and the hets came out looking just like the old canal stock. I use the word "early" because some of those canal "brooksi" have not been found in 10-15 years.

Me and a friend found 2 in one morning.

Photos borrowed from him:

Wow, those are sweet. That second one has some deep colors, huh? How big were they?

Is anyone studying what is affecting the kingsnakes and causing them to die off? I saw these on Daniel Parker's website and he mentioned some sort of disease.

The company I work for is based out of Miramar, and I usually get down there 1 - 2 times a year. I've been hoping to find some of these, but now I know my chances are oh so slim... Is there still enough habitat for these? I suppose these snakes no longer survive in the burgeoning metro area which continuously invades the wetlands. Or do the exist along the miles of canals within the developments?

I did have a killer night down there in September! Best road cruising night of my life! I wish I had a camera so I could do a proper post!

It was me and Daniel who found those. The first pic, a male, was around 4-4.5 feet long, but deathly skinny. The second, a female, was about 38", and yeah, she had some good color.

No one is studying whats going on with the kings as far as I know. They've disappeared all over Florida. We've been calling it kingsnake disease, but it isn't like we know these snakes to have any specific pathogen. They're just skinny, heavily parasitized, and unhealthy.

You won't find any kings in the metro area... or you would at least be very lucky to. They can still be found on the western edges of the cities where they border large tracts of swamp. Most of them really aren't that pretty... so even if you find a king, they're usually dirt ugly. Certain pockets do produce higher percentages of nice colored kings, though.

Your best bet to see a brooks king is in the Everglades National Park. People see them occasionally road cruising, and out in the open walking on trails. If you had a killer night road cruising down there, do it again.

Those are some awesome looking babies Rainer! I am glad to hear that the morphs you mention for the most part come from locality animals. There definitely can be a lot of variation and genes at work. I have nothing against the hypos, some I think are exceptionally pretty, and the Axanthic are knockouts! I think the PB's have a unique, deep coloration that is very appealing. My issue is that I am trying to get back the kind of kingsnake I had back in the mid 80's. It was a monster at over 6' (could be a bit of a fish story but I remember it hanging off my brother's upper arm and still have a little length on the ground). It had to be as thick as a coke can also. This animal had an awful attitude and refused to eat. I ended up giving it away after a month or so hoping that another, more experienced keeper would luck out with it. Marla Isaac, if you are still out there do you remember what happened to this snake? The snake looks like one that Keith Hillson has or used to have. I haven't seen him on these forums in ages... Anyhow it looked like the snake at this link:

King of Kings

So, what are the chances of getting a snake like that? Is it a pipe dream? How would I pick it out of a clutch? It probably sounds crazy, I know.

If I ever find the one photo I had of this snake I will post it so everyone can see, this snake was stunning!

Take care all,
Chris

You want a sulfur!

Aren't the sulfurs a derivitave of a Hillsborough County line? And not quite so speckly? Or am I mistaken. The sulfurs I recall seeing were more blotchy in appearance than the faded pattern of the Dade's. Or am I mistaken?

Yep, thats where they are from. The lightest colored kings in Florida actually came from Hillsborough County. They do generally have a more typical high-contrast pattern of a Florida king, but so does the snake Hillson had. Some are blotched looking, but some look just like brooks as far as pattern goes, just with more color.

I've got a big female brooks that looks a lot like Hillson's snake, with less yellow on the head.

Ahh... Good to know. So the snake I am reminiscing over could've actually come from Hillsborough county. That might explain the huge size also, right? From all that i've read on these forums the South Florida kings don't normally attain the largest size, that snakes from further north achieve. What is the biggest you've seen? I'd love to see pics too.

Thanks for all the info, I really do appreciate it.

-Chris

That snake is still probably a Dade County animal, though some from Hillsborough and other areas did look like that. I know of some areas in South Dade that are supposed to produce bright yellow brooks like that. I've got a king from there, but it's a very dark colorless king.

South Florida kings can get big. Like mentioned earlier, I caught a 4.5' king down there in December. I've heard of 5 and 6 foot brooks being found... food is scarce in the Glades, so if they are smaller, thats why.

I've seen captive bred brooks that were over 6 feet long. I saw some at Len Krysko's place a few years back. I held them so their heads were about eye level with me, and their tails were coiled on the floor! That said, having caught kings around Tampa, Clearwater, and Levy County, wild Central Florida kings seem to average bigger. In captivity there's probably no difference.

Do you have any photos of those big ones Foxturtle? I would love to see them. I will see if I can get my young snakes up to 5 feet, that would be nice!

I wish I had the experience of hunting down there in the good ole days. And I was trying to get to Florida for college too, ended up in New Mexico instead. Plenty of good snake hunting here though too. We have gorgeous splendidas also!

Take care,
Chris

I don't have any pictures of the really big ones Krysko had. The sulfur I posted for you is about 5'. He's still growing... he was only about 4' back when I got him in October 2007, so he was only about 4' when that picture was taken. He's gonna be a monster.

I got my brooks male (pictured here) at the same time and he was just as long, but hasn't grown much at all since.

Hey Foxturtle,

When I checked your reply from work showing the sulfur king I wasn't able to see the photo. That is a stunning looking king, and I think you're right... I'll need to get one of those

Do you breed these? Are they all so pretty?

Thanks again,
Chris

The only Sulfurs I'm breeding this year will be half-breeds from that above male. I'm breeding him to a normal looking wild-caught Hillsborough female, and a lavender albino female. I bred him to the lavender female last year, and the offspring were nice, but not as nice as the real thing. I think breeding him to the Hillsborough female will produce nicer offspring.

Oh man that is a nice animal in that picture you posted a link to. Before the hypo came along I had some that rivaled that.

After the hypo I along with everyone else ditched their light colored brooks projects. All of a sudden they were worthless to work with when you compare the hypo. The hypo is what everyone wanted as it was called the "Ultimate" brooks king.

Things that are suddenly unpopular have a way of coming back around in a few years.

True albino Snow from the T negative albino gene:

Since the genetics still exist they must still sporadically pop up in the hets though, right? I sure would love to get my hands on some. Maybe I will luck out in my breeding and one will be hatched. As hatchlings were those that would be bright yellow have a certain look to them, or were they identical to all the others? If I can't tell I shall have to keep all the babies and grow them up for a while till I am confident of how they are trending. [Geez]!