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Can anyone give me some info on South Georgia Eastern Kings as far as typical size, temperment, ease of feeding on FT rodents, etc. If you can offer some comparisons to other localities of Eastern Kings that would be great as would a pic or two.

thanks

Rob Haneisen

S. Georgias differ very little if at all in the areas of feeding, temperament, maintenance, etc., from any other L.g. getula.

Where they do differ is in size, pattern and color.These kings can grow to really enormous length in a relatively short time period, reaching lengths to rival even the largest brooksi. One of my males is an '06 hatch (from Will Still), and is already just a hair under six feet! They vary quite a bit in color, with the hatchlings often sporting wide bands of red/orange coloration. What is really interesting is that, unlike most easterns, they sometimes keep a lot of this color into adulthood-one of my breeder females still has orange bands even though she just dropped her second clutch of eggs!

Below are a couple representative pics....

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Brad Chambers
WWW.HCU-TX.ORG

The Avalanche has already started-it is too late for the pebbles to vote....

Most South Georgia kings look nothing like the ones pictured. Most have cream colored bands about 2 scales wide, and pretty average looking. The Kevin Enge line came from exceptional wild caught South Georgia kings, then Will Still selectively bred them for red/orange.

If you look at the Eastern King resource site, several wild-caught S. GA look a lot like those above. Of course the animals have been selectively bred since their collection many years ago. The animals pictured above, by the way, are from Hilson lines, not Will...
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Brad Chambers
WWW.HCU-TX.ORG

The Avalanche has already started-it is too late for the pebbles to vote....

Where do you think Keith got his from?

I see a lot of Echols X Tift County kings on his site that look like that, but thats the same Kevin Enge/Will Still line that's popular. Even the founder adults to that line don't look nearly as good as what they've produced.

Brad:

Thanks for the response. Great pics. I love the banding and color in the first pic - and overall Easterns are a great looking non-morph. Does Will Still have a Web site? Do you find that hatchlings are sometimes difficult to start on frozen rodents? I breed Hondurans and black milks and they tend to eat frozen right away.

thanks,

Rob

Actually, while I have found some of my S. Carolina easterns have been difficult to start on pinks, the S. GA animals are usually easy starters on live pinks, and go on frozen very quickly after that....I don't know whether Will still has his website.
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Brad Chambers
WWW.HCU-TX.ORG

The Avalanche has already started-it is too late for the pebbles to vote....

Top two pics are very nice animals. I too have a pair of these that were purchaced from Carsten Zoldy in NC. He e-mailed me pics of his breeding pair. The adults were almost as bright as the yearlings! Mine eat f/t with gusto! Always have. They do grow quickly also. Once you get them over the feeding response they are mellow. Rich

I have seen carston's (ZEE) animals in person and they are spectacular. I also got to see his huge breeder male before it passed, it was a giant among chain kings!
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Todd Hughes

Other than the the Pungo Ridge line (Va Beach VA) these are my favorite local of eastern. Line bred or not they are quite distinctive and attractive animals. Well done to all involved in getting the project off the ground.
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“Nothing is at last sacred but the integrity of your own mind.” Emmerson

First, if you want info. on s. Georgia Kingsnakes, then Kevin Enge is the source...period, end of story. Will Still and Kevin have borrowed snakes to produce unique lines, but when it comes to breeding and south Georiga/extreme north Florida Kings, that's Kevin's arena - he's been at it specifically for over 20 years. I know him, and have been fortunate enough to visit his place on a number of ocassions (I'm only an hour away) - he's got kings of all sorts and sizes. It's a kingsnake fanatic's wet dream, really. Thanks to Kevin, I have several breeding pairs that are just mind blowing and can rival or surpass any Eastern in size or pattern, depending on what turns your crank.

As far as south Georgia/north Florida, you have to be more specific. The Kings from around Brunswick will vary a great deal from those over in Randolph or Grady, County (NW of Tallahassee and toward the Alabama state line). The biggest Eastern Kings are Kevin's Bumblebee strain that originated from a Tifton "area" kingsnake. There is a waiting list for these snakes, and I've got a couple already. I have an '07 FEMALE that is touching 40" this month, and she's not even 2 years, and the girth is unreal. He has his Mosaic Type I & IIs, his "Tiger" kings, his "Bumblebee" kings, etc.

BTW, The Eastern Kingsnake website is great, but there are alot of inaccuracies in the photos (some posted twice with different info, etc.) so take it with a grain of salt.

I love Eastern Kings, period. So there are no "dogs" as far as I'm concerned anway!!
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Peace.

-John

post some pictures!

BTW, The Eastern Kingsnake website is great, but there are alot of inaccuracies in the photos (some posted twice with different info, etc.) so take it with a grain of salt.

well look who runs it now, hahaha nuff said. when keith was in charge of it it was more accurate.
i met kevin and will at daytona'08, yeah NICE kings,nice guys.
i have w/c edistos and my fem.has the cubed mosaic pattern but that locale doesnt get big like the Ga's do.,,,,,,,,,thomas davis
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Morphs... just like baseball cards BUT ALIVE, how cool is that???

my website www.barmollysplace.com

John,

Peter has given me access to the Eastern Kingsnake site and I'm working on updating what I can. I've mainly been working on the Apalachicola King section and have added over 50 pics in the last month...you may be interested in seeing some of the finds already this year. But I plan on updating the Georgia section here soon. Let me know of any inaccuracies and I'll correct them. I need input from other people to do this since it seems information was lost/changed when the site was resurrected. The AK section has correct info on all photos except for where there is no data listed below certain pictures.

I just think its cool the site is back up!
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“Nothing is at last sacred but the integrity of your own mind.” Emmerson

I agree Tony. It's not perfect but I'm hoping to correct anything on it that needs it.

Brad,

Like Nick said, most GA EKs look nothing like the photos of the pair you posted. In fact, I've never found or even seen a pic of an adult WC GA EK that still had any red. Your female is the result of selective breeding and is not representative at all of the population. Georgia kings do differ in pattern as most have bands that go all the way down the sides with practically no lateral chain pattern but I argue on the size difference. Most GA specimens I find are in the 3-4 foot range. Few have been close to 5 feet. I had a Florids Eastern from Wakulla Co, and an AK from Liberty Co. that were both around 64 inches in length...does that mean they get bigger than other populations? One can't assume that based on a few specimens...nor on a selective bred line of Georgias.

I guess I wasn't clear above, but I DID say "selectively bred" in my post.

Of COURSE you're not likely to see a wc that matches the captive bred animals in color or size. That's what we, as breeders, do, isn't it?
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Brad Chambers
WWW.HCU-TX.ORG

The Avalanche has already started-it is too late for the pebbles to vote....

"Of COURSE you're not likely to see a wc that matches the captive bred animals in color or size. That's what we, as breeders, do, isn't it?"

Not all breeders, luckily.

Come now-can you honestly say that any breeders do NOT choose the animals they consider "prettiest" or "biggest" or "best feeders on mice" to hold back as future breeders? That's selection, and it leads to changes in the original "wild" phenotype. ALL breeders do it, whether they acknowledge it (or are even aware of it) or not...
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Brad Chambers
WWW.HCU-TX.ORG

The Avalanche has already started-it is too late for the pebbles to vote....

Well, I do pick some purties, but I have quite a few kings and some milks that I don't think would interest anyone but true die hard locality fans, lol. Brad, I have soooo many ugly holbrooki that I will never get rid of them, but they are very cool to work with! That said, I do have some nice ones though, and will and have been selectively breeding those, if we choose the mate, it's all selective breeding.

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Todd Hughes

a few more

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Todd Hughes

Todd-love those high white splendida! Is that a Marathon locality animal?
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Brad Chambers
WWW.HCU-TX.ORG

The Avalanche has already started-it is too late for the pebbles to vote....

One of them was, he is no more, sniff! The one on my arm is the dad to ones you got recently, Hebbronville male from Pastor Pat.
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Todd Hughes

Sorry, not all breeders hold back the reddest Eastern Kings or the prettiest. I know it's not the norm but some of us like holding back offspring that actually resemble what the WC parents look like. But you just don't see that here on KS.com.

Let me get this straight-you don't hold back the animals you consider the best/most attractive in a clutch?

Not sure I believe you-but if you're truly being honest then I assume you roll a dice? Maybe use a random number generator? Because any other criteria is applying artificial selection in some form.
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Brad Chambers
WWW.HCU-TX.ORG

The Avalanche has already started-it is too late for the pebbles to vote....

What you consider attractive may not be what I or someone else does. My point is, there are some breeders who hold back what most looks like the parents, what you find naturally in the wild. Holding back any animals is selective breeding. But your initial claim that most GA EKs differ in color just isn't true based on one breeding line.

I think it's interesting to see those wide banded individuals that have come out of that line. But it's not representative of the GA population.

Well, I actually did not claim anything about wild S. GA kings-the original poster was clearly asking about captive animals, since it has been many years since wc were legal. My description applies (I think accurately) to most available captive-bred strains.

Even in the wild appearance is quite variable-some on the E. king site have nice wide bands-at least as wide as my own breeders..
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Brad Chambers
WWW.HCU-TX.ORG

The Avalanche has already started-it is too late for the pebbles to vote....