Reptile & Amphibian Forums

1) can the babies be housed together, or does the very nature of a Kingsnake make this a bad idea?

2) All my babies (5 out, 2 more piping) are black, yet Mom is a Lavender. is there a chance one or two might shed out of the black into a Lav, or is it more likely that they are just "normals"

3) one egg is not piping yet, should I help it along?
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1.0 C/B Brooks
0.1 C/B Lavender Brooks
0.1 C/B Snow Brooks
0.0.1 W/C Scarlet King (RIP)
0.0.1 W/C Eastern Milk
0.1 W/C Yellow Rat
0.0.1 W/C Western Garter
1.0 C/B Black Lab (RIP)
1.0 C/B Min. PoodleXAmer. Eskimo hybrid
1.0 C/B Goofy Cat
1.2 C/B Children
0.1 W/C wife (recently returned to the wild!)

1. Definitely do not house together!

I've had siblings eat each other right after the very 1st shed. (i usually keep those snakes... they grow faster IMO)... baby floridana won't discriminate much when it comes to a good meal

2. I assume "dad" is a normal... No they wont turn lavender... they are all carrying the gene for "lavender"

so if you were to breed a pair of these together, the result would be 1 in every 4 should (in theory) be a lavender.

Alternatively you can get a male lavender or snow... or keep a male from this pairing and breed him back to his mother... many ways to go! Well if you're trying to produce lavenders.

You'll know the lavender when it pips... looks nothing like the normal (This is how i got "stuck"... hatchlig my 1st clutch... now it feels like i got too many!)

~ZF

" can the babies be housed together, or does the very nature of a Kingsnake make this a bad idea?"

As Zenny has also mentioned....a VERY bad idea!

Not only a very "bad" idea, but that is actually the very first GOLDEN RULE of definite DO NOT do's with any getula..LOL!

~Doug
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"a snake in the grass is a GOOD thing"

my website -serpentinespecialties.webs.com

This might turn into a $%1T show. LOL!

..........I know, it certainly has before...LOL!

But nobody experienced can dispute the ingrained, un-honed instict of a hatchling brooks to easily want to decide to kill a sibling.

I know of many people that had brooks march next door and kill and consume litter mates, but especially after they first shed.

After their initial gut-yolk begins to get used up(and sometimes even before), all bets are off!

~Doug
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"a snake in the grass is a GOOD thing"

my website -serpentinespecialties.webs.com

Doug,
You are mistaken. I house all my brooks together year round but never new hatclings after shed. They certainly will eat each other and it is a bad idea to house them when they are striking at every movement around them..

What to do is wait until the snakes are feeding size on hoppers or small mice and then introduce them. That is what i do. I even start them when they are onhoppers and never have a problem with them going after one another.

I just put together 10 hopper size Florida kings together in one cage unit last week. i did this to save cage space. So far no problems with them killing or eating each other. I just am careful with the first few feedings and make sure they are not starving.

I would recomend for a novice to wait until brumation to introduce florida kings for the first time. just because i seem to have so much experince with housing them, i know what to watch out for and sorta have a green thumb for brooksi. With a novice i am alway shocked and afriad of the lack of common sense they have when it comes to snakes. So there is no telling what they might do to entice the snakes to cannibalize. One example is i see a lot of very smnall 3 and 4 year old florida king posted on here. There is no way a 2-4 year floridana should still be 20" inches.
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www.Bluerosy.com

"Doug,
You are mistaken. I house all my brooks together year round but never new hatclings after shed. They certainly will eat each other and it is a bad idea to house them when they are striking at every movement around them"

Uhhh, Rainer!, go back and re-read what I said very carefully this time.

How the hell am I "mistaken", when we are talking about the exact same thing here...HATCHLINGS!?? Your above quote says the exact same thing I just mentioned in your second sentence..LOL!

We are not talking about older brooks, the dude asked about his hatchlings being housed together, remember?

Anyway, ya won't see me housing any of my brooks hatchlings together(or any getula for that matter). Anyone that wants do do it can be my guest, but they certainly can't get on here and say that I told 'em it can never happen. I don't guess those other very well-known herpetoculturist's we all know were imagining things either when it happened..

I challenge ANYONE to put their brooks hatchlings together, and let them all hang-out and "befriend" each other for a while as their belly yolk slowly gets depleted, then do a snake count after this as the days continue to go by..LMAO!

~Doug
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"a snake in the grass is a GOOD thing"

my website -serpentinespecialties.webs.com

Sorry. The way i read your post was to never house any getula together period. Your "Golden Rule" reference. Not just babies. That is what i was responding to.
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www.Bluerosy.com

Yeah, that is what I figured.

You, and some others that have a very experienced "feel" for floridana can do it with some of the older, better established well-fed brooks without any problems, but like you said earlier (and I totally agree)it is simply not a good idea at all to recommend doing any of this at any age to newbies.

Like you also said earlier too, I can picture some newbies doing this with a few very hungry, thin 20" inch 2 or 3 year old brooks fed on a hopper every week or two, then be surprised that this happened to them..LOL!

later, ~Doug
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"a snake in the grass is a GOOD thing"

my website -serpentinespecialties.webs.com

Just throwing this out there but could it be because kings are are born usually late spring/early summer? The reason I ask this is because my kings are in a feeding frenzy right now, 78 for a low, 84 for a high and NO HEATING IN THE TANKS, just room temps. When I started breeding my MBK's the male would try to eat the female so I shut his heat off and he settled down and acted like a gentleman LOL!

No doubt they will always be in feeding mode, especially when warmer temps keep their metabolism up, but they are just like that reagardless really.

BTW, are you sure the male wasn't just biting down on her to hold her still so he could have his way with her..LOL! This is VERY typical for them to do.

~Doug

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"a snake in the grass is a GOOD thing"

my website -serpentinespecialties.webs.com

No, constriction was involved even though I stuffed him like a sausage.

Wow!....

That is very uncommon. Are you 100% sure it is a male?, and was it in the spring when "he" was doing this?

~Doug
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"a snake in the grass is a GOOD thing"

my website -serpentinespecialties.webs.com

Yeah I'm pretty sure. I ended up with 12 eggs, 11 good, 1 dud. 52 days and counting.

"Yeah I'm pretty sure. I ended up with 12 eggs, 11 good, 1 dud. 52 days and counting"

LOL!,.........TOUCHE!, that answered that!..

~Doug
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"a snake in the grass is a GOOD thing"

my website -serpentinespecialties.webs.com