Reptile & Amphibian Forums

Hey everyone, I have an unusual question regarding my FL Kings. I am breeding them right now and in some bins I have 2-7 snakes in there. I have only one male per cage but in some I have up to 6. I need the females to be fed WAY more than the males and am leaving back to Denver for school tomorrow. My problem is that I have two employees who do not know what is what morph and what is the male and what is the female. I saw a [ban] video of BHB doing this with a "paint marker" but I wanted to know if it would have harmful effects if I put a 3-5" long stripe on the back of the males with a silver sharpie so that they can take the males out and feed the females up so that they will produce the follicles necessary to produce eggs. I know I use pen, sharpie, and expo marker on my own hands sometimes to jot down quick notes so that I don't forget stuff and have no issues but will that affect the snakes? I know it may go away with a shed but I am back in two weeks to redo them. I could use an expo (dry erase) marker too but wasn't sure if that would stay on as well.

Thanks for your thoughts ahead of time, and Rainer it was great seeing you yesterday!

Jeremy Thompson
JTColubrids, Inc.

By the way the sharpie does say "nontoxic" on it, the black ones that I have do not say that for whatever reason.

Aren't you afraid of the king snakes doing what kings are known best for? Eating each other??? As for the markers, I have no idea. Why not just clip some scales like they do in field studies?? Just a thought.

Jeremy, I think they used a non-toxic waterbased paint marker, you can usually get these at Home Depot or Sherman Williams. I used them when I was in the cabinet business...Good Luck...
-----
Jimmy Tintle

Food coloring
-----
John Lassiter
Poor planning and procrastination on your part does not constitute an emergency on my part...

I do believe that it was a cloth mark for fabric. It will come off with shed, doesn't soak through the skin.
-----
Tom S
1.1 Flame Lampropeltis getla Floridana
1.0 Hypomelanistic Lampropeltis getula Floridana
0.1 Axanthic Lampropeltis getula Floridana
0.1 Hypomelanistic Lampropeltis triangulum hondurensis
1.0 Anerythristic Lampropeltis triangulum hondurensis