Reptile & Amphibian Forums

Welcome to kingsnake.com's message board system. Here you may share and discuss information with others about your favorite reptile and amphibian related topics such as care and feeding, caging requirements, permits and licenses, and more. Launched in 1997, the kingsnake.com message board system is one of the oldest and largest systems on the internet.

Click for 65% off Shipping with Reptiles 2 You
Click for ZooMed
Click here to visit Classifieds

Rainer....Jeremy?

Jlassiter Apr 16, 2011 07:21 PM

With all this talk of communal housing why do you guys only keep one male with a bunch of females?

Why not multiple males too?

When found in the wild in groups (in mattresses as stated) aren't there more than one male in that group?

Is it because of the genetics?
Or is it because of male combat?

Males do combat in the wild......sometimes death results.......

I trigger breeding sometimes with male combat.....
-----
John Lassiter
Poor planning and procrastination on your part does not constitute an emergency on my part...

Replies (4)

pyromaniac Apr 16, 2011 09:49 PM

Well, although this is directed at the more experienced members, I thought I'd chime in, too. I keep mine in pairs or trios. But only one male to a cage with the females. Under a mattress the males can get away from each other but in a cage they are trapped. With my adult fence lizards I keep only one male to a group of females as the males will fight for dominance and the weaker ones will suffer and die. I figure snakes might be very similar in their male aggression with other males thing. The male has a mission to further his genes, and will fight any competition.
-----
Bob
Pyromaniac AKA Greatballzofire
Keeping cats allows man to cohabitate with tigers. Keeping reptiles allows man to cohabitate with dinosaurs.

Jlassiter Apr 16, 2011 10:18 PM

>>Well, although this is directed at the more experienced members, I thought I'd chime in, too. I keep mine in pairs or trios. But only one male to a cage with the females. Under a mattress the males can get away from each other but in a cage they are trapped. With my adult fence lizards I keep only one male to a group of females as the males will fight for dominance and the weaker ones will suffer and die. I figure snakes might be very similar in their male aggression with other males thing. The male has a mission to further his genes, and will fight any competition.

Point made.....So the co habitation thing is solely for producing more kingsnakes and has nothing to do with the wild.......and its trials and tribulations......lol
-----
John Lassiter
Poor planning and procrastination on your part does not constitute an emergency on my part...

Bluerosy Apr 17, 2011 08:06 AM

With all this talk of communal housing why do you guys only keep one male with a bunch of females?

Why not multiple males too?

When found in the wild in groups (in mattresses as stated) aren't there more than one male in that group

I do keep more than one male with a group of females together. i mentioned that a few times below.

last year i tried bonding sevral males in a unit by themselves 9no females) more just an experiment to see what happens.

When all males were first placed in the cage they stayed restless for a few days. But they did calm down and they can be kept together in a group at any time.

But WOE to throwing a female in with 5 or 6 males. LOL!

Sometimes the things i post are just experiments. i would reccomend 3-4 females with one to 2 males (if you are going to keep larger groups0 otherwise it is not neccessary and you can just slpit them up.

When i do want to keep larger groups with ONE male , it is becaue it is a special new male and i want him to bond with the 5-6 females he will be breeding. If i want that rare high dollar male to breed that many females then YES I will bond them the season before. The females can alway be removed and put into seperate cages during breeding. But what is assures me is they are bonded and will behaive in a safe manner and not eat each other. So no worries.

Also IF is plit a bonded group up that is to breed to ONE bonded male. i will for example, take 3 out and leave the male in with that group for a day and swicth between the groups.

But what i most often do is leave all 6 females in a unit and the gravid ones get removed and that assures the attention to the females that are not yet gravid DO get gravid.

So lets say i have 1.6 in a unit.. If I leave them all together during breeding season and I open the unit and one female is gravid i remove her to her own uuit. Then in a couple days i will see another and remove her then there are 4 females left. Next couple days i see another gravid female and do the same. Then there are 3 left, and so on. So you see it is all common sense once someone start the bonding process the rest will fall into place with common sense. The female get their time alone and their are less females in a unit. UNTIL they lay their eggs. then it is back to that group. i may choose to seprrate the group or even add that breeder male to a females unit that already leyed. The timeing of the gravid females is not always at the same time. So after the initial clucth there is a lot of seperation.
So leaving them all together is just to get the females gravid. once the deed has been done the females go into their own unit.
-----
www.Bluerosy.com

Jlassiter Apr 17, 2011 02:13 PM

Thanks...that explains it better......I keep my snake similar. The only difference is they are all in pairs as I have just about 1 male for every female....some males have a couple of girls with him......and I separate during the summer and fall......Then they go back together for brumation and breeding season......
-----
John Lassiter
Poor planning and procrastination on your part does not constitute an emergency on my part...

Site Tools