About reproductive potential.
Let me start this post by saying if you look at any field guide about all reptiles, muchless kingsnakes. You will read a range of adult sizes, and a range of clutch sizes. There is reason for that. The reason is, they all have a range of adult sizes and clutch sizes based on local support and yearly support.
This is based on dietary support for any individual snake.
For instance overall size is based on prey availability in the first two years of life. Large adults have been supported by lots of food early in life. Small adults have not been supported well. This is with wild snakes and captive snakes.
Snakes grow very quickly when young, first 2 or 3 years, then very slowly after that. The old wifestail about reptiles never stop growing is just that, a wifestail. If it were true, there would be really giant snakes like Bluerosy allowing 10 foot Fla kings, with all the food he feeds. But he doesn't have that does he? Their growth occurs when they are young, just like everyother animal.
So you have two things, genetics and support that allow an individual to reach its full potential. Support is food, temps, security, etc. And this goes for both captivity and nature.
In your post below, you said you feed every four days and your animal is fine. Yes, your animal could be within normal. What has it done, How old, how large, how much as he/she reproduced? etc, that is how success and how normal is measured. Not feeding every four days, that is meaningless.
ALso, if you use Bluerosy as an example and hes a darn good one. He allows his animals to control their own destiny. That is, they can eat as much as they want, they are not controlled by him. So he supports bigger snakes and more reproduction.
The absolute truth is, if you give the snakes the choice, they always choose to do the most they can do, not the least.
Yes, in poor years nature suppresses their growth and reproduction. The snakes do not have a choice.
In captivity, your(controlling keepers) surpressing their progress, again the snakes cannot put food or higher temps in their cages. But if you do, they will utilize it.
Again reality, you measure success with wild animals by the QUALITY of recruitment. That is, how many offspring they produce. All biologist measure success that way.
If a population(numbers of individuals) produce well, then the population is considered healthy. If reproduction is poor or low, its not healthy.
In captivity, Bluerosys population is VERY FRIGGIN healthy. Yours not so much(as an example). Yours can be considered well within normal, but it cannot be compared to what Bluerosy is experiening. How could it, you do not feed much. See what I mean?
Also Growth and reproduction is based on more then food. ITs a reflection of supporting conditions. For instance, if your temps are low or not useable, then the snake will not feed much, therefore not grow much, and not reproduce much.
When Bluerosy states his captives commonly triple clutch, that means they are recieving very very good support in the areas of diet and supportive conditions. His captives are effectively converting energy into reproduction. Which is what these animals are designed to do.
Remember, reptiles use heat and humidity from their surroundings to fuel their metabolism. So the superior results that Bluerosy is showing means more then just lots of food. It also means good or great supportive conditions.
If he did not support them with the proper temps, they simply could not digest and utilize the food they consume.
What confuses me is, most here have no idea of how these animals live. They do not use the same temps all year long. Or year after year. The schedule thing is oddly not appropriate to snakes. Its a mammal type thing.
They, reptiles are experts at taking advantage of good condtions and experts at laying low and surviving poor condtions. There is no schedule.
The problem is reptiles have toooo many stupid wifestails and even experts fall for them. Like it taking long periods of time to digest large meals. hahahahahahahahahaha, use your head, what would a piece of meat be like a week after it died, hahahahahahahahaha it ROTS. LArger meals require more heat to break down and digest, but do so in the same amount of time as large meals. You should know what happens if they cannot digest it properly, they puke it up and do not wait a week to do so.
If you consider that, all a pair of snakes have to do to maintain an even population is replace themselves one time, That is make TWO babies that grow to adults. Why would they have to live so long?
Kings make lots of babies in a year, muchless in their lifetime. What happens to them?
Also, why do snakes and other reptiles live so long? Considering they only have to replace themselves once. Why do they live 25 to way over a 100 years. Hmmmmmmmmmmmmm that is a good question.
The answer is simple, it may take ten years to have one good year of recruitment. Now we must learn the difference between reproduction and recruitment. Reproduction is the amount of neonates produced. Recruitment is the amount that survives to adulthood. Those numbers are not equal. They are never equal, and at times there is a massive difference. In many years, the entire reproductive effort FAILS to survive. In fact thats common. Other years, there may be a 80% survival rate. So now we measure success by survival rate. Not reproductive effort.
What I see is, your questions are based on you, which is great. But you were judging those that had their animals produce near their potential, as something wrong with them, like being commerical or something. Sir that is wrong.
Let me tell you this, a pair of snakes does not know what commerical is, they only know when supported well, they grew well and reproduce well and recruit well.
When conditions are limited, they do not. There is no commerical or hobbyist approach in their efforts.
So when you or others make statements about mass producing or whatever, THAT HAS NOTHING TO DO WITH THE BIOLOGY OF THE REPTILE and what its reproductive potential and ability is. Its based on human thoughts of some odd nature.
