Reptile & Amphibian Forums

I'm curious...I got a small clutch from my axanthic to WS breeding. 5 eggs. 3 normal sized hatchlings, 2 larger than normal hatchlings (a pair). The large male died and another escaped, but the bigger than normal female is alive and thriving--she's 90 grams or so already vs 40-50 for her siblings and my other clutch.

I plan to hold her back more or less to see what happens, and mate her to her brother (the parents were unrelated--the axanthic was from blue rosy, the ws from Cherry). Anyone got experience with bigger than normal hatchlings like that? Do they stay large, or does the size tend to even out? I'm hoping they stay big--the thought of a 6-7' Florida king makes me tingly
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We wouldn't have 6 and a half billion people if you had to be beautiful to get laid.

I wouldn't dredge this up for no reason but I do recall some threads in which it was postulated that the white-sided Floridana-Brooksi were the product of hybridization with Black Rats. If this is true, though I'm not claiming it is, it could be the cause of the size disparity within that clutch.

I have produced entire clutches that had larger than average babies but I have never produced any clutches that contained unusually large babies as well as normally sized ones within the same clutch. I have produced several clutches that contained "runts" alongside normally sized babies.
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www.hcu-tx.org/

It's pretty normal to get size variation within the same clutch. Larger hatchlings have a better headstart, and can get on larger meals earlier on. I don't know if it makes any real difference in adult size, though.

I do know that the lines I've got that produce the largest hatchlings also make the largest adults.
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www.brooksi.com

Whitesisded babies are usually smaller than normal and axanthics are also on the smaller side due to the s. floridanna influence.

What you have are some healthy "headstarted" babies but will probably not attain a larger size when full grown.
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"Wild caught or not, if the snake needed to be fed more, it needed to be fed more. Case closed."

Billy (Discern)

www.Bluerosy.com

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Well, this is not king snakes, but I have a clutch of baby Kingsville x Stillwater bulls with one very large female and her four little brothers.

She is the big hypo. She hatched out at 33 grams while her brothers hatched out at 28 to 29 grams each. She is now twice as big as them. So I guess colubrids can do this, especially if there is a mix of heterogeneous traits in the genes.
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Bob
Pyromaniac AKA Greatballzofire
Keeping cats allows man to cohabitate with tigers. Keeping reptiles allows man to cohabitate with dinosaurs.

Very Nice clutch Bob, she is huge...would you mind posting your lizard tea recipe again. I've got 3 lizard eaters to switch to scented but more to go...Thanks Dave.

Take one frozen lizard and enough water to grind it up in the Osterizer and grind it up. Then freeze what you don't need to use at that moment. Someone had a dynamite idea of freezing the tea in those little ice cube trays so you don't have to thaw out the whole lot when you need it, just a cube at a time.
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Bob
Pyromaniac AKA Greatballzofire
Keeping cats allows man to cohabitate with tigers. Keeping reptiles allows man to cohabitate with dinosaurs.

If you freeze it flat in baggies you can pinch off the amount you need.
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Amy Claiborne

Don't let them take your wasted time. J.T.