Reptile & Amphibian Forums

hi my name is chris and i am 13. i have a 9 month old female cal king. yesterday at the reptile show i bought a male cal king about the same age as my female but it was alot bigger. i guess the breeder was power feeding it, unlike how i feed my female. if i start feeding more will she start to beef up before this november or will she just get fat. i want them both to breed this year but i dont think my female is ready. i heard that if you breed them to young it can mess up the female real bad. dont they have to be at least 200grams (7oz) to breed? also it would be a great help to me if you could give me some tips on breeding cal kings, i know pretty much already but i want to know it all so i make no mistakes on my first time ever breeding reptiles. thanx for the help, chris

First Welcome Chris.

Second: It's probably too late in the year to breed kingsnakes.

Third: IF your female is large enough in the spring you might consider breeding her.

Fourth: If you breed them too young, the female will most likely become eggbound which can result in her death or hefty vet bills.

Fifth: As far as a decent size to breed a cal king, I bred my female at 18 months of age, she was around 40 inches and had very good weight. (I don't have a scale, so I don't know how many grams she was) I'd guess she's about 24 oz to 32 oz right now, and she's regained all of her pre-breeding weight.

sixth: Her eggs were 2 inches long and at least an inch in diameter. Keep that in mind when you think your snake is large enough to breed.

Seven: On kingsnake.com home page at the top is a link to FAQ/Care sheets. You'll find a link to a paper on breeding colubrid snakes. Read it now. Read it this fall when you get ready to brumate your snakes, read it in the spring when you get ready to bring your snakes OUT of brumation, and again before you breed, before she lays, before the eggs hatch, and after the eggs hatch. That's what I did. It's a bit of time to wait, but it's worth it!

>>hi my name is chris and i am 13. i have a 9 month old female cal king. yesterday at the reptile show i bought a male cal king about the same age as my female but it was alot bigger. i guess the breeder was power feeding it, unlike how i feed my female. if i start feeding more will she start to beef up before this november or will she just get fat. i want them both to breed this year but i dont think my female is ready. i heard that if you breed them to young it can mess up the female real bad. dont they have to be at least 200grams (7oz) to breed? also it would be a great help to me if you could give me some tips on breeding cal kings, i know pretty much already but i want to know it all so i make no mistakes on my first time ever breeding reptiles. thanx for the help, chris
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~Sasheena

thank you so much for the info. it helped me out greatly, oh yeah, i have a correction to make on my other post, i meant that i wanted to hibernate them this year and breed in the spring of 2004, i accidentley said i wanted to breed this year, sry. also, im sure that i will be posting constantly through this up and comeing breeding season. thanks again, Chris

Have you invested in David Perlowan's The Common Kingsnake and Robert Applegate's The Milk Snakes? Both are published by Advanced Vivarium Systems, are fairly inexpensive, and are worth much more than they cost. Both have sections on breeding.

2004 may be doable for your kings. It depends on whether the male makes viable sperm this summer and whether the female is big enough next spring. As you didn't say how big the snakes are, all I can say now is a definite maybe. 8-) But if they fail in '04, don't get discouraged. Start planning for '05.

Paul Hollander

my females girth ( size around) is about the size of a dime and my males girth is about the size of a quater. do you think i could get my female to get larger in time before this decembers brumation? thanks again, chris

>>my females girth ( size around) is about the size of a dime and my males girth is about the size of a quater. do you think i could get my female to get larger in time before this decembers brumation? thanks again, chris

This depends on her appetite. Some snakes are more "hungry" than others. I have 4 '01 females I hope to have up to size by next spring. We'll see if they are or not. 3 out of 4 eat like little piggies, and one has to be convinced that she wants to eat. (two are corns, two are kings, the picky eater is a corn). And a voracious appetite today does NOT mean a voracious appetite tomorrow! Of my three cal kings that are breeding size, first the female was picky, and the males were garbage cans, then one of the males got picky and the female got hungry, so eventually the female and one male was ready, and the other male wasn't. Just depends on the snakes... don't COUNT on it, just look forward to it as a pleasant possibility. Just remember to make sure to choose wisely before breeding, if you are even a little bit unsure that she is large enough to breed, then it is much better to wait. Next year I'll have 4 females who will definately be able to breed (2 cal kings, 1 blotched king, and 1 pyro), and possibly another 4 (2 cal kings, 2 corns). I will only breed the other mentioned snakes if need be. No need to hurry it. I WANT them to be ready, and I'm feeding them as frequently as I think is healthy for hte snakes, but I won't push them, because THEY are more important than the potential offspring. If I breed my cornsnakes before they are ready and they get egg-bound, I lose two important members of my snakey family and get nothing for it. If I wait, I have more time for the other hatchlings.

Please feel free to ask any questions you have, there are a lot of great people on this forum./
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~Sasheena