I never thought it would happen to me, but it did - my little female (she's only about two years old, and very healthy except for dry sheds - great eater) escaped and was missing for two weeks. I'm sure she was on the cool floor the whole time, hiding from the other household critters. We're near San Francisco and have hardwood floors, so she was cool but not cold. While she was missing, since I didn't think I'd ever see her again (5 cats here too), I put my male (quite a bit larger, maybe 3 years old) into her (clean) 55-gal tank, thinking that if I ever found her in this junk shop of a house, I would put her into his old 15-gallon temporary tank. (I wound up with one more snake than I intended, when I won a raffle at the last IRBA show.)

So I did find her at 2:30 am one morning and, since the male's cage had by then been given to a baby California kingsnake, I just went ahead and put her in with the male. I had no idea that he would be romantically inclined, since from what little I've read, both adults have to be cooled down and then gradually warmed back up before they will even take an interest in making babies.

But ever since the next morning when I awoke and checked on them, he has been wrapped around her, except when I took them out, separately, to feed them - and they both ate normally. I put them back together, and he went right back to it. I've not been able to observe actual, well, penetration or whatever it's called, but at one point they were lined up and it sure looked like more than a spur between them. I have zero experience breeding any snakes and have only been into the hobby for about 3 years now. I've worked hard to educate myself on proper care for all my breeds, but haven't studied the reproduction topic much, since I wasn't thinking of doing it for quite a while yet.

So my question (sorry for the length of the post) is, Is there any possibility she'll lay eggs after this? Also, will I need to separate them pretty soon - or ever - if they are not showing signs of stress, i.e., not eating, weight loss, etc.? Normally I would not ever keep two snakes in the same enclosure, but a whole lot of stuff went down all in a couple of months for me, and that's what happened.

Thanks for reading, and thanks in advance for any advice.

0.1.0 adult boa constrictor (Victoria)
1.1.0 ball pythons, normal coloration (Boris and Zoe)
0.0.2 California king snakes (Millefiori and Raffle)
1.0.0 Florida king snake (Mike)
2.0 albino cornsnakes (adoptees, named 'em Al and Byno)
1.1.1 crazy humans
2.2.1 felinis horridus

peace, Terri (kiter)
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kiter