Reptile & Amphibian Forums

Hello,

Does anyone have stats on what weight is good for breeding female corn snakes. Pesonally, I wait until they are around 3 years old to breed them but it seems to me I've heard that you want your females at least x? grams to breed. Anyone heard something similar?

Thanks.
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Ken Roshak
BlackSwampSerpents@toast.net

The good book by C. Love states that breeding weight for females is around 340grams. Males can be a bit lighter. Lightweight females may have a tendency for egg binding and heavyweight females may be prone to poor muscle tone for pushing out eggs.

Personally, I have had egg-binding problems (actually the snake, not me…) with an Amel Motley Corn that was around 310grams at egg laying for the past two years. The first year I had to have a bond egg aspirated but the second year I was successful in massaging the bound one out. I had an Albino snow that was 390grams at egg laying that pushed 13 eggs out in 3 hours. She was fine and did not stress during egg laying at all.

This is a bit antidotal in nature but a bit of a trend.
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2.3 Albino Nelsoni Milksnakes
0.1 Snow Corn
0.2 Sunglow Corns
1.1 Albino Motley Corns
0.0.11 '04 albino Corn hatchlings
0.0.5 '04 Candycane Corn hatchlings
0.0.7 '04 Snow Corn hatchlings
1.0 '02 Albino Stripe Corn
bunch.bunch Bearded Dragons
2.4 Crested Geckos
1.0 Pictus Geckos
1 great wife
2 great boys
0.2 dogs (they're great too!!)
and Corey's Yellow Knee Tarantula "Fang"

Thanks for the info. I appreciate it. I have a snow that was bred accidentally last year by a male that was supposedly a female living in the same enclosure. She was the right age but seemed small for her age. She passed 7 good eggs that all hatched with healthy babies. She's much larger this year so I'll check her weight and compare to your figures. Thanks.
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Ken Roshak
BlackSwampSerpents@toast.net