Reptile & Amphibian Forums

Hi folks, im fairly new here (have been lurking!) and its about time i posted one of the many questions ive been trying to get an answer to for aaages!

Ive looked everywhere and cant find any info on breeding weights for both sexes of gopher snake. We have a male applegate gopher and a friend has a female baja gopher which is apparently het applegate.. the female is about 2 or 3 years old and a good 5 ft long at least so i would expect she is ready to breed but our male is less than a year old we think.

So anyway we are considering starting some breeding, either buing a male baja (if we can get one) and a female applegate.. or breeding the applegate to the baja female: Theres a question, any thoughts on whether this would be a good idea?

Also, how do we know when our male will be ready to breed? and at what weight should any more females (san diego and baja) be ready at? (approximate). Im used to working with various python species where the ideal breeding weights are pretty much set in stone..

the male applegate is about 100g at the moment by the way.

I guess this is related to the lack of info on the sizes that the various subspecies / localities of gophers grow to, ive scoured the web and these forums looking for answers but have found nothing definite!

any help would be more than appreciated!

cheers,

Chris

By the way im from the UK, where gophers are not too commonly kept it seems!

I'm certainly no expert, but I've been around this forum long enough to know most people are going to say don't cross breed your different gopher species. People into pits around here seem to really like the idea of keeping things "clean" so you know what you have without muddying up the gene pool.

Cheers for the reply! umm thats pretty much what i expected to be honest. Ill be looking for a male baja and a female san diego then i think

On the other matter - breeding weights, any ideas?? someone must have stuck their various pit species on the scales prior to their 1st breeding...?

cheers people!

~C~

I agree with Janel but either way, a 100gram male is way too small to breed to a 5 ft. female. he probably isn't even capable. Good luck with your endeavors though!

Matt
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Matt from Minnesota