Reptile & Amphibian Forums

I made an attempt to breed my mexican black kings and i'm 99.9% sure she took. I bred her on the 20th and they hooked up 3 times 25 min , 45 min and 3.5 hrs. On the 23rd they hooked up for 15 minutes and again on the 26 th for 45 min. On the 30th , apr 4th and 8th there was no interest. Around the 15th she shed give or take a day she had it hid from me. I've had a lay box in there for about a week and a half now with petemoss in it. Today i've been watching her and she is constantly moveing in and out of her lay box and moveing around is this a sign of anything. If that was her pre lay shed i should have about another week before she lays right. Its kind of weird i'm so excited but scared too lol. Thanks Paul

Sounds like typical nest searching behavior. I hope you have been feeding her more than average. You may wonder why snakes go in and out of the perfect spot to lay their eggs? The answer is ....they just do. Get your incubator ready just in case. Tom Stevens

I've been feeding her more often but smaller prey items. She ate sunday and i was going to offer her again today , so should i attempt to feed her today or wait? thanks Paul

I feed my females as much as they want to eat as much as every other day when gravid. Sometimes they eat outrageous amounts of food and other times they do not. Another thing you should do is remove the water bowl if you think she is close to laying, sometimes they chose the bowl instead of the box you provide and that can ruin your effort. Either go with a very small bowl or offer water to the snake, let it drink and remove it. Mine is gravid too. But she hasn't hit her pre lay shed yet. Tom Stevens

I removed the water bowl right after she shed. When she's out of the nest box i put a small water bowl in there so she can get a drink , then i remove it once i leave the room. The cruising around has stopped and she totally buried herself in the petemoss in the nest box. Man i forgot how exciting this was, except i'm use to live bearers lol. Paul

>>I removed the water bowl right after she shed. When she's out of the nest box i put a small water bowl in there so she can get a drink , then i remove it once i leave the room. The cruising around has stopped and she totally buried herself in the petemoss in the nest box. Man i forgot how exciting this was, except i'm use to live bearers lol. Paul

Paul,
A cool thing to do if you're using a rack system is to put a plastic shoebox in as the laybox, and place it directly on the bottom of the sweater box "cage". Then you can slide the "drawer" out, get underneath it, and look up to see what's going on inside the laybox. The finaly indicator of laying is usually when the female burrows to the very bottom of the laying medium. You can see this, looking thru from the bottom; and you can see when the eggs have been laid, by the same method. This is all less disruptive than digging thru the moss to try to figure out what's going on.
Good luck!
terry

I'm not useing a rack system for them yet. But she keeps going in and going to the bottom. I've been trying to leave her alone but damm it i want to watch. I've skinned and bleached 200 feet of choia cactus trying to leave her alone. LOL i just need some patience. thanks for the idea Paul