Reptile & Amphibian Forums

This spring I finally was able to capture a pair of niger from West Virginia. I placed the pair together the past two nights, and they instantly started mating. I was wondering if anybody is working with locality specific niger, and if so what is indicative of a good quality black king? My female is solid black, with very crisp white markings, and the male is also solid balck, with a slight cream tint to his markings. Does this sound like quality stock? IS anybody els working with this subspecies?

Have a great day!

Zac

I think any type of getula with accurate locality data has great potential for a breeding project. I also think that niger have great potential for selective breeding. I would line breed them for a couple of generations and select for the blue/black background color and minimal white markings. You could develop a line of little white faced indigo type kings. Good luck.

Will

Congratulations Zac, good luck with your breeding project. There are apparently few of us out there that work with nigra. The impression I have is most of the king snake buffs that live outside of nigra's range are keeping stock from northern Alabama which are seasonally available from commercial collectors that work that area. Many of these have holbrooki influence and are not pure nigra. I have been keeping and breeding Kentucky stock from numerous locales for years but have never gone commercial. I have given offspring away to some of my friends that are in to locality projects though. I think its great someone is now working with West Virginia nigra and would be interested in seeing some pics if you have any. I am working in conjunction with another party to develope a website devoted to the Black King snake. Pic's of locality specimens from other states would be great. Shoot me an e-mail if you would like to talk nigra sometime. - Phil

p.peak@insightbb.com

Zac and Phil,
I love Nigra, and have localities from a couple of states, 2 females gravid. Count me in, please.

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Jamie W.

(url)http://rosyboas.tripod.com(/url)