Reptile & Amphibian Forums

Hey guys, just want to take a sort of poll from the corn snake breeders.

Do you cool your snakes before breeding?

How large are your clutch sizes on average?

What do you do with your babies? Keep them? Sell them?

If you sell them who do you sell to (not like names)? And are you able to sell them all?

What Kind of corns do you breed?

Thanks!
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www.mplionhearts.com

>>>poll from the corn snake breeders.

Cool Idea.. Should be interesting if you get enough replies.

>>>Do you cool your snakes before breeding?

Last year, yes.. This year I did not cool either snake. Was experiment to see how easy it was to breed corns. I put snakes together for ONE day only...45 days later I got a mountain of eggs...

>>>How large are your clutch sizes on average?

I have 5 year old female, last year she laid 12 eggs twice... This year... 31 in one single clutch... AND ALL ARE HEALTHY LOOKING!!!

>>>What do you do with your babies? Keep them? Sell them?

BOTH. I will keep best looking ones and sell the rest.

>>>If you sell them who do you sell to (not like names)?

Petshops, local herp people.. But most of them will be wholeselled out. It is just to expensive to raise all of them up and attempt to sell that many snakes. Especially when all the other snake breeders have corns too...

>>>What Kind of corns do you breed?

This year was a female AMEL to male Sunglow. Next year I will do sunglow to charcoal...to see what happens. Last year they produced a single viable egg... strange looking grey-headed normal..hope to try for that again..

Harpy
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Have You Hugged Your Herp Today?

Thanks for the reply! My only concern with breeding is making sure i have someone to sell to so I'll have to check with some pet stores. I want to start with snows. I don't want profit, but I Want to be able to cover some expnses . So i'm not sure how much pet stores will pay for snow corns. THe pet stores around here though are very good, and I'd be happy to sell to them. I'm guessing they'd pay 10 each or something? My other option is to sell online, which I don't mind doing, just not sure how well it works.

I love Amels!!! I was wondering what i'd get by breeding an Amel with a snow, i'm sure someones done it. Yeah i talked to a breeder at a show the other day and he said he doesn't cool his snakes at all and they produce clutches of 25 . So we'll see.

I did some calcuations to see how much starting a breeding group would cost me ( i have tuition to pay for so I wanted to make sure i wasn't being stupid). I decided 2 2-3 year old snow corns would cost me 150 at a show. And a small rack with maybe 5 sweater boxes would cost me 100 dollars, that's probably over estimated, but that's ok. Then feeding them per year would cost 120 dollars. That also may be over estimated, but oh well.

Cost: 370 dollars for the first year.
If I get a clutch of 20 and feed each baby till they are sold:
My total cost would then be 470 dollars for the first year.

These numbers are fudgeable who knows how much it would actually cost, but I'd either need a large clutch or need to sell the babies for 20-30 to break even and be happy . Does anyone break even here? I don't want profit, I just want to make sure it's not a huge weight on my wallet. So it's okay if i fall short.
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www.mplionhearts.com

Hi there. Firstly, breeding an Amel with a Snow will get you 100% Amels hey for Anery. And yep, it's done a lot - Snows and Amels are some of the most common morphs around.

To answer your questions:
Do you cool your snakes before breeding?
- No

How large are your clutch sizes on average?
- First clutches from younger snakes start at about 4-6 eggs. They gradually increase over two or three years and a healthy, fully mature adult female will give a minimum of 20 eggs per clutch. Some will happily produce 30 , but this isn't the norm. If they double-clutch, then second clutches are usually smaller - around 15. In total this year, I expect around 70 eggs from three females. My best year so far was 100 eggs from two females, when they both double-clutched with large numbers of eggs.

What do you do with your babies? Keep them? Sell them?
- Sell them. No room for a long-term breeding project in a 2-bed apartment (unfortunately).

If you sell them who do you sell to (not like names)? And are you able to sell them all?
- I sell to my local reptile shop. I check with them when the eggs are laid. If they don't want them, I'll destroy the eggs. No time to find 50 good homes off my own back.

What Kind of corns do you breed?
- Normals, Amels, Snows & Anerys for the past few years. This year will be my first producing Caramel Motleys. Next year, I hope for Butter Motleys, maybe some Amber Bloods and some Ghost variants.

I have a total of 15 Corns. Even getting my food at business rates from the reptile shop (I count as a supplier) I make a loss over a year. Breeding Corns is for fun, unless you really get into it on an industrial scale.

Yeah, i was expecting a loss, and that's okay. With a Chemical Engineering major, not sure if i'll have time to start a large breeding project. By the time i get enough snakes, i'll be working on my masters or phd and that will be enough fun how it is lol. So maybe i'll keep it small.
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www.mplionhearts.com

I can't believe you would destroy the eggs if you can't find a buyer. I'd be happy to buy the "eggs" from you. No disrespect meant.

Thanks for the offer but I'm in the UK.

The idea is that I want to take responsibility for any animal I produce, as far as possible. If I give the eggs to someone I don't know (also no disrespect intended) then I have no guarantee that they'll end up in good homes.

The reptile shop I sell to are well known for a) spending an inordinate amount of time with newbies (and I know, because I've stood in some loooong queues!) b) refusing to sell to someone they consider incapable of caring for the animal in question c) offering a free support and advice service for the life of the animal.

Just my idea of ethics I guess.

We have two pet snakes. We don't bother with cooling. She tends to double clutch each year. This year we have 32 eggs from the first clutch and 19 (but with 4 infertile) from the second. (average is probably in the middle 20's per clutch). So far we've managed to get rid of all the babies, either to friends, teachers, classified, word of mouth, and (the majority) to pet stores. Our female is normal (het for ani) and the male is red albino (also het for ani). So we get 3/4th normal and 1/4th black and whites.
Corinne
dragonfly@w-link.net