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Last year I produced ghost cal kings for the first time by breeding a 2010 light phase Ghost male to a 2010 het ghost female that I had raised up from hatchlings. Got 9 eggs, 8 hatched. This year I never witnessed them breeding like I did all my other snakes, but she swelled up so I gave her a nesting box. For weeks she just buried into the nesting box and dumped the dirt out of it, I didn't know when they bred so I really didn't know when to expect eggs.

Lifted up her hidebox the other day to check on her and she was wrapped around 10 eggs. All look good.

Here is the female, pic was taken last year, she has such good body weight after she laid eggs she was still nowhere near skinny!

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www.albinomilksnake.com

really nice looking king!

nobody told her what a nest box was probably.. that is why I use tile placed into a cage with damp substrate underneath.. they like the cramped area to burrow under it and make a nest.
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FR quote:
"Doing the same things over and over expecting to learn something else, is the definition of insanity"

The tile technique didn't work for me for one snake this year they all went for the nesting box instead. Complete opposite of last year where 75% of my snakes laid under tile.
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www.albinomilksnake.com

Hi Guys, please consider this. If your not getting consistent results, its because the box is not right. That's simple enough.
Cal kings are not the easiest to nest properly. They do seem to like laying eggs between things.
I use a separate nesting box that was developed for Cal kings, because its deeper then you can fit in a cage and I place two pieces of glass down in the substrate. One about four to six inches down. The other about an inch below that one, The females can then lay between the layers of glass or below the deeper one.
Whats funny is, what I developed(many years ago) is the combination of what you two are doing. Which is the important part.
We do not "know" what they are actually looking for. But we do know some things like humidity, temps, depth, and conditions often used. Like under the tile. What we do not understand is, what makes them use one or the other, same female, different years. So as a huge genius, I simply added both. and often more, then let them tell me.
Kings also love to nest is wadded up plastic trash bags buried in nesting material. The problem is getting to the eggs. The snakes have no problem crawling into folds after folds, but we do. Beautiful kings you got there.

That's odd how she has similarities to splendida. Cool looking Cali.
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http://southerncaliforniakingsnakes.weebly.com/

She's awesome looking. Almost looks hypo.

reako45