2026 Breeding Season has Begun!

 As expected the snakes have awakened from their little "brumation" and are now looking to mate. I don't really brumate mine per se, I just turn off the heat to their enclosures and withhold food from about Christmas until Valentine's day. Those couple months are kind of nice in that I have hardly any poop to clean and I don't feed the adults. I keep the babies warm and continue normal feedings, so it's not like I have nothing to do, far from it actually. 

Around Valentine's day I turn the heat back on in the adult's enclosures and allow them to warm up for a couple days before offering their first meal. They all pretty much devour that first meal as well as a second meal the week after. Eventually the females will shed and once that's done I introduce the males to the female's cage. Hopefully I see some breeding activity and not homicidal or cannibalistic behavior. 

Knock on wood, my animals typically will get down to business without trying to kill or eat each other...so far. That said it is always a little nerve racking when I first start pairing them up. I will be pairing the same animals again this year as I did last year. I had some really great results in my opinion and see no reason to change things up this year. But in a couple years my holdbacks form last season will be of age and I will start to mix and match some stuff. The only drawback to this is I will probably produce a lot of hets and fewer visual animals that way. But in the long run it should set me up with more combinations of traits. Time will tell. 

Repticon Raleigh was a Success!

 Last weekend I setup a table at Repticon in Raleigh NC. I have attended this show many times, but have never vended at it or any reptile expo. Getting a table, payment, and check-in all went off without a hitch. The show ran Saturday 9am-4pm and Sunday 10am-4pm. It was a long weekend being as I am a one-man band. So no bathroom breaks or leaving the table for the duration of the show. My setup/breakdown is very simple being as I am but a small hobbyist breeder. 

The turnout seemed a little bit better than the last one I visited which was several years ago. I am pretty sure I was the only one there with any eastern kingsnakes. Also, probably the only one there with a wide selection of Florida kings. I had a lot of visitors, a lot of tire kickers, and thankfully a lot of paying customers. I am happy that most of what I brought went to a new home. Several of them went to what seemed like very caring homes. 

I will definitely try to get in the show as a vendor next year as well. I was able to talk to so many cool people and showcase these amazing and beautiful animals. I brought one of my adult female Florida kings with me to kind of show people what these can grow into. She is a beast of an ambassador. Many, many kids and adults were able to hold her. She tolerated all this stress quite well. In fact she ate a nice meal a day after returning home to her enclosure. Not that it is any surprise. 

Over the next month I will begin pairing adults again to see if I can hatch out some more cool kings and build up another inventory for the next show I can vend at. It was really fun. To the folks who purchased an animal from me THANK YOU and do not hesitate to reach out with any questions or concerns. 

Going to Repticon Raleigh in March!

Well I have more babies than I want to keep, so I finally got around to booking a table at Repticon in Raleigh, NC for March 7th and 8th. I'm only brining like 17 snakes with me, but they are some great looking and very healthy babies. These kingsnakes are all eating frozen / thawed fuzzies without hesitation. 

Some of what I am bringing are Eastern kings 66% het albino from Apollo bred to Hestia, maybe bring one male visual. I don't really want to sell him, since he is my only visual, but I plan to just price him high and if someone pays it, I will just have to hatch more.

I will also have some interesting Florida kingsnakes. I will have a lot of 100% double het albino/hypos that look awesome from Achilles bred to Asia! I would keep them all to myself, but cannot possibly care for all of them and provide them the attention I feel they all deserve. These were supposed to be all hypos at a minimum since dad is supposed to be hybino and bread to a definitely hypo female. They will be priced very attractively. The visual albino female I'm brining will be priced a bit higher since I don't really want to sell her. I'm also not convinced they're not some kind of hypo. They keep getting more red with each shed. Heck, maybe they're actually Erythristic which would be cool too!

I also have about 6 babies from Ares bred to Leto. All hypo, mosaic, het whitesided, 66% het lavender that look amazing and are growing rapidly. A couple of these are also visual whitesided. I'm really hoping to get most of these into some loving keeper's hands. 

The biggest fear to me is that I end up bringing home some weird snake disease or mites home with me. I will take every precaution I can, and that's all I can do. It will be my first time vending at any Repticon event. I have attended Repticon in Raleigh several times and it has always been a great way to spend a few hours. Wish me and these great animals some luck.

Success!

 Finally some success! Well some success anyway. Most all of the 2025 hatchlings have taken meals so far. Some refused to eat at all and didn't make it. Many have now had over three consecutive meals without any refusals. These really motivated eaters will be made available shortly. 

It is always disheartening to go through the pains of the breeding season, then waiting on eggs to be laid, followed by more waiting while the incubate, and finally the hatching. But then after all of that some of the hatchlings just refuse to thrive. It always amazes me how some individuals are pretty much eating like pigs right out of the gate while others take some time to get started. And still others just never get started even when trying all the tricks.

The most problematic hatchlings this year were definitely the clutch of eastern kingsnakes. Several of them just simply refused to live. This was heartbreaking as I have long since wanted an albino eastern king and when I hatched several out I was stoked. My thinking was to make most of them available and keep one or two for myself. Unfortunately most of the albinos just never started thriving. Several have already passed. I do have a couple that are eating, one of them has eaten several meals without an issue now. I am confident the ones that have made it thus far will be OK. 

The Florida kingsnakes on the other hand pretty much all started eating with gusto right out of the gate. That's part of why their my favorite species to work with. Easy to keep, easy to breed, and easy to get babies started. I'll be keeping only a few of these babies and the rest will be looking for new homes soon.

My breeder females have put almost all of their weight back on in preparation for the winter/2026 breeding season. So I'm sure next year I will have just as many if not more.  

All Done for 2025

 The final two clutches of the year have finally hatched. I didn't crush the odds or produce anything too crazy. But we did get some banger babies this year. I got a couple albinos. I was expecting them to be hybinos, but I'm afraid my "hybino" male may just be albino. Because I bred him to a hypo het albino female, so all of them should be hypo and some hybino. But I got several that look like normals.

I did get some hypo mosaics that look great. Also got a lavender hybino mosaic which is a real stunner! And my male is hypo mosaic, het lavender (which I knew) but he's also het whiteside since I got a couple whitesides as well. Now to get them shed and fed. Some of these will also be available once they've had several meals/sheds so keep an eye out for them.

So 2025 is basically over for me. But it's never too early to plan for next year. I will very likely do repeat breedings since these all kind of went well. But who knows, plans can certainly change. I am still struggling with getting a lot of the baby eastern kingsnakes from clutch #1 eating. Hopefully the baby florida kings from the last two clutches get going without any trouble. 

Feeding Babies

 While there are still a couple holdouts from my first clutch of 2025. Most of the babies are now eating, thankfully. Eastern kingsnakes can be hard to get started, but in my experience, once they get going there is no slowing them down. I may be biased, but these are just some of the coolest animals ever. I just can't get enough of these babies. Some have a lot of red in their chain pattern while others are mostly yellow and black. 

As fun as they are to work with, I have to admit the ones that are refusing food so far frustrate the hell out of me. For them the next steps will be trying to scented pinkies. I will try the age old tricks. One of the easiest scenting methods I know of is to soak the pinks in the water from a can of tuna fish. Don't ask me why it works, but it is often all you need. I suspect it has something to do with the snakes having an innate fear of rodents when they are this size. If you think about it, an adult mouse could easily ruin one of these baby kingsnake's day. 

I have heard many folks like to also drop the pinkies in a cup of boiling water. I have personally never used this method, but I am not above giving it a try if other ways do not work. I also have a large population of skinks running around in my yard. I have contemplated trying to capture one or two to use for scenting purposes as well. At any rate getting these babies going is always an adventure and sometimes you have to get creative.

I'm still awaiting the second clutch of the year to hatch. This one is super exciting too. Hoping we get a couple of lavender hybino mosaics as that is one of the sweetest combos in Florida kingsnakes if you ask me.

First Clutch All Shed

 The first clutch of 2025 are doing fine. All babies have shed out and are looking great. Five of the seventeen have already eaten their first meals. One of the babies even took a second meal already. So I am confident these ones will be doing just fine. One of the albino babies took their sweet time getting into their first shed. It shed almost a week after all the others, but seems to be in good health. I started to worry since everyone else shed. So I put the problematic youngster in a shoebox with moist paper towels and it did the trick. The shed came off perfectly. They have not eaten yet, but I will keep trying.

These albino eastern kings are really awesome looking snakes. I love their pink color they have now. Eventually though that will turn to white. The normals are great looking too. All of them have the typical feisty attitude of a baby lampropeltis getula. They are quite cute when they are looking and acting like little cobras. I will offer them all another meal in the next few days. Hopefully those that have eaten will eat again and those that have not eaten will start. They have to be getting hungry as I am sure they have already absorbed all their yolks. 

We are also a couple weeks away from hatching out some hypo mosaic Florida kings with some of those being lavender hybino mosaics. I am really excited for those snakes to start pipping. So far all the eggs from that clutch look great. After that we will have another clutch of Florida kings which should all be hypo along with about half of them being T- hybino. So stay tuned, as things are getting very busy around here.