How I Incubate Kingsnake Eggs

Once I am certain the female is done laying, I will usually get her out of the laybox if she hasn't come out on her own. I will then gently palpate her to check there is in fact no more eggs. Once I'm confident she has emptied them out I gather the eggs from the laybox. Careful not to change the orientation I found them in. Sometimes I will try to separate them so they're not just a giant blob of eggs. However, sometimes that is not possible and I will just place the whole lump in an incubation box.

For incubation box I use small plastic tubs and use moist perlite for a substrate. I choose locking tubs, because in past years I have had the babies get out of the snap-on top incubation tub and found them just cruising around in the incubator. 

I am a just a small hobbyist breeder so my actual incubator is a very simple design. A cooler, some heat cable, and thermostat is all you really need. The temperatures you're trying to achieve are like 75-80 degrees F. The supplies I listed are very affordable and this setup has hatched hundreds of snakes for me over the years. Plus if I run out of room in one cooler I can just set up another one. This adds some failure domains to the operation so all your eggs aren't literally all in one basket. 

Cooler incubator

Heat cable and thermostat keep temps dialed in

Technically if your room or somewhere in your house is in the high 70's you can just put the incubation box on a shelf or on top of a fridge, etc. Most colubrid snakes are VERY simple to incubate. Granted I have no fans to circulate air or fancy stuff like that in my setup. But again, this is a hobby for me, I love checking on them during the process which allows for some air exchange almost daily. I candle them every couple weeks throughout the process to monitor them.

I have found using the temperature I mentioned above, the incubation time is a little bit shorter opposed to leaving it on a shelf somewhere. The cooler/heat tape combo keeps the temperature stable enough and warm enough for my eggs. If you look at kingsnakes in the wild and where they lay their eggs, you'll see it just needs to be warm enough, but not too warm. The mom just deposits them in a safe enough spot with decent enough temps, and bam they hatch. Another thing to keep in mind is the eggs need high humidity, but you do not want them getting wet or submerged. Believe it or not, but they need to breathe. This is why I use the moist perlite for substrate in the incubation box. The eggs just sit on this substrate. 

The cooler in the photos houses three clutches of kingsnake eggs. Some are getting very near their expected hatch date. This is one of the most exciting times of year for me as a keeper of kingsnakes. You work all year to see what comes out of these eggs. Usually you kind of know what to expect, but there can be a big surprise anytime!

Keeping and interacting with these kingsnakes is a fun and rewarding hobby in and of itself. I can't imagine not having at least one of these guys. But watching them reproduce is on another level altogether.