Several years ago I wanted to add some of the lavender gene to my collection. I already had a T- hybino male who is pretty stunning. And I had several of the other available morphs you can find in Florida kingsnakes. But the lavender gene has always been attractive to me. When I came across an ad for a multi-gene female I snapped her up. She is supposed to be 100% het lavender. She is also hypo, mosaic, and whiteside. I named her Leto and began raising her up.
She is definitely the most expensive kingsnake I ever thought about purchasing. Probably twice the price of any other snakes I currently own. But I have no regrets. When I purchased her I also got a male hypo, mosaic, 100% het lavender to go with her. One of my dream snakes (I have a lot of dream snakes) has been the lavender hybino mosaic. Which if you have ever seen one, its just a mind blowing combination of Florida kingsnake morphs.
After several years of feeding and cleaning up poop, which is like 99% of keeping and breeding these fascinating animals, I finally felt they were old/large enough to try breeding them. This may have been the only time I was truly nervous about pairing some snakes. Obviously as the name dictates, these snakes are known to like to eat other snakes. My male, Ares, achieved a fairly larger size than Leto this pricy female. And Leto my pricey female has a psychotic feeding response. Nonetheless I went for it and paired them this spring.
I turn the heat off and just let them hang out with an ambient temp from around December to February. My snakes share my home office with me so it doesn't get very cold, probably 68-72F during this time. So there is no real brumation. But they definitely slow down, eat way less, and get a lot less sunlight for these couple months. About Valentine's day I kick the heat back on. In a couple weeks their appetite and normal routines return in full force.
At this point I make their introductions. Initially there was nothing really happening and they seemed uninterested. So I was second guessing their sexes and thought about re-sexing them using probes. But I'm lazy and just kept pairing them every few days. Then one day when I went to seperate them I noticed Ares was firmly locked onto Leto. YES!!!! I continued pairing them every couple days for a few weeks. There were several good locks observed. So I was confident my male, Ares had done his job dutifully.
After a couple months of feeding her very well I was starting to think Leto didn't take. But she definitely looked gravid. She was not interested in food during last week's feeding which is really odd for her. It had been over 2 weeks since her "pre-lay shed" so I was starting to get worried thinking she may be egg-bound. Then last week she dropped one dozen nice looking eggs. None appeared to be slugs while I moved them from lay box to incubation box.
So now it is just another waiting game to find out if they hatch and if in fact Leto/Ares are both 100% het lavender. At a minimum I am confident the whole clutch will be hypo mosaics, so that's cool in and of itself.
After Leto laid her eggs I gave her a day to rest up. Then I checked to see if she was hungry. Big surprise, she was super hungry! One good thing is she eats so well I feel pretty confident about getting her up to condition for next year.
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