Shed, Sex, and Feed

 Now that my baby kingsnakes have all hatched and some have shed it is time to set aside some time to sex them all. I will usually wait until they have had their first shed. Sexing them is exciting, because it will help me determine which ones I may want to keep. For example, an albino female eastern kingsnake would be a super addition to my collection. So if I have any, I am planning on keeping one (maybe two). It also helps any potential new owners decide if these babies may be something they want to get. 

I have sexed hundreds of snakes, both babies and adults of several species. It's not a glamorous event, and can be a little gross if the poop and musk starts flying toward your face. But it has to be done. For babies I will generally opt to use the popping method of sexing them. Its just faster and safer I feel for these little ones. You just need to be careful not to hurt them. They are still a little delicate at this age. If you have never done it, or are unsure how to do it, there are several youtube videos out there covering how its done. 

After they have shed and been sexed I will attempt to get them to eat their first meals. I expect some will just dive right into eating without hesitation and I expect others will be more hesitant. It's just the nature of the beast. One thing is for sure, with kings, once they are started they are generally very hardy animals. I am still awaiting a shipment of frozen rodents which contains some extra small pinkies for these guys. So once its here I hope to post some update photos of some of these babies taking down some food. 

First Clutch of 2025 is out

 Finally my first clutch of the year have all hatched out. Pairing was het albino male (Apollo) eastern kingsnake bred to het albino female (Hestia) eastern kingsnake. I started with 20 eggs laid. A few of those went bad during incubation and did not hatch. Seventeen of them did go all the way. I ended up with twelve normals and five albinos. All of them look pretty healthy. There are a couple of the first ones out which are a little bit on the small side compared to their siblings. But I am hopeful they will do just fine.

I'm debating on sexing them now or after they shed and will update with the results once I do that. I have plenty of pinky mice to feed them, so hopefully they are hungry and eat readily. This was an exciting clutch for me since I have wanted an albino eastern king since at least 2008. Do you know what is better than buying an albino eastern king? Hatching your own.

This clutch has been in the making since 2022 when I acquired the parents as hatchlings. I spent the last few years feeding and watching them grow. I always planned to breed them and hoped they were in fact het albino. Both parents have been great pets. They are good eaters and easily handled. When they are fresh out of a shed, they are absolutely stunning examples of kingsnakes. The last few years of keeping them has been very rewarding. I will likely keep a couple of the albinos since I have wanted one for so long. 

So if you're interested in an albino or 66% het albino eastern kingsnake, stick around. I will likely be making several available for sale in the not too distant future.

I still have two clutches of Florida kings in the incubator. These should produce some killer morphs if you're into that. I am into FL king morphs and I cannot wait to see what emerges from those eggs. Rest assured I will update on them once they start pipping. 

Seven Babies - One Albino

The eastern kingsnakes are still working their way out of the eggs. Seven babies have made it completely out. One of which is an albino. This is great, because now I know my het parents are in fact 100% hets. I bought them as 100% hets, but you never really know for sure, you are trusting the seller that they are what they say they are. Until you breed them or get a genetic test done you cannot be 100% sure. So it was a relief to know I haven't been raising, feeding, and cleaning up after this pair for several years and them not be hets. That would be tragic. This is my first albino eastern kingsnake I have ever hatched.

I see two more normals have pipped, but not out yet. There are still eight more eggs that haven't pipped. I am really hoping for a couple more albinos. But I will take what I can get out of this first time breeding of my het albino pair. Pretty sure I will do this same pairing again next year in an effort to get more albinos. An albino eastern kingsnake has been a dream snake of mine since, well forever

It is reassuring seeing this clutch hatching as I still have two more clutches of Florida kingsnakes in there. Seeing one clutch go to term tells me the incubator is working just fine. I will add some more photos of the babies after they have had their first shed. 

Now that they have hatched comes the work and potential frustration. Baby kings can be a little difficult to get started eating. I have historically had very little if any trouble getting baby floridana to eat. But easterns can be a little finicky. Some will just be almost automatic, while others can be notoriously stubborn. This clutch is composed of some small kingsnakes too. So while I am a little nervous about getting them all to eat, I will just do my best to get them going and thriving on frozen/thawed rodents.

Wish me luck and stay tuned to see how these babies do moving forward. Also be on the lookout for some of my other cool clutches to hatch in mid and late August 2025.

Happy World Snake Day!

 It seems each time I log onto Facebook or other social media there is some sort of "day". Usually I pay them no mind really. There's siblings day, national puppy day, you name it. Like a day for pretty much everything exists. But I never thought about a world snake day until I saw someone post something about it on Facebook. If you think about it, if anything deserves a day it is snakes. 

They were here long before us and snakes will probably be here long after we are gone. Snakes are crucial to the ecosystems in which they live. Without them, the balance of the entire system is thrown out of equilibreum. If you live in the southeastern USA like me and killed off all of your local corn snakes or rat snakes, you would likely be overrun with rodents in a short time. The same can be said of the venomous species as well. Kill or remove all of your pit vipers and again the rodent population in that area will explode. While rodents also have their own place in their respective ecosystems, they can carry dangerous disease. Just check out hentavirus. Which seems to be increasing in popularity. Could it be because we've effectively decimated the rodent's natural predators in those areas?

Snakes in general get a lot of bad press and many folks cannot see any value in any snake. But this is a very ignorant view. Even the most deadly or dangerous snakes deserve a fair chance at living their lives. In the US for example on average there are only five deaths per year due to snake bite. The chances of being killed by a snake in my part of the world are pretty minimal. That said, if you see a venomous snake, just leave it alone. Most bites occur due to individuals trying to capture or kill the snake. 

Considering there are 20-40 cases of hantavirus per year with a 35% fatality rate, I think I would prefer to deal with the snakes.

As a snake keeper for over 25 years I can tell you they make the absolute best pets in my opinion. A pet snake is not likely to chew up your furniture or your homework. They also make very little noise, so your neighbors, HOA, etc will not be complaining about that either.

Snakes are cool, fun, and an important part of the natural world. So let's all try to be a little nicer to our legless, scaly friends on this world snake day, and EVERYDAY. And let's appreciate the important job they do for us. 

Finally! Kingsnakes are Hatching!

 This morning I was stoked when I checked the incubator, as I do about twice a day when something is due to hatch. I was greeted by two normal eastern kingsnakes pipping. While they are only about 6 days late, I have to admit I was starting to get nervous. I honestly expected them on the 5th or 6th of July. But as we know nature has her own clock and there is nothing we can do to speed it up or even slow it down. I am happy to see these two though. I'm looking for some albinos, but only normals so far. 

But there is quite a few eggs left to pip. These were from Apollo x Hestia. Mom and dad are both het albino so we should expect about 25% of the hatchlings to be albino. Nothing beats the excitement of seeing eggs hatch whether they are the target morph or normal animals. All of them are absolutely beautiful. Sure morphs are cool looking, but nature's paint jobs are gorgeous in their own right. 

If you have been following along, I was pretty worried about this clutch due to the small size of the eggs. She seemed to lay these guys a little early since they were still connected by a thread like material. There was like 4 eggs that either were bad from the jump or have went bad during the incubation process. But there is still a dozen or more that look good and will hopefully hatch out some gorgeous babies.

Breeding kingsnakes is not for the impatient. If you start with babies you have about three years of just caring for them until they get to breeding size. Then you have to pair them and hope they make a love connection. Then you have to wait for the female to lay. Once you make it to the laying you feel like you're pretty successful. But after collecting the eggs you still have another two months of just waiting and keeping temps within range.

Even after hatching, the work is not quite complete. Some baby kingsnakes can be slow to start eating. Eastern kingsnakes can be tough, but usually not too much trouble.And once you get them started, you're typically in the clear. So stay tuned as I will continue posting updates on the hatching as well as the hatchlings of this special clutch.  

Still Waiting for Hatclings

 My female eastern kingsnake laid eggs on May 2, 2025. She is het albino and was paired with my het albino male. I've been keeping an eye on the eggs and patiently awaiting them to pip. It has been 66 days so they should be coming out any day now. Some of these eggs have unfortunately went bad. But there is still a good number which appear to be doing just fine. The female I call Hestia, has been putting weight back on and is looking to be in great shape. I am planning on a repeat pairing of Hestia and Apollo in 2026.

She laid 18 eggs. Some I could tell were duds right out of the gate. A couple others have now molded and deflated so appear to have failed as well. But there is still over a dozen that look okay up to this point. I do feel like she laid this clutch a little early. The eggs were quite small, and still had the little filament connecting them similar to a string of pearls. The eggs were more round than I usually see with my Florida kings. For now, all I can do is keep the incubator temperatures consistent and wait. Breeding snakes is not for the impatient. There is a lot of waiting involved. But to say I am eager to see the hatchlings is an understatement. So much time and work has gone into this clutch of eastern kingsnakes. I simply can't wait to see if this clutch beats the odds. Hoping we end up with at least a couple albino eastern kingsnakes out of this one. 

There are two more clutches cooking as well. These two are from Florida kingsnakes. So far all the eggs in both Florida king clutches are looking good. Fingers crossed they all make it to term. Fingers crossed on both hands that we beat the odds and get some killer looking morphs from these. I didn't include any photos in this post because I have already posted photos of these clutches. This was just an update on how things are going so far. 

Putting Weight Back on Females for 2026

 As most of my females have laid their eggs for the 2025 season, I waste zero time in ensuring their body condition bounces back. Actually I aim to give them enough nutrition to bounce back, grow, and start putting on size for next year. Gals who have laid will get double fed for a few weeks, then down to just one large mouse weekly until winter sets in. 

Eastern Kingsnake Hungry After Laying Eggs

I feed aggressively just after laying to give them a little boost in putting weight back on. Once they're back to normal weight I go to more of a maintenance feeding schedule. I feel somewhat rushed in getting the initial weight back on, but I also know these animals are still growing a little each year so I want to make sure I don't stunt their growth. 

Florida kingsnake on her second mouse

The eastern kingsnake in the top photo gave up 18 eggs, so she was looking rather deflated a couple months ago. But as you can see she is already back to decent condition. I don't mind the females getting a tiny bit chunky this time of year either. I feel like their bodies have lost so much nutrition throughout the egg forming and egg laying process. It only seems natural they would go on a food binge if they had a choice anyway.

Florida kingsnake getting double fed

The Florida kingsnakes shown laid smaller clutches of larger eggs. They didn't lose as much weight as the Eastern kingsnake. Nonetheless, I still want to get a couple good meals in them quickly. This will ensure they put any lost weight back on while also preparing for the winter season. I don't brumate them at very low temperatures, but I do turn the heat in their enclosures off for a couple months. 

My room also gets a lot less sunlight during this time which I think helps them cycle. Also I don't withhold food, but I do offer it less frequently and see a lot of the snakes skip the meals I do offer on those warmer winter days. Some of course never skip a meal. I am still waiting on eggs from 2025 to hatch, but it's never too early to start planning for the 2026 season. Hopefully I will have some hatch updates soon so stay tuned. 

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.