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. 

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.

My "Expensive" Snake Finally Laid Eggs!

 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.

2025 Breeding

 For 2025 I had several females ready to breed and was excited to get them paired with my males. I have a pair of eastern kingsnakes that are het albino. So I definitely wanted them paired up. I love the look of an albino eastern king. So I paired my male Apollo with his girlfriend, Hestia. Initially I didn't see much in the way of romantic activity. But after a couple attempts they clicked and I witnessed a lock. I continued pairing for a couple weeks. 

A few weeks later I could tell Hestia was indeed gravid. On May 2, 2025 while cleaning cages, I opened her enclosure to find 23 eggs. Some were obviously not going to make it. But I think I have 18 good ones in the incubator and they should be hatching in a couple weeks. 

These eggs look like she may have laid them a bit early as they were still connected via a little threadlike piece of egg shell. Kind of like a string of pearls. They are also very small eggs, but I candled them a couple times and they have strong veins which have only grown more prominent during the incubation process. So fingers crossed that we see a couple albino eastern kingsnakes arrive just after fourth of July.

Another pairing I was very excited about is my lavender hybino, mosaic project. Leto, the female is a gorgeous whiteside, hypo, mosaic, het lavender Florida kingsnake. Her mate, Ares is a hypo, mosaic, het lavender male Florida kingsnake. The triple combo of lavender, hypo, mosaic makes for a crazy cool looking snake. I paired them several times without seeing a lock, but on like the fourth pairing I saw a definitive lock. I continued pairing for a week or so. 

I honestly wasn't sure she was gravid until just a few weeks before laying. I feed the females pretty heavily during the breeding season to ensure they have the nutrition they need to produce healthy eggs. It eventually became obvious she was gravid and several weeks later I found her in her lay box busy depositing eggs.

She laid a dozen pretty good sized eggs. She is a eating machine so I made sure to remove the eggs promptly after she finished in the hopes I could prevent her from eating any of them. I don't think she managed to scarf any down though. Keep your fingers crossed for me that the odds gods smile upon me and give me a few triple combos in this clutch. Actually, lets just hope we can get them all to term.

Another pairing that has me hyped is my T- albino hybino project. This pair consists of my male T- hybino, Achilles, and my hypo, het T- albino, Asia. Again when I paired them the first couple times there was no hint of romance. But on about the third or fourth introduction, boom! I had a confirmed lock. I continued pairing for a couple more weeks and saw a couple more locks. I am 95% sure Asia is gravid at this point and I expect her to be laying any day now. I will update when she does.

The fourth pairing is a repeat breeding of my axanthic male, Zeus and a het axanthic female, Clio. They have produced some nice looking babies for me in the past. But the axanthic babies all popped male so I kept none of them. I would like to hatch a female axanthic which I would hold back and raise up.

Stay tuned for updates on the results of these pairings/clutches. I will try to post regular updates.