I think it's fair to call this season a success. I got 3 clutches of Florida kingsnake eggs--two of which have hatched so far, one of which still has a month to go. I didn't get good eggs out of my house snakes--I got eggs, but they were bad. I'll try again next year on them.
It was my first time intentionally setting out to breed. I bred a few geckos as a kid, mostly by accident (leopard and pictus geckos) but that's longer ago than I want to admit.
I've got 11 healthy hatchlings thus far and 7 more eggs incubating. I got a group of 4 double het for axanthic and white sided out of one clutch. The other clutch gave me 4 double het axanthic/hypo and 3 axanthic het hypos. Hatching started while I was out of town (eggs pipping) but was done by the 7th. Most of them have eaten 2-3 times on frozen thawed pinky mice and are going to move up to fuzzies in a week or two. I've got two hold outs I'm going to try on live pinkies tomorrow.
It was, certainly, a learning experience. I need a bigger baby rack for next year, as well as a bigger incubator. I wish I'd bit the bullet initially and purchased a 32 or 64 tub baby rack. I'm not a huge fan of racks but for raising babies they're functional and practical. I'm looking at getting both a bigger and better incubator; I've heard good things about Nature's Spirit, I may go with them. I plan to breed more snakes year--3 house snakes, 2-4 more king snakes, my reticulated pythons. So Bigger incubator is important. I also need a bigger cooling chamber probably. Mine was full this year, and next year I'll be cycling more snakes--a male garter to mate with my female, the extra kings, etc.
Take aways:
Incubation and hatching are stressful as heck, at least for me. It's like Christmas, but if you had to slowly unwrap each present over a 2-3 day period of time
It's a rush to watch babies pip the egg.
Get them started on F/t if you can, many of them will take it.
Feed females heavily. They lose a lot of body mass with egg laying, but can regain it fairly quick. My hypo Florida king double clutched, and she's still heavier than she was when she went into hibernation last year.
Selling is a bit of a pain. You have to figure out which ones you want to hold back (if any), which ones you want to sell, figure out how long to hold them for before offering them up, figuring out shipping and advertising, etc.
Put thought into your pairings. I had a pair of white sides, and I elected to not breed the male to the female, instead breeding her to the axanthic to produce double hets. In hindsight this was a mistake. White sideds don't sell for that much less than axanthinc white sides, and sell for more than double hets, they're still pretty snakes, and I could have had visual morphs to sell this year if I'd done that.
Next year the male white sided will mate to a female albino as well as the female white sided, my male axanthic will mate to a hypo female, and a mosaic female. My regular male will mate with a regular female. This ought to give the groundwork for some interesting double homos-albino white sides (PRETTY!), axanthic mosaics (which should look really pretty but I've never seen them), as well as some more regular morphs. I will probably back a pair of double het WS/Hypos poss het axanthics (that are incubating now) and hope for the odds to give me a WS ghost or two out of breeding them to each other--worst case scenario is hypo white sideds which are still nice.
I may also hold back a pair of the axanthic/white sided hets to produce a mix of axanthics, white sides and axanthic white sided. I'm unsure yet. Part of it depends on money--holding back more snakes means buying more cages as they outgrow the baby and grow-out racks. It also means bigger incubators, more food bills, etc.
What'll I change next year? Different pairings. Bigger incubator. I may cycle the house snakes (and I am working on getting the male bigger, he's a small thing).
Try not to worry myself sick over everything that can go wrong. Stuff like that.
