What I didn’t do this summer was post about my snakes. (I’m getting pretty bad about that)
So let’s talk about the 2019 breeding season. I have 3 sets of adults left for breeding, pairs from (2006, 2010 & 2012) . My 2010’s didn’t breed this year and I’m not sure why but it’s good, for the health of the female, to skip a year every now and then.
My 2006’s did well but the babies all look pretty normal.
2006 female
2006 male
The first baby to hatch was a chunk and it occurred to me that I’ve never weighed hatchling snakes.
So, I broke out the kitchen scale and weighed each hatchling as they emerged. Out of 28 snakes from two different clutches they were all between 12 & 14 grams (except for one that was 16 and one that was 8…I’m going to do a follow up and compare these two siblings in the future.)
The 2006 clutch was lots of healthy good looking snakes but pretty unremarkable. Since it takes a year + before they start to show any real color (and since I’m not dealing with 60 snakes) I decided to hang on to them all to see how they look next summer.
Roadie was not impressed by the babies.
My 2012’s gave me ALL MORPHS! I don’t know what’s different about these snakes but it’s cool.
2012 female
2012 male
There were only a dozen babies but everyone displays broken patterns, broke stripe through the eye, light ground color and faded centers of the dorsal markings. This is my 3rd year with this pair breeding exclusively and this is what they give me every time.
The reason I bring this up is that their offspring from past years all develop mixtures of yellow and red turn a wonderful lavender color in most animals.
