Baby Kingsnakes Are Stirring

It's been a long winter. After having a fairly successful season last year(think pink haha), all babies that were not sold got put down into hibernation. Most have not had one solitary meal yet and yet I had but two die over winter. It's very important to let the babies soak up all of their egg yolk and not to disturb them before they emerge(if possible) so they can put on as most baby fat as possible to last them until now. These little guys are hardy as can be.

So earlier today I turned the heat tape back on. My experience over the years is that you can feed them their first meal roughly 24 hours the heat has been on. They have lots of digestive acid waiting for that first meal. After the first meal, I usually wait almost a week until their next meal so they can digest the first meal and have a week to rev up their metabolism.

As for the adults, they are on schedule to be warmed up on Feb 25th. I am planning getting a little more scientific this year with the breedings. I am going to purchase a microscope to be able to tell which males are producing the most sperm. In hindsight I should have been doing this all along. It takes one more variable out of the equation and I hope it will increase the fertility rate.

That's all for now. Check back here often in the next few months to see how production goes for this year.