Almost no MBKs in Europe?

Hey there everyone!

I’m pretty new to the community side of MorphMarket , so forgive me if the discussion has been held here before. I couldn’t find anything on it.

I started to notice that the beautiful Mexican Black Kingsnake seems to be almost unavailable in Europe, which to me seems unbelievable, since there seems to be such a huge demand. (Mostly for keeping them as pets, it seems) Whenever i find one or two - which is not often the case - they seem to be gone in a second. Also the prices for those animals are double or higher than what i have seen from US breeders for example, which is understandable when there are so few available. I just don’t get why there aren’t more breeders who produce them tough? There are other kingsnakes and coloubrids all over the place, but none of those…

I recently read about a ban on kingsnakes by the EU that never came through though on another forum but i couldn’t find another source to confirm this. That might be a reason for breeders to stop producing them, has anyone else heard about that?

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When I was first shopping for my MBK, I was surprised at the paltry availability here in the States. I asked a couple breeders about that and was told that demand really wasn’t all that great . I felt otherwise by the quick sales CB babies seemed to make! I was at a local show and saw three babies. All were gone an hour later!

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Yeah, it is crazy to me how widely available they are in the US… Even considered buying from there but shipping an animal across the atlantic just leaves my stomach aching… Not to mention the shipping cost ^^°

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Does Colubra not have any MBKs? We imported to Canada some Cali Kings from them earlier this year and it was pretty stress free

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I heard that because of the threatened ban, a lot of breeders sold off their breeding MBK to people who wanted them as pets. Unfortunately, these pet owners of MBK produce few/no hatchlings, so the few that do crop up are £250 or sillier!

Compared to when I worked in a reptile shop 15 years ago, we had an adult in store for months priced at less than £80.

There are alternatives to MBK’s (I’m not keen on MBK’s, UK lines seems excessively bitey compared to the ‘suitable for beginners’ description from the US). Melanistic variable kingsnakes are jet black like a mini MBK and get 3-3.5 ft long. You can also get black African house snakes, melanistic Russian ratsnakes and melanistic garter snakes too.

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Thanks for the info! I’ll definitely look into those other species.

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Oh and if you’re in Germany, I know of someone in Germany who has just had a clutch off their Black Egg Eater (Dasypeltis atra). Now I would kill for some of these but thanks to Covid cancelling the final accessible Hamm /Houten shows before Brexit and now that Brexit has slammed the door, I can’t get any!

Black atras are as black as an MBK but are much more arboreal and eat nothing but eggs.

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