I’ve been making some changes recently to my breeding plans, scaling down on ball pythons and expanding to come colubrids I’ve become passionate about. I decided to add variable king snakes! I got my original male Tyrion as a pet but he’s gorgeous and I’m really excited to work with this species.
My original male:
And the girl I just picked up for him:
Does anyone else work with these and have any tips?
Very cool, I love these guys! It’s so neat how they have such an array of colour schemes, and as I understand it, you tend to get that variety regardless of what the parents look like (though please correct me if I’m wrong about that). They always seemed like they’d be a really fun species to breed because of that. I love “rainbow clutches/litters,” where there’s a bunch of colour variety in the babies.
Your pair is gorgeous!! That yellow, orange and black colouring is one of my favourites for variable kings. Can’t wait to see what they produce for you in the future, super exciting!!!
Amazingly beautiful kings!
That’s a great looking pair.
Definitely should be a neat project. Lots of surprises I hope.
I am hoping for some surprises too! I’ve always worked with ball pythons, which have very obvious morphs and genetics. It will be interesting to work with a species like variable kings that have so many different phenotypes that aren’t predictable by Mendelian genetics. My understanding is that the parent phenotypes do play a role, so if I have two similar-looking parents I should get more similar-looking babies, but we’ll see if that holds true!
What bewitching animals they are! I love clutches with a lot of variations in appearance. I wish you many beautiful future babies!
Those guys are totally too cool! Can’t wait to see what babies they produce!
Well, I tried to get a picture of Cirilla this morning, but she was zooming around lol. She’s a fantastic eater though, and I’m super excited for the future.
Hello. I have recently gotten back into the King Snake hobby after a long time away. I purchased an adult male Leonis a few months ago and I love him. He is a light orange color with medium orange bands. I plan to purchase a female adult at some point (I am looking), to breed to him. Do you have any recommendations for a brand of small incubator? Just want to buy a good quality, small incubator…I don’t really want to make an incubator, I just want to buy one already made. Thank you!
Unfortunately I can’t really help you with an incubator, I made my own out of a wine cooler. You could always check out FB marketplace to see if anyone near you is selling one. Aside from that, I am not sure. Sorry!
As for an update on this project, I still do plan to breed variable kings but unfortunately Tyrion, my male, is no longer with me. He had escaped a couple of times in previous years and I’d found him but last fall he made another escape foray and I never managed to find him, so about a month ago I just took the plunge to get another male. This is Jasper, and he was produced by Emily and Ed at Snake Discovery!
And here’s an update on Ciri, who is growing really well.
I’m sorry you lost your male. That’s a sadness and a frustration. I’ve been there, too. Jasper is a cutie, though. And Ciri is just gorgeous!
I have GOT to get me some variables in the future 
So sorry for losing your old boy, the new one is lovely though! I watched the hatching video for that clutch on the SD youtube channel, funny to think I likely saw your kiddo there!
I think I’ve had the best results with ones I built myself. The one I purchased is a little finicky. And even the expensive ones can have problems. One user here had some really frustrating problems with one of the top recommended ones. So definitely do some research with reviews and get it early enough to test with fake eggboxes and such.
It’s also so much cheaper to make your own and know it’s right… Or up to 4 clutches it’s probably the best bet. I did a glass aquarium with a solid lid and an underwater heater for my first. And the igloo cooler with heat tape for my second.
My third incubator was custom built and finicky. A fourth for bird eggs just flat out died in a month. Lol.
