California Kingsnakes

(Lampropeltis g. californiae)


I kept and bred California Kings for nearly 20 years. They were the second species of snake I ever hatched. I always focused on abberancy in my group. While I did produce albinos, I never focused on them much. I always felt that by removing the black from the pattern you lost the key to the contrast that made these snakes so beautiful.
The great thing about breeding for abberant patterns is there is inifnite variety. Anyone can start from scratch with some bandeds and striped breeders and then hold back the young with the most intersting patterns and just keep crossing them, pairing up the ones you think will produce something different.
One of my goals that I finally realized after three or four generations was to produce a complete striped specimen. With most of the stripes you saw then the stripe was always broken into dots on the tail. I ended up hatching a pair of complete stripes one season, and even though it wasn't that big a deal, that was one of my most satisfying seasons, realizing the goal I had been working on for multiple generations of line breeding.
Below is just a few pictures of some of the cal kings I have produced over the years.


  • Female Banded, mother of the bananas below

  • Male coastal striped, father of the bananas below

  • Male dotdash patterned

  • Female dotdash patterned

  • Female banana cal king

  • Female banana cal king

  • Male banana cal king

  • Male banana cal king

  • Male High White

  • Male highest white I've produced

  • Female High White

  • Female High White with double reverse stripe