Sizes between the male and female corn

Hello. I have a pair of corn snakes now and I am going to breed them in the next spring. One is a normal female corn that is 360g and 3 years old. Another one is a coral snow male corn that is 150g and 3.5 years old also. The male corn is so small because I underfeed him. However, I am pretty sure he is sexually mature. I got two questions.

1. If the size of 2 snakes are too distinct, will the female eat the male if I put them overnight? Or it is relatively safe for corn snakes?

2. I can feed the male snake very frequently to put him up to 200g in the coming winter, but he will lose the chance of brumation. Is brumation important in breeding?

Thank you guys.

You do not have to brumate to breed your corns.

The snakes can be different sizes, but I would recommend putting them in a plastic tub together for only half an hour to an hour, while you supervise. It's unlikely that your female will eat your male, but if she's not ready to breed right then, he will stress her out.

Does your female have hets?

Originally Posted by hypnoctopus

You do not have to brumate to breed your corns.

The snakes can be different sizes, but I would recommend putting them in a plastic tub together for only half an hour to an hour, while you supervise. It's unlikely that your female will eat your male, but if she's not ready to breed right then, he will stress her out.

Does your female have hets?

Thank you! However, if corn snakes do not need brumation to trigger the mating behavior, that means I can even start putting them together now as long as I keep warm this winter?
I don't know whether my female corn has any hets since I didn't ask before. However, it will be still good as all her offspring will be 100% het coral snow.

They will usually only breed in the spring regardless of whether they were brumated or not.

Originally Posted by hypnoctopus

They will usually only breed in the spring regardless of whether they were brumated or not.

Hi hypnoctopus! Maybe this is a question for a genuine herpetologist (don't know if you ARE one or not, so pls bear with me), but since the OP is in Hong Kong, would that disrupt the Springtime breeding issue. I believe the seasons are reversed only relative to North & South of the equator, as opposed to the Eastern & Western hemispheres, but was just wondering if someone had two corns, a male & a female, in a place where it is Springtime. Would they still breed only from March to July (as I learned the hard way when I cohabbed my snakes that they began to mate with each other, EVEN the males attempted this as they probably went by raging hormones as opposed to gender!).

Just wondering. BTW canicemok, I never brumated my corns, and Lilly double-clutched this past summer, producing 29 eggs, 22 of which successfully hatched into a BLIZZARD of SNOWS, 21 of them and 1 cute amel stripe (unsure, but I believe that was also a type of snow). Just sayin'.

So I concur with hypnoctopus in that brumation is not necessary to get corns in the mood. Mine were hornier than a couple of virgins in a Catholic Junior High School! And just as wild! Maybe brumation is better geared towards snakes living in the wild?

Axis, Hong Kong is in the northern hemisphere so the seasons are the same as in the US.

I am guessing it doesn't matter to the snakes which hemisphere they are in. The lengthening days would be a signal. Snakes don't read calendars (though that's a funny mental picture).

I think it's more about the seasons and less about the calendar. I believe we have a member in South Africa who has his snakes breeding at a different time of the year because his seasons are the opposite of ours.

That's what I was trying to say, but you said it so much more clearly, hypnoctopus!

Thanks all! So what I have to do this winter is to keep it above 20degree, try to feed as much as possible, and try to put them together on Feb?

I don't think you should worry about power feeding your male. I would just feed him once a week. I have successfully bred a male who was around 150 grams to a much larger female. Most people start putting their snakes together after the female's first shed of the new year. I would also keep the shed and put it in the breeding bin with them.

There is a lot of good info in the breeding sub forum of this site. You should definitely do some reading here and see how other people do it, since you have some time anyway.