9 to 16 eggs in early spring. They are known to store sperm and can lay up to six clutches per year in captivity, but it rarely happens in nature. Hatchlings are upon hatching. Diet Their main diet consists of rodents; in captivity, smaller snakes take pinkie mice, and in the wild they more commonly prey on geckos until they are powerful enough to constrict mice. Large females are known to occasionally eat weanling rats. Adult snakes get fed weekly. Hatchlings may eat small lizards, such as skinks and geckos, and newborn mice. In captivity, they can successfully be fed on gecko tails. Larger specimens are also known to take lizards, and in rare cases they will catch small bats. House snakes should be fed alone; their often violent feeding response may cause cannibalism. References External links The African house snake page On Kingsnake.com Lamprophis website African house snakes House snake photographs Lamprophis forums House snake captive care guide Informational Lamprophis website and forum Further reading Boulenger GA (1893). Catalogue of the Snakes in the British Museum (Natural History). Volume I., Containing the Families ... Colubridæ Aglyphæ, part. London: Trustees of the British Museum (Natural History). (Taylor and Francis, printers). xiii + 448 pp. + Plates I-XXVIII. (Genus Lamprophis, p. 39, Figure 19). Branch, Bill (2004). Field Guide to Snakes and Other Reptiles of Southern Africa. Third Revised edition, Second impression. Sanibel Island, Florida: Ralph Curtis Books. 399 pp. . (Genus Lamprophis [sensu lato], pp. 73–74). Fitzinger L (1843). Systema Reptilium, Fasciculus Primus, Amblyglossae. Vienna: Braumüller & Seidel. 106 pp. + indices. (Lamprophis, new genus, p. 25). (in Latin). FitzSimons V (1966). "A check-list, with synoptic keys, to the snakes of Southern Africa". Annals of the Transvaal Museum 25 (3): 35-79. (Genus Lamprophis, Key to the species, p. 45). Lamprophiidae Taxa named by Leopold Fitzinger Snake genera