Do rattlesnakes lay eggs?
No! They have live babies. Actually, the babies are born in a small, thin ‘egg sack’ and quickly break out as fully formed miniature duplicates of their parent. While many snakes do lay eggs, the rattler is said to be a live birthing snake. The babies are very active and must utilize every instinct to insure survival as they are on their own immediately. The Western Diamondback usually has a litter of around 12 babies, but some have been known to have 25 or so. In the wild, most will not survive to adult life due to normal predation. The young are immediately adept at camouflage and hunting, and are quite toxic with fully formed venom systems. Live babies are very dangerous, as well as very cute, and they should never be picked up with the thought of ‘taming’ them or catching them before they get ‘big and mean’. They will bite without provocation and do all in their small abilities to protect themselves at their captor’s expense!
