Presents :)

Woke up this morning to 15 little presents from our wc Texas Black Rat. We got her for our rat snake project and was going to put her with a male in a couple weeks. Well it looks like we are going to have to wait lol.

Christmas in July.

Congratulations!! Something tells me those eggs are full of fiesty little boogers.

Tandy

Thanks . I hope they are fiesty. We are working on getting a pure line of ratsnakes. We see alot of them at shows that have the buggy eyes, over bites, etc from inbreeding so we want to start breeding them to get the more natural look. This was a huge surprise, I got her last month from a friend in Texas and didn't know she was gravid. We will candle the eggs next week and see if they are fertile.

Norm,

What "pure line" of rat snakes are you wanting to produce ?

The reason I ask is that there seems to be plenty of Texas Rat Snakes and

Intergrade Rat Snakes out there (in Oklahoma), but finding what appears to be

a "true" Black Rat Snake is getting to be more difficult.

I know of a couple of members who would like to find a "true" Black Rat Snake.

A true rat snake is what we are after.

A "true" Black Rat ?

What's your definition of a "true" black rat?

Elaphe obsoleta obsoleta

Black Rat Snakes are black for the most part with very little, if any, pattern.

The skin in-between the scales can be cream or rust colored.

The chin and throat are white.

The belly is white or light colored with some black checkerboard markings especially

toward the anterior portion.

There's a good picture of one in Staszko and Walls book "Rat Snakes" on page 99.

There's also a pretty good picture of one in our field guide on the top of page 156.

Black Rat Snakes look nothing like Texas Rat Snakes (lindheimeri) and the "Texas Rat

Snake" pictured in the middle picture on page 156 of our field guide is not a Texas Rat

Snake.

It's more of an Intergrade.

For a good picture of a Texas Rat Snake refer to the above book "Rat Snakes", page

104.

That's what we are going for. True forms of the species. These eggs came from a black rat with very little pattern and the rust coloring between the scales. I'll try to get some pics of here when she calms down, for some reason she has wanted to kill me since I took her eggs lol

"for some reason she has wanted to kill me since I took her eggs lol"



I can't say that I blame her.

Feed her a nice rat and play some soft music with candlelight.

I think I'll go with the toss and run method lol

Awesome! Congrats! Ratsnakes rule! lol

Jen does love her rat snakes. You need to come by one day Cameron and you two can talk shop.

stormdas wrote:Jen does love her rat snakes. You need to come by one day Cameron and you two can talk shop.

Haha! Yeah! I just moved all my snakes up to Stillwater, or else I would have loved to have you guys over to see my snakes some time and just chat! I still am going back to Shawnee for weekends though, so we could definitely work something out!

Sounds like a plan. Let me know when works for you.

Here's a couple pics of the little hellions. Still need a pic of momma but she would rather kill me then pose for the camera.

First one out of the egg


Day after first shed and meal

Very cute. It looks like he thinks he just a little ferocious (sp) thing doesn't he.

All 14 of then think that. Only good thing is their teeth are not long enough yet to do any damage.

Any new pics of the fiesty little boogers? Nothing wrong with your self-esteem when you are the size of a worm and act like a 20' python. Love them!

Tandy

Ill take some new pics. After the first shed we have a variety of colors. And now their teeth can break skin and they have learnt how to musk lol