" If you knew what you were talking about you would know that now they have their neonate patterns and will eventually change to their adult patterns"

No kidding?......thanks for explaining all this to me. After 45 years of owning countless thousands of snakes, I would have never guessed that they now have their juvenile patterns and would ontogenetically transform into their adult patterns (whatever that may be now that you crossed them). Very likely a dark brown/orange background with darker saddle blotching and maybe some vague remnant longitudinal striping.

"Who knows what they will look like. Also, you are not dealing with a seasoned veteran breeder. I'll be the first to admit that. I happened to have these two and decided to breed them"

Yes, I was able to pretty much pick up on that right away, thanks...

And what do you think those snakes, and their future babies, and their babies hatchlings and so on and so on will later be bred to when they matured later on?. Do you think all of those babies would be accurately identified and bred to more of those exact same precise crosses you started with and that everyone would know they are indeed man-made crosses?. Or do you think they might later get bred to whatever type of genuine ratsnake many people happen to have and that yours seem close enough?

The bare-bones reality of all this is that the one's you just produced, and whatever THEY go on to produce depending on whatever people think they are and breed them to will later get labeled as whatever subspecies they "seem" to best represent at any particular time down the road. And they will all have some substantial variation from the other subspecie's influence they contain.

Anyway, the real point is that this would have all started from this simple notion.......

"I happened to have these two and decided to breed them"

.....and not bothering to go get another closely-matched mate or just simply skip the breeding for the time being until you did get an orange Everglades to pair up with it. That or get another Texas Rat for your leucistic.


Yes, I realize that I am the horrible "bad guy" for realistically pointing all this out, as well as dashing your dreams of creating something "amazingly different" for the hobby, but the honest reality is they certainly will not, and only dilute things further.

Rest assured that many of those snakes will be grossly misrepresented down the line because many will never be informed what they actually are, or even remember, or care. The bottom line is they will be called whatever people "think" they probably are and do nothing more than muddy-up more collections of authentic types of ratsnake subspecies as they go. My whole intent with all this isn't to come across as mean and nasty, I am merely pointing this all out so you are more aware of how the true dynamics of this hobby actually works. I am stating this from 45 years of experience owning and working with many different types of snakes.


cheers, ~Doug



Same snake 2 years later.....


-----
"a snake in the grass is a GOOD thing"


serpentinespecialties.webs.com

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