Chris,



I appreciate your bias towards black rat morphs (which are neat snakes), but I think you are selling some of these other snakes a little short.



Kings and milks - very pretty, however from everything i've been told they're very flighty as babies, meaning that they won't stay still in your hand. While rat snakes will be moving around, kings and milks will literally be racing out of your hands.



I don't think this is a fair generalization. Yes, some milksnakes are squirmy little beasts as babies, but most kingsnakes, particularly the larger subspecies, are as calm and docile as a corn baby and generally a lot hardier (they are bigger and heavier bodied).



Corns - they are actually a sub species of a north american rat snake. they grow around 5-6 feet at full size, and have a pretty docile tempermant, however can be nippy as babies.



Cornsnakes are a separate species of north american ratsnake, not a subspecies. Most baby corns I have produced or handled are not inclined to bite at all.



Black rats - grow 6-7 feet as adults, more natural colorful mutations than you can think of. check out mike jolliff's ads on the classifieds, he has a poster he made of a lot of different types. He's who i got my first black rat through, and I'd highly reccomend him. More than happy to answer your questions, also.



Agree about these snakes, except to say that this subspecies is at least as nippy, if not more, than the cornsnake.



Texas rats (in particular the Texas Bairdi) - These are a little more nippy than the others, but what can you expect they're texans with attitude! These are kinda ugly ducklings, but grow to be beauts! Not too expensive, grow to be about 5-6'.



You are confusing two different species of snakes here that have different personalities.

Texas Ratsnakes (Pantherophis obsoleta lindheimeri) are relatives of the Black Ratsnake. They are generally similar to Black Rats although they don't get quite as big (6-7 feet) and they sometimes have a more aggressive personality. But there are dog tame Texas Rats just as there are mean Black Rats.

They do change in color as the grow, but less so than a Black Rat (baby TX rats and Black rats are very similar looking).



Baird's Rats (Pantherophis bairdi) is a smaller snake than the Texas/Black Ratsnake generally. They don't usually get more than about 5 feet long.



They are also very docile snakes. Baird's babies that I have caught/produced are less inclined to bite than any other species (and that includes Trans-pecos Ratsnakes). They also go through a fascinating color change from a little gray snake to a big blue gray snake with a wash of golden orange and red. They are really beautiful animals when seen in person and photographs rarely capture their beauty.

Here's a close up of a bairdi body.





They are also kind of an "up and coming" star in the snake husbandry world as more and more people get them and fall in love with them.



Yellow/everglades rats - these are both a little more agressive than a black rat, similar to a texan. they grow 5-7 feet.



Again, most captive born yellow/everglades rats are as docile as captive born black rats and wild caughts are as feisty as many wild caught black rats.



Those corrections aside, these aren't bad suggestions at all. I would also consider you look at Black Milksnakes (spectacular big black docile snakes), big Kings such as Eastern, Florida, and Brooks (south florida) kings, some of the Bull and Gophersnakes morphs, etc. Rosyboas are also neat snakes for a starter, as are the smaller Australian Pythons, such as Spotted and Children's Pythons.



There are a lot of really neat species available right now for the "entry level" snake keepers.
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Chris Harrison

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