I have not seen posts recently that give suggestions on how to pick out the nicest BRB’s. I am sure that each of the rainbowboa connoisseurs (junkies) on this forum has their own method, but I have decided to share my madness. If you can actually read this entire post, and have an additional characteristic that you look at while judging your baby rainbowboas, please respond.
When I am ranking the baby snakes and placing them in the appropriate category, I look at three main characteristics, Color (and lack of darker overtones), Pattern (side crescents) and temperament (calm or feisty).
It is hard to tell which babies will be red and which will be orange. I look for pink hues on the babies and I feel that the brighter the pink as youngsters, the more likely the babies will be red adults. This is not always the case and forecasting the exact coloration of the babies is tough. This is why I place so much emphasis on the color and overall look of the parents. In nearly all cases, the babies will end up looking like the one of the parents; a blend of each of the parents or some babies will take nicest characteristics from each parent and become even nicer looking than either parent.
So, while grading babies, I set each baby’s shoe box in a long line and rank the snakes according to color and lack of any dark overtones. I compare neighbors with each other and move the shoe boxes around until I have a nice gradient of body color (darker to clean color). I like to do this just after the first shed, when all the babies look the best. This process takes a while, but yields a gradient of color from extremely clean background colors to somewhat less vibrant babies. It is also the way I insure that the people wanting the top animals, actually get the nicest animals.
The next thing I look at is pattern. I am a pattern nut (especially side crescents). The thing that draws me to pattern in snakes like rainbowboas and carpet pythons is the fact that the pattern WILL NEVER CHANGE. It might be difficult to judge the exact adult coloration of each baby snake, BUT it is easy to judge the pattern. Grading for pattern is much less subjective and I have a method that yields an accurate representation for pattern (side crescent) quality. Although I do not really have a method to judge the dorsal circles, I can note weather the Dorsal circles are: broken (incomplete rings) or complete circles; Distinct circles separated from any other circle or circles touching in a chain like fashion down the spine; and I note interesting markings like circles connected to neighboring circles to make a zigzag looking dorsal blotch. I typically do not get asked about the dorsal markings, so they do not play a large role in my selection criteria. My main focus is on the side markings. These markings can vary in color (determined by the parents), so I look at their placement on the snakes body. This is about to get technical, BUT… I grade the left and the right on a scale of imperfections. If two side crescents touch each other and sort of merge into one big side marking, I give it a minus one. If the side crescent touches one of the dorsal circles above, I give it a minus one. If the side crescent touches the black spots near the belly scales that typically occur between and below the neighboring side crescent markings, I take off another point. Sometimes there are side crescents where the lighter crescent moon within the black medallion is incomplete or broken; I give this a minus one. Occasionally, there are smaller black dots between the normal side crescents, if these occur; I give it a minus one. I then repeat the process for the other side of the snake.
After going down each baby from head to tail, I can determine how perfect the side markings are and give a quantifiable grade; I can give a subjective color ranking within each litter; and I can offer some suggestions as to personality. The final result might look like (A -3L -2R) for a spectacular animal or (B- -9L -11R) for a darker animal with less distinct markings.
I hold each animal throughout this process (I often place siblings side by side to determine which ones are more colorful). Because of the hands on interaction, I can offer some limited insight into the snake’s personality and rank the animals as calm or feisty. The ones that do not bite me get a calm denotation, the ones that bite once or twice are normal, and the ones that will not stop biting are labeled as feisty. (I am unsure that this really matters on an individual basis, because the animals will all tame down with handling, BUT I have talked to several breeders that say just like selecting for color and increasing it every generation, you can select for personality and get nicer (calmer??) animals every generation). This is a criterion that I am going to look at for my future breeders as long as it does not detract from the overall color/pattern. It will be interesting to see how the animals act when they mature and correlate it with my first impressions on temperament. We will see. In the past, I have not kept good records on the babies that bite versus the babies that do not, but I have been persuaded to make record of this characteristic for future examination.
Yes I know that this was again a LOT of information, But it gives you insight into my obsession (I have snake O.C.D.). I feel that as potential buyers realize the differences among litters, and see that there is a logical and consistent method to quantify these differences, they will be more likely to pay a little extra to get the nicer animals. (trust me, it pays off several fold to get the nicest animals you can afford if you are looking to breed them in the future).
I also use this same method when I am selecting animals from other breeders. So far it has worked out well for me and has allowed me to methodically sort through hundreds of baby boas looking for just that special one. And yes, there are occasions where a little baby just speaks to me and I get it without running my grading method, but typically the babies that standout in my eyes also rank pretty high when I subject them to my judging criteria.
I hope this does not push you into the same obsession that I have, but rather give you some insight into the methods I use for ranking babies. I think this is a great tool for the person looking to purchase young rainbowboas. I also think that most breeders do this in one way or another before selling their babies (or determining which ones to hold back), But I sort of doubt that many breeders are this meticulous.
Please include your comments and explain your grading methodology.
Have a great holiday week,
Good luck with the little ones….
BHH
rainbowboas.com
