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I have never owned a corn but own a king and a milk and have been interested in getting an okeetee corn snake. I really like the pictures i have seen of adult okeetees with bright red on bright orange backrounds. Every baby i have seen for sale of both okeetee and abbot okeetees have been more of a dull red on a more tan backround. My question is do all of these start out like this and change into the ones i have seen or will they always look like that? I have never seen a baby with these colors.

All the babies are darker and duller.
Google images of them, or look in the photo gallery of this site. There should be hundreds of pictures.
-Jack
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...and I think to myself, "What a wonderful world."

As already stated, babies don't come out looking like the adults. In fact it can take several years for the best brightness of an Okeetee to show. And then down the road many adults darken some. From what I'm seeing, if you want babies that end up like you say, pick ones that have very dark saddle color, to being almost black as babies. And that have very intense orange showing in the background. This usually shows up in the spaces between the blotches on the neck and head areas of hatchlings.

But regardless, it's still a chance happening to get EXACTLY what you want. Good luck! Also check out the parents if you can of babies your going to pick out. If they are outstanding in the looks you want, good chance the babies will be.

The previous photo was a three month old. Already lightening up in the saddles and showing lots of orange. Here is a picture of her older now yearling sister.

Those are some Nice okeetees you have there! Jeff

I'm still coming to terms with the different names for all the morphs etc but is that an abbott?
either way its gorg!

Well,
from what I'm seeing, and what I've gotten when I've ordered Abbotts line Okeetees. Is that there seems to be a lot more variability in the Abbotts line. Yes there are many that have high black. But I've gotten stuff shipped to me that was NOT high black. And an interesting tid bit that I've heard from Kathy Love, is the Abbotts line is merely a wild caught snake from the area near the Okeetee Hunt Club crossed with snakes bought from her. So really, Abbotts are a mix of Love line selectively bred for high black.

But like I said, there seems to be a lot of variable stuff in the Abbotts line. Where as Kathy's line are generally more uniform. My animals are Love line stock. I've kept an eye out for animals that show thick black, with red saddles, and an intense red orange background.

Last year I was able to buy a clutch from a guy who had a pair of Okeetees from Kathy. Well I totally loved em all but only kept a trio and sold the rest of the clutch. Later that fall, bout this time of year, the guy then offered the adults to me, which I gladly bought. But was unable to get them because of the cold till late this past spring. And I was blown away by how nice the male I've now named Edmund is. And at this time I've kept most of this year's clutch.

There's a pretty neat photo that I've seen taken by the Loves (Bill and Kathy) that shows a young Okeetee and an Okeetee a year older laying right next to it. The color change is pretty dramatic. One of the best things about raising Okeetees is that with each shed you can actually see that they gain additional color. It's pretty darn cool to have a snake that progressively gets better looking for the first few years of it's life.

Like someone else who posted said, Okeetees tend to dull once they get 5 years of age and older. Also, if you don't already know, there are two well-established "lines" of Okeetees - the Abbotts line has wider black blotches than the Love line - some people like the wide black blotches, while others prefer the more tradtional look.

Either way, Okeetees are beautiful snakes.

Tim

PS - Here is one I hatched in 2004 at 2 months of age:

Third Eye

Here's a pic of my two )06 Abbott's. They where duller when I first got them. The pics are right after their furst sheds with me. You can see the colors starting to come in nicely.
male

female

Hey,Those babies are lookin' good.Thanks for the pics! Jeff