Reptile & Amphibian Forums

Why is there no following for the smaller milk snake species of the central plains and east coast?
I've seen many shots of wild caughts that rival the best-looking pueblans, etc. Are they difficult to keep? Picky feeders?
What's the deal?
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V.P.
Austin Herp. Soc.

Shaky,

There are a few people who are dedicated to keeping collections of NA milks. The neonates can be more of a challenge to get started than the Latin American forms and are considerably smaller. So, while some folks (myself included) find it rewarding to work with these more difficult forms of triangulum, others would rather do without the headache and stick to the larger subspecies.
-Cole Grover
Perry Lake, KS syspila

I think there are a couple of separate issues here.

Easterns are generally not as pretty as other milks, and some are finicky. I think that explains their lack of following.

Scarlet Kings are too small, high strung, and babies will only eat skinks. Even some adults are tough to switch off skinks.

Red Milks are gorgeous and make pretty good captives. The babies can be tough to start, but they aren't any tougher than many other species of popular Lampropeltis. However, red milks are a dime dozen in certain areas. People can go out and catch their own if they don't mind flipping a few rocks. I think that ready availability of snakes makes people less inclined to breed them since a lot of folks would rather catch their own. I don't know this to be fact, it just seems the most logical explanation for their lack of popularity in the trade. I had a WC red milk for several years and it was a great captive.

I think the western ssp suffer from the fact that some populations are drab and the really gorgeous populations aren't easily accessible to the hobby.

If you aren't a milksnake purist, why would someone pay top dollar for a cb Utah Milksnake when they could buy 5 cb annulata babies for the same price?

Just my thoughts,
Chris
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Chris Harrison
San Antonio, Texas

I've got to agree with you on some points, Chris. There aren't a lot of die-hard NA milk fans that would spend the money on locality snakes when they could have brightly colored non-locality snakes at a fraction of the price. I suppose it takes a deep interest in the natural variation between localities to make it worth while.

Done much herpin' this season? I'm still waiting for some of your South-of-the-boarder adventure posts on the fieldherpforum...

-Cole