Reptile & Amphibian Forums

I found this in MA about a month ago. Snake is about 10" and eating f/t pinkies. It had its first shed yesterday. I believe its an albino eastern and heard they are very hard to keep in captivity, but it seems to be adjusting pretty well.

Now that is a hell of a find. Great to hear that its eating as well, now if you could get it mating you would have a very cool project on your hands.

Good luck
Vinny
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“There is a grandeur in this view of life, with its several powers, having been originally breathed into a few forms or into one; and that whilst this planet has gone on cycling according to the fixed laws of gravity, from so simple a beginning endless forms most beautiful and most wonderful have been, and are being, evolved.” -C. Darwin, 1859

Natural Selection Reptiles

If it is eating FT pinks then it should be very easy to keep in captivity.Cool find

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..Doug
~ø¿ô~

with that kinda luck. Congrats on your lil' gem! Do let us know if and when babies will be available in the future.

Jerry K.

To my knowledge, that snake is unique in any collection in the US, Canada, and Europe. Pls take good care of it.
Jeff

The only other ones I knew of were in Bob Clark's collection (I believe that is who had them). You can see them in the old Milk Snakes in Captivity Book. There were two in a container with three normals in the photo.

Unfortunately, they werer on breeder loan and never met with success and are now all dead.

Good find on your part, my suggestion is to try and collect a few females from as close to the same location as possible. That way you can keep them locale specific for the founding stock and who knows, maybe the gene is lurking in one of the females if she came from the same gene pool.

Thanks for the advice. I do plan on checking the area in the near future for potential mates, but oddly enough this is the only eastern I have seen in the area, although never searched specifically for them.
It did eat another pinkie after shed so I am very excited about my new project. Any and all suggestions appreciated.

We are going through the same thing you are, but with a lowly Hypo Greenish Rat Snake.

First suggestion is probably the most obvious, concentrate on keeping him ffeding and set up properly so the line does not expire. Also, BE SURE TO HAVE HIM IN AN ESCAPE PROOF CAGE, very important!

Second, try and grab a couple of females from that locality or as close as possible to keep the locality true. Need to try and get them after the breeding season so they can be treated for any parasites and such and cooled and ready for his cycle the first year he is ready to mate.

Third, double check to be sure he is ok, has everything he wants. If he wants a beer to stay happy and healthy, get it for him, you don't want him to die. (feeble attempt at comedy)

Fourth, get at least one good healthy pure female from captive bred stock and have her ready. Keep her away from all the wild caughts and once he has been through quarantine, keep him from the wc's also.

Lastly, you have to breed them and raise the babies and see what happens. I suggest at a minimum you bred him to 2 females and I would mark the clutches to the appropriate female then spit the eggs with a friend so in case something goes wrong on your end, you have some safe else where. Others may disagree with that theory, but I have had it happen and am a worry wort about those types of things.

Personally, I wouldn't sell any of those babies until I proved it out, or I would sell a het with a normal from two normals so you are the leader on producing them. That should be your reward for the luck of finding it and time spent raising them to breed. I would pick two to three friends in the hobby to ship some of the "definite" hets too and let them raise them also so again you have a back up for the male if something happens.

Now, the post below suggest Bill Love has one, if it is a female, then you need to talk to Bill about possibly breeding your two together to see if the gene is allelic. Likely it is not, but you would have babies that are double hets. Problem there is you won't have the joy of hatching them on your own, you would have to breed to his and wait to breed to yours most likely.

Hey, that is my suggstions, there are definitely more persons on her with much more knowledge (likely better knowledge too). Good luck and hey, if you want to trade some het amel easterns for some het hypo greenish then call us up, lol.

Now, the post below suggest Bill Love has one, if it is a female, then you need to talk to Bill about possibly breeding your two together to see if the gene is allelic

then you need to talk to Bill about possibly breeding your two together to see if the gene is allelic. Likely it is not

Just yeasterday i discovred the amel yellow rats lines up with the amel cal king. Alos did many many others that people are not aware of or don't want to listen to hybrid talk. But there is a lot to be leaned about hybrids and this fact that most genes are allelic is wide spread.
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"Yeah ya told me, and ya wrote it down too. But how the hell am I supposed to remember!"

ranier can you expalin this a little better,your remark about cal kings lining up with yellow rats,etc....thank you in advance
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"with head raised regally,and gazing at me with lidless eyes,he seemed to question with flicks of his long forked tongue my right to trespass on his territory" Carl Kauffeld

On page 82 of Robert Applegate's new book Kingsnakes and Milksnakes in Captivity published by Eco Books is a picture of Bill Love's Albino Eastern.

On a side note, Robert's books are a must have!! You can order signed copies through Robert. Great books and a great guy!!

GregH.

I'm still trying to pick my jaw up off the floor. What a beautiful snake! Best of luck with raising/breeding. I know many on this site salivate at the opportunity to work with you on this project.

My jaw also dropped to the floor when my 3 year old daughter looked into the shoe box the snake was in and said "Daddy where's snakey?" later to find it hiding under one of the kids toys on the living room floor. That was a close one, needless to say it is in a secure location without the possibility of the kids getting near it unsupervised.