With all this discussion of odd likes and dislikes I thought it might be fun to pick some examples and try to explain ourselves. I’ll go first.
You’ll often here me say I like wild phenotypes best but then my signature project is the hypo coastal plains milk snake. This is an unexplainable contradiction however, cp milks are a childhood favorite but as a Virginia resident (were I lived when getting into breeding them) I could not work with normals but could work with a color morph that was arguably some type of albino. Don’t know if its funny or sad how we rationalize things but I’ve come to really appreciate this morph and believe it to be a nice compromise between a normal wild type and a gaudier albino tricolor. The third pic in this post is of my first clutch of hypo coastals.
Along the same line, I LOVE northern pine snakes and could work with the albino form but what would be the point? What I love about northern pines is not just their size and cocky attitude but the effect of a clean, high contrast black and white northern, which in my opinion is unsurpassed by any other reptile. To me, albinos just don’t have the same wow factor so I go without my favorite snake represented in my collection.
Another example of odd likes and dislikes is line-bred thayeri of which I’m not a huge fan despite the fact that they are some of the nicest and perhaps prettiest non-morph type snakes available today. Still I can’t help but look at a nice hi colored peach phase and think, “seen it a thousand times”. What used to excite me most about thayeri was their capacity to produce some really unique and beautiful specimens. For a while it seemed that the once coveted bright peach leonis phase became more the norm than the exception. Fortunately, what was once old often becomes new again and other characteristics are starting to get some respect. The first pic in this post is of my favorite thayeri. He was produced by Vivid and is from Tim’s (once old and now new) earth toned line.
Though I rarely tout locality status of my animals I have pretty good lineage info on the majority of my stock. Fact of the matter is that for some species I work with locality is very important. My Baird’s rats come to mind. I really like examples where the ground color is a light bluish-gray. To my minds eye this light color set against their rusty interstitial skin best evokes their southwestern home. I once read a very compelling piece by Steve Hammock (HISS) outlining his belief that animals incubated in drier conditions were born a lighter color. I don’t remember the specifics of the piece but the main idea stuck with me. Knowing that for every 15 mile one moves westward in TX you can expect one inch less of annual rainfall, I theorized that Bairds’ from the western portions of the range might possess the lighter ground color I like at a higher frequency than animals from the eastern portion of the range. To that end I’ve put together a small breeding colony that hails form Val Verde County TX. Specifically I have two bloodlines, one that traces back to Loma Alta and the other to Bakers Crossing. To me these two locals are close enough that I can still claim a sort of “generic Val Verde County TX locality status” (gotta love that!) yet far enough apart to assure a level of genetic vitality that is also important to me. Pic number two is of my Baker’s Crossing female.
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good stuff FR,,,,,,,thomas