Reptile & Amphibian Forums

what is the smallest pit and how big an enclosure does a full grown adult need?

Santa Cruz Island Dwarf Gopher Snake- up to to 32 inches.
Rare and expensive.
A 20 gal tank or equivalent should be fine.
That said...SD gophers and great basins etc USUALLY get around 5 feet or so. 6 footers are a possibility. Larger than that would be freakishly large, but do occur.
The bullsnakes from some Montana uplands also top out at 5 ft and are sometimes sold as "dwarf bulls"...
Unfortunately I don't know of anyone working with the dwarfs at this time.
Ron

how expensive? would you recomend any of those as a begginer pit? do you know how big a cage a "dwarf bull" would need?

There is a spot just outside Great Falls, MT. called The Big Bend Estates that has some super small bulls. There isnt alot of habitat left in that area, but even before the area was developed I never found a bull over 4 1/2 feet. I have never fed a Big Bend baby heavy to see how big they can get, but I did hatch 13 from a wc 40 inch gravid female last year and gave some to Shawn Eby, so in a few years we should have an idea of how big they get from this locality. The eggs were about the size of Sinaloan milk snake eggs. I took some pics of them next to normal bull eggs, and a hatchling "dwarf bull" next to a hatchling Sinaloan milk for size comparisons, I'll post those pics later.

Dan

how big a cage are you using and do you plan to offer any for sale at some point? are they kept like normal bull snakes exept in smaller cages? i know this is off topic from what i was just asking but is it any better to breed two mutt pits than a mutt and a pure pit? we have a pine/bull crossand i think it would be cool to breed but when i posted something about it they said i shouldn't breed it to a pure but never said any thing about breeding it to another mutt.

As far as breeding mutts to mutts, you just may end up with snakes that no one wants to buy or take for free. This is speaking of most pit fans, as hybridization is usually very much frowned upon. Then, the question arises, which is, " what do you do with them? "

I completely understand the " want " to breed, and it is exciting and I commend you for pursuing this fun aspect of the hobby, but if I were you, I would just wait until you have two pure bulls or pines if you consider breeding. Any way you have mutts mixed in makes them less or completely undesirable from most pit fan's standpoints. Most pit breeders (all that I know personally just to use as an example) try very hard to keep their lines pure, and any chance that anything is not 100% pure, they refuse to let into their collections for breeding purposes.

Giving the mutt babies away for free to good homes that would not provide any chance of the snakes' being bred is probably the best option. Thing is, things can still happen and something can get its' way into a collection by mistake. To me, too many open possibilities.

Overall, just my two cents. Read and decide for yourself my friend.

Take care!
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Genesis 1:1