Reptile & Amphibian Forums

I never thought I'd own anything other than ball pythons, nothing else really captured my heart like ball pythons, and that's all I've ever kept. I've got a modest collection of about 40, and heading into my second season of breeding them.

Enter this little guy this past weekend at the Atlanta show, and I was a goner! He's a striped albino California King.

He's already eaten two f/t mice pinks for me, I'm completely smitten with him and have found myself looking at other kings and colubrids. Since I live in GA, we can't keep native kings, but we can keep non-native kings.

Are there any good websites to recommend to learn the different locales and color morphs in kings? I am also finding a hard time finding many kingsnake breeders (although I'm sure it's a matter of me not knowing where to look vs, there not being many).

Look forward to getting to know you guys and pick your brains!

Look through the posts for one by Nokturnel Tom. You will have to go almost to the end of this first page in this forum. He lives close to me and is great to work with. You will be impressed with his knowledge. I know I have been.
Dave
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One man with faith equals the majority.
Thomas Jefferson

Hey Dave,

I live near Tom, too. Do you go to the Austin shows?
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1.1.0 Hondurans Het Amel
1.1.0 Hondurans Anery, Het Hypo
0.1.0 Honduran Hypo
0.1.0 Honduran Hypo, Het Anery
0.2.0 Pueblans
1.0.0 Pueblan Hypo
1.0.0 Thayeri MSP
0.0.1 GBK Blair's Phase
1.0.0 California King
0.1.0 California King Blue-eyed Blond
0.0.1 Speckled King WC
0.0.1 Jungle Carpet
0.1.0 Ball, Normal
1.0.0 San Diego Gopher, Poss. Het Applegate
0.0.1 Sulcata
0.1.0 Girlfriend, Caucasius Mexicana, Fiancee Phase

http://www.cafepress.com/shedz

Yes, my wife and I went to the show. We bought too many snakes but we are very happy with them. It is the first time I had met Tom. Good luck with your animals.
Dave

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One man with faith equals the majority.
Thomas Jefferson

Hmmm.. Let's see now, your looking for information on kingsnakes and kingsnake breeders??? Hey, I know how about Kingsnake.com?

Joke of course.. Welcome to the forum!

~ Mike Russo

Haha! And everytime I googled Kingsnake breeders - I pulled up Kingsnake.com - and of course that makes sense!

I love that King - what is he? Please forgive my "newbness" on them!

The snake in my last post is a Pyro, or Arizona Mountain Kingsnake..

~ Mike Russo

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>>The snake in my last post is a Pyro, or Arizona Mountain Kingsnake..
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>>~ Mike Russo
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>>.
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Nice looking Gray Band you have their Mike. Thats got to be a 2007, Is it a male or female.
Bob

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R.Bichlers Colubrids
http://www.webspawner.com/users/rbichler/index.html

The Alterna in my last post is '07 Female..

~ Mike

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Their all Super!!!! Your going to have to add on to your house pretty soon.LOL,
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R.Bichlers Colubrids
http://www.webspawner.com/users/rbichler/index.html

Thanks Bud..

I recently expanded my herp room. It's now exactly as i have wanted it for many years. I am very happy about it.

More space = more racks = more snakes!

~ Mike Russo

Congrat. on the expanded herp room. What kind of camera are you shooting those pictures with, their very nice and clear shots.
Thanks Bob

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R.Bichlers Colubrids
http://www.webspawner.com/users/rbichler/index.html

OK - now that's just sick! I love it!

Mike you've got some smokin greybands including that one of course.
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Randy Whittington

What kind of camera lets you get that close up shot so clear?

I have a few camera's so i am not sure which one i used for this, but i think I used my Canon point and shoot for this one..

~ Mike Russo

Colubrids are cool, They come in all different colors and patterns.

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R.Bichlers Colubrids
http://www.webspawner.com/users/rbichler/index.html

Nice animals! I am beginning to see that there are a lot of variations - how will I ever be able to limit myself to just a few?

Links:

Lampropeltis (Kingsnake Subspecies) Information

Lonesome Valley Reptiles (California Kingsnakes)

Eastern Kingsnake resource site

The Alterna Page (Gray-banded Kingsnakes)

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Floridana Morphs (under construction)

Sorry for my delayed response - thank you for the links!

Not a Problem...

Just realized the Eastern Kingsnake site does not show up on this website (no surprise) so just check it out at easternking (dot) net

~ZF

If I recall - that's the site that use to be hosted here, and one day, they just decided to completely delete all the files without notifying the owner and giving him time to make a backup first - just because of a disagreement unrelated to the site itself that resulted in a ban.
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Arrrggg!
It's like Shalom, but for pirates.
- iCarly

yeah... something along those lines... despite all the b/s... it was and still is a good site for info...! that's all i'll say before i get banned!

That's a real beauty ...

There are a ton of different Cal King morphs - many of them are selectively bred opposed to single gene.

There are an incredible number of natural occurring variations that are so radically different from each other that California Kingsnake use to be considered many different subspecies -

California Milksnake (striped like what you have)
Boyle's Milksnake (typical banded phase)
Yuma Milksnake (now called Yuma phase, high band count and kind of a chain like banding)
Two in Baja (I think one was called Cape Milksnake, not sure about the other)

Anyway - they are all the same subspecies, just highly variable. Some think there may be some MBK influence in some of the Baja populations but I don't know of any scientific evidence for that, just speculation. It's believable though.

I think there were a few others.

Anyway - there's a lot of naturally occurring variation, and then there are designer morphs created by crossing some of the naturally occurring locales and selective breeding (like reverse stripe).

For Cal Kings - Kerby, Brian Hubbs, Frank Retes, and a few others here are extremely knowledgeable both in wild variations and in captive produced variations.

Then ... there's the Florida/Brooksi complex - I've recently started to become addicted to them, especially brooksi. I only have 2, but I'm planning on adding at least one every year. Last year I got a normal het for Peanut Butter - and while he does not express any specific morph, he's stunning for a WT. This year, I picked up a Lemke line Axanthic. Next year, I think either a New England axanthic or a sulfur (or both). Brooksi are just plain simply fabulous getula.
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Arrrggg!
It's like Shalom, but for pirates.
- iCarly

Great information! Thank you!