Reptile & Amphibian Forums

Over in the Milksnake forum there was a question on where herpetoculture is going in the future. So many spout that locality animals is where it was lost and to many people are focussed on breeding and morphs.

IMHO if someone has an interest in true locality specimens in the hobby Rosy boas is the last great frontier where morphs have not taken over. The people involved with keeping rosys have kept locality lines pure and there interest is mostly in that.

So my question for purists and locality specif freaks. Why not get into keeping rosys? They make the perfect snake pet, easy to keep and are gentlte, eat well and are easy to hold.

What is the problem? Ya'll think they are ugly?

Check out this forum which has been around for years. It was started by a good friend (Jerry Hartly) who back in the 80's i took along on his first Rosy boa hunt and introduced him to this uinue species of "pet" snake.He was hooked from that day on.

IMO This is a afficianados site. And the snake don't hardly cost that much at around $50. per snake you can choose dozens of locales.

Check out this site befoe making a comment

(I can't seem to copy and paste the link so i have to spell it out for you. Fill in the gaps and past onto your browser)

www dot locality rosys dot com

-----
www.Bluerosy.com

I had considered getting them many times in the past...Just never have for some reason....but..in general, my enthusiam for the hobby of keeping and breeding is waning....
I love the variation of the rosies. I like the stark contrasts of some and the almost mosaic look of the others.
:Mark
-----
Surrender Dorothy!

crimsonking.piczo.com/

Rainer I love Rosies! I had some Bay of LA years ago, asnd I was actually thinking, about picking up another pair, but probably not getting into them heavily. I have too much on the burner already.
-----
King Snakes! Who can make a better mouse trap?
J Sierra

Sure is. And although mixes exist, they are usually discernable within reason, or at least suspect.

I remember early on not being all that excited about rosyboas. Kings were it for me. That all changed with my first rosyboa excursion. Well, that and luckily happening to live by one of the early breeders of some fantastic localities. To me, their natural history is interesting but still has elements of mystery (for me anyway).

If ever there was a snake that thrives in being compartmentalized into small plastic boxes on a shelf, it is the rosyboa. IMO they seem to prefer it. Darn things will live forever in a small, sparse cage. Don't even need to offer water more than one day a week or longer.

Plus they don't squirm and poop on you. Yet each can have a personality, moreso than ball pythons.

On the negative side, when something in the husbandry is not right, oh boy, the effect can be obvious and quick. When they stress they stress big and open themselves up to getting sick. Usually that is when new. Once established in a setup, they are tough as nails as you know.
-----
Mark

On the negative side, when something in the husbandry is not right, oh boy, the effect can be obvious and quick. When they stress they stress big and open themselves up to getting sick. Usually that is when new. Once established in a setup, they are tough as nails as you know.

I used to have a collection of 300 adults and I never found them to stress or get sick.

Rosy husbandry is different from colubrids and more simple. It is just most don't know the basics.

#1 water bowls- I never used water bowls with my rosys except with gravid females. if a rosy takes a drink before or after eating they will regurge. Then you have a problem. Aftr a regurge the more you feed WITHOUT letting their stomach settle (10 days at least), the more they will regurge and get worse. So the stress is water and not complictaed like other hard to keep species. Matter of fact rosys are the simplest!. I always said if you keep rosys and can't get yourselve to remove water (and try to give them water between feeding and remove-which is an unecessary hassle-then you should have plenty of liquid flagyll around to administer for the regurges you will cause with water bowls..

Otherwise it is simple. SIMPLER than kings and other colubrids. Just remove the water.

#2 ventilated cages- I have found that rosys kept in sweater box arrangements never do well . Humidity is a killer for them and even though they can survive for a long time (even years) eventually they will get sick .

So the key is keep rosys in aquairium setups with screened lids.

Screened lid tops aquaraiums may seem strange to keeping snakes for most of you. But no matter how many holes you drill in rubbermaid units, it still is not enough ventilation.

So again simplicity is key. Kepp them in open top screened cages.

besides these two "stresses" which will cause problems with keeping rosys. Rosys will live much longer than other colubrids I can think of (well at least they do in historic captive numbers From all the snakes I have been around in the last 40 years) i have seen rosys outlive kings and milks by decades. ..and all with the most minimal of care.
-----
www.Bluerosy.com

When you had all those rosies, were you living in an area of higher humidity?

I live in an area where the humidity is low-moderate, occasionally higher, and rather close to the ambient humidity of many coastal rosy habitats and some Baja localities. I can keep rosies in a plastic box with holes for ventilation, and they do fine, which makes sense.

In areas of higher humidity, keeping rosies can be problematic unless they have lots of ventilation as you mentioned.

Regarding water, it is my guess that most rosies in the wild get very few chances to drink standing water. They balance water loss by staying underground most of the time, and their food being mammals is a great source of water. In captivity, the heating systems we use are drier than in the wild. A rosy under a rock can warm up but still conserve moisture, and most of those rocks have some sort of moisture seal when used. So I do offer water at least occasionally, especially during times of low humidity. Like you, not after they feed.
-----
Mark

Well I lived in two places. In S. cali and then moved to GA where it is very humid.

In a dryer geographic location like CA or AZ I guess it would be okay to keep them in a drawer type setup. But it is those darn water dishes that spill causing the humidity even in dryer places.

A lot of the old school rosy keepers keep them in aquariums with screen tops. I guess it is better to reccomend what they all do to make things simpler because folks just can't help not giving them a drink inbetween feedings. And in a tub the moisture causes health problems. It may not be right away. But over time the animals stress in some way from the ghumidity and seem to have problems.

Also you mentioned giving them a drink AFTER they ate. Just want to make sure for other reader 9I know that you know) that giving them water before and after will cuse regurges. So best to wait at least a couple days after a drink to feed. Even longer after they ate.
-----
www.Bluerosy.com

Rainer,

I have marveled over his site for years. It's a wonderful site that doesn't give out too much locality info (a single photo per site is perfect). I have always loved rosys, but I have to say, my love for reptiles lies in tricolors. And I think I'd have to disagree with you on rosys being the last great frontier (which I know you said loosely). Most of the North American tricolors and especially CA mountain kings are completely void of genetic mutants such as albinism, anerythrism, etc. The only ones I know of are albinism in elapsoides, gentilis, triangulum, and annulata. And within those four subspecies very few exist in the hobby. Anerythrism is only known in celaenops and gentilis. I'd say this group of hobby-kept critters is barely tapped with respect to potential of morphs and other such things.

But it's a great topic to get rolling!

Mitch

Most of the North American tricolors and especially CA mountain kings are completely void of genetic mutants such as albinism, anerythrism, etc

The thing with rosys every rockpile/hill, mtn is almost an isolated pop looking complteley deifferent from other locales. In the desert those rockpliles are surrounded by flat desert and the isolated pops are like island populations.

With Mtn kings it is the subspecies that seperate them. With rosys it is all about locality. And that equals more pure relic specimens in captivity. Which is the point of my thread because people are always spouting locality and purity over morphs.

The list of locales is endless with rosies and each is so unique from the other.
-----
www.Bluerosy.com

>>The thing with rosys every rockpile/hill, mtn is almost an isolated pop looking complteley deifferent from other locales. In the desert those rockpliles are surrounded by flat desert and the isolated pops are like island populations.
>>
>>With Mtn kings it is the subspecies that seperate them. With rosys it is all about locality. And that equals more pure relic specimens in captivity. Which is the point of my thread because people are always spouting locality and purity over morphs.
>>
>>The list of locales is endless with rosies and each is so unique from the other.

The same thing can almost be said for Alterna as well.....More specific locales are being bred than before. Instead of just Comstock animals now there are Howard Draw animals. No more just Sanderson animals now there are 9 miles east of Sanderson alterna..........I remember I was lucky to breed a kingsnake pair from the same county and call them locality specific...Much like most Eastern Chain King Breeders do......Hell some of those breeders call those little NE states a locality....We have counties larger than some of those states here in Texas......LOL

Plus I cannot keep Boas, Pythons or Monitors in the City Limits....Stupid Corpus Christi city ordinance that has been in place for a few decades now.
-----
John Lassiter
Poor planning and procrastination on your part does not constitute an emergency on my part...

No more just Sanderson animals now there are 9 miles east of Sanderson alterna..........8 mile, and 7 mile, and so on. Just kidding, lol. I couldn't help myself. Bad Jorge, bad!
-----
King Snakes! Who can make a better mouse trap?
J Sierra

They are a species that has always interested me, but I would have to seriously downsize my current collection before considering any new projects like that.

I've got three types of snakes now; pyros, Pacific gophers and bulls. But the rosy boa is an appealing thought, since providing them with a well ventilated dry environment sans drinking water after feeding sounds pretty easy. I have an empty 20 gallon glass tank with a screen lid that would be a nice habitat for a rosy. The live birth thing sounds very interesting!
Can rosies be housed together? Are they cannibalistic?
-----
Bob
Pyromaniac AKA Greatballzofire
Keeping cats allows man to cohabitate with tigers. Keeping reptiles allows man to cohabitate with dinosaurs.

Can rosies be housed together? Are they cannibalistic?

Yes they can be housed together. They ar not in the least bit cannabalistic.

a heat pad on one end is all you need.

There are so many neat looking choices when you start looking at some of the more obscure locales. I prefer those than the more common ones you see avaliable on the classifieds. That is why it is good to keep an eye on folks like Jerry Hartley and others on that forum who has so many different avaliable babies.
-----
www.Bluerosy.com

why you be talkin' so funny? And just when some of us thought that THIS was the final great frontier . . .

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zxY31-FcDVA&feature=related
-----
Jerry Kruse
www.zonatas.com

And God said, "Let there be zonata subspecies for all to ponder..."

Hi Rainer,

Good questions. I personally love rosys, I actually haven't gotten into them specifically for the reasons that you've mentioned. They are affordable and naturally beautiful, so I would literally have to dive in with the throttle fire-walled, and then I wouldn't have the space for anything else. I would likely have to turn up my pet rock (ball python) production just to pay for food, electricity and materials for another building.

I like San Gabriel's, San Mateas, San Felipe's, Arizonas, crisp Mexicans and many others. My favorites are any rosy with bold orange or red stripes on a light or grey background, although some of those nearly black and white Mexicans catch my eye as well.

I didn't go to that site that you mentioned before I posted, as you requested, specifically for the previously mentioned reasons. If I allowed myself to fall for rosies, there would be no bottom. I would not be able to keep anything else.
I agree with you though, aside from eastern getula(imho) they are probably the perfect pet snake. Good post.

Will

hey rainer,

rosies were very popular back in the 90's right? it seemed like everyone had some, but then that bubble popped. what happened?
i like rosies too, so this is not a inflammatory or disrespectful request, i would really like to know a little of the history behind that period of time, if you could....

thanks
daveb

-----
odelay odelay odelay hee hoooo...
heeeeya huhhhh!
~Back in the saddle (Aerosmith)

rosies were very popular back in the 90's right? it seemed like everyone had some, but then that bubble popped. what happened?
i like rosies too, so this is not a inflammatory or disrespectful request, i would really like to know a little of the history behind that period of time, if you could....

One answer..The Whitewater albino Rosy Boa.

yes Dave, rosies were very popular. Even rarer locales fetched $250 and upward for certain locales. I had a price list with maybe 40 locales that ranged from $100-$600 each. Now they are all a $50. snake.

What happened was the Whitewater albino rosy. Scott Selsted ( who is today the owner of Vision cages) was on the ground floor with the FIRST amel rosy ever found. So he bred them to normals and created hets. He sold a few hets off. Then later he sold a few amels. The fist amels were $2000. each and that price stuck for a long while (years) and a few peopple like Randy Wright made a few bucks but not much since he did not produce many in the beginning. But when Scott figured out that most people who had hets and some amels were about to produce them in numbers(AND FINALLY MAKE SOME MONEY BACK ON THEIR INVESTMENTS) . He came to te Orlando Expo one year and sold off his entire collection of adult amels and his adult hets plus all the babies. He priced the baies at 4250. each and blew them out at that show. There were others who had them on their tables for $2000 each and thought they would sell every one of them.. ...And that crashed the market.

people got so pissed off and disgruntled with that debacle that the whole rosy market fell apart because people lost so much money. So even the sweet rarer locale rosys went plumenting in price because knowbody wanted tham after that. They were just afraid.

The amel WW was the pinnacle of rosys at that time because us rosy lovers only dreamed of an actual albino. So many people invested in the first amels . But Scott knew when all those would hit the market since he was in control of the founding stock. Sohe decided to sell them off in one shot and then got out of snakes completly. That is when he started Vision cages. Which by-the-way was and is very successful! Scott is a very smart guy and has alway been a successful business man. Just that the amel WW rosy effected the whole mindset of people and they wanted out and dumnped their entire rosy collections because of this.
-----
www.Bluerosy.com

Remember the prices many of the locality rosies commanded back then? Pretty high. That was when demand was in full swing but the number of rosy breeders with the coveted localities was relatively low. Great times.

I am elated to see some fantastic localities offered in the classifieds lately. I have watched rosy habitat in Yorba Linda, CA be destroyed over the years. So glad to see that locality represented on the classifieds. Neat orange boas falling victim to a sea of houses.
-----
Mark

I remember Yorba Lindas had a unique look and were very bright wine/orange coastal phase. I recall Ralph Crouch from Long Beach had some babies he produced every year. I think they were some of his favs back in the 80's.
-----
www.Bluerosy.com

Oh yeah. I know Ralph very well. He was the first person I ever bought a snake from via the Recycler way back then. Great guy, superb collection of rosies.
-----
Mark

Thanks a lot, Rainer. Now I want to get into rosies, too.
I've actually always liked them since I first saw them back in the mid eighties when I was a wee lad and recently started to get interested in them again. I didn't know there were that many localities...awesome!
-----
---
http://www.mikefoux.com
http://www.snakerack.info

Hondurans
Pueblans
Corns
Grey-banded King
California Kings
Speckled Kings (Calcasieu Parish locality)
Brooksi
Goini/Brooksi Crosses
San Diego gophers
Texas Rat
Jungle Carpet Python
Ball Python
BCI
Sulcata
Leopard Geckos
Wife, Caucasius Mexicana Integrade WC