Reptile & Amphibian Forums

I'm compiling information on breeders' and keepers' opinions about 1)the varying temperaments of different cornsnake morphs, and 2) differences in dietary prefs, esp. in hatchlings. I thought I'd take the volumes of personal experience and, if you respond, I'll compile and broadcast.

For instance, bloodreds are often said to be lizard-eaters as hatchlings, and anole-scenting is the only way to kickstart them on pinks. And ambers are said to be the most laid back, non-nervous morphs.

What is your experience with 1) the most finnicky in diet, 2) the calmest and 3) the most nervous of all the morphs ?

thanks
Craig

I know you already mentioned bloodreds, but I will post an email Don Soderberg wrote me 2 years ago about them:

"We do not use lizards here to assist feedings.  Nor do we feed lizards to any of our hatchling snakes. For every 10 bloodreds we hatch, four will take pinkies their first offering.  Another two will take them in the next two feeding attempts and finally another two will take pinkies that are altered.  That usually equates to "braining" them.  The last two out of every ten never eat and die.  That's not far from the averages for most of my other corns, but is generally slightly worse."

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alstiver@hotmail.com

Current snakes:
1.0 '01 Hypo snow cornsnake (Tesla Coil)
0.1 '02 Ghost (pastel) cornsnake (Banshee)
1.1 '02 Bloodred cornsnakes (Desi and Luci Too)
To be added in February:
0.1 '98 Het Hypo, Het Caramel cornsnake
1.0 '00 Hypo Het Caramel cornsnake

most of them will be relatively closely related and whatever inherent strengths and weaknesses that bloodline possesses will be apparent in many of the offspring. But once the morph becomes more numerous, each breeder will begin to create his or her own bloodline, thus diluting the traits (except for the color or pattern desired) from that line.

For example, when I obtained and bred my first butters, many of the babies did not want to eat. But when I started outcrossing them with unrelated motleys, the babies were much better feeders. Because I only kept back the best feeders from those litters, I found the next generation caused little problems in feeding.

The above is true for me now with bloodreds, many more Miami phase than a few years ago, and most types that I have worked with for a few generations. I still have problems with my line of pewters, so I have been outcrossing those too, and expect to have less feeding problems in my future outcrossed stock.

Hope this helps.