Reptile & Amphibian Forums

I just got in this female from my friend in Arkansas. She's an F1 from parents that were collected in Hardyville. She's a sibling to the female that is being bred by my two-tone male. The pair breeding are from the same parents, F2's coming up. A nice little extra with this new female is that I can feel 19 eggs. They may not be fertile but I'm hoping that she retained sperm. She was housed with the two-tone male for a few weeks earlier this year. That's the only male she has ever been with. Another clutch of F2's would be awesome.
Hope you like the pics.

Top view

Front view

Hi,
I love the pics! But does anyone have any pictures of a hatchling okeetee and a normal hatchling to compare? I honestly can't tell the difference between the two from the pictures i've seen!
THANKS!

Kristy

Here my 02 corn that was sold as an okeetee. Although, I am not sure if it is okeetee -vs- normal -vs- classic. I have plans to get an 03 pure okeetee soon so i'll post both pics again for comparison.

Never try to grade corns by hatchling individuals or their pictures unless pattern is your objective. The difference between Okeeetees and commons can be negligible. I've seen neonate common corns that were much prettier than their Okeetee counterparts. Actually, some of the best Okeetees I've owned and produced were the most wreched looking hatchlings. You could throw them in a mud puddle and lose them.

As it has been suggested many times on this forum, the parents of the snakes are the best indicator of how the neonate will mature. While there are always exceptions, it's much safer to judge by the parents than by the appearance of the hatchling.

My advice is to research your Okeetee supplier before purchasing from them. In my books, Kathy has some of the best in the industry. The only thing better than the quality of her animals is her integrety. Many of my Okeetees originated from Kathy's line.

Don
www.cornsnake.NET
South Mountain Reptiles

I hatched out a clutch of normals from one of Kathy's Sunkissed Okeetees and a Blizzard, and I find myself unable to guess at what they'll look like as adults. I guess this means I'll be judging my keepers based upon feeding and behavior...

A couple of them inherited the dad's attitude and have already chewed on me a bit. I have to wonder how Kathy manages. Oh well... Atleast when they're this size they can't do much more than pinch. Sexing them's going to be fun, though...
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"You keep WHAT in your freezer?"
"Mice. And rats. If that bothers you, I can call them 'cows' instead."

I couldn't agree with you more! My next okeetee purchase will be from a breeder who has already shown me pics of the parents (from Love's line). Both parents are gorgeous so I am confident that any hatchling will turn out O.K too. Unfortunately, with the okeetee pic I posted, I did not have the pleasure of seeing either parents, but I did get him from a quality breeder. Also, I am unaware if he's het for anything. Thanks to reading this forum for a while now, I am much more careful about the genetics/background of any future corns added to my collection!
-carl3

Okeetee's RULE!

Now here's a question: How do you decide which hatchlings to hold back in a breeding project, if you can't tell how they'll look as adults?

. . . is to hold all of them back and observe their changes as they mature. That's how most of us breeders do it. When I get a new project, I generally do not sell any of the babies. It's costly to raise some that won't make the grade, but necessary if one wants to understand the type of corn they're breeding. You don't want to be breeding a snake that you sell the babies of and have customers angry that it didn't turn out as advertised. While it does happen, the best way to reduce this problem is to observe several generations of the snakes you're producing before you start selling them. While we all like surprises, there are some surprises in this industry not appreciated. When you spend two years of effort and mice to raise a corn only to end up with an ugly snake that looks nothing like the one promised, it's enough to anger anybody. Just saying, "sorry it didn't turn out like the picture on my site" doesn't cut it. As many snakes as I sell, it's impossible to please every customer, everytime, but with observation and discrimination it can be achieved almost all the time.
South Mountain Reptiles

If I'm not mistaken I believe that Bill & Kathy's Okeetee stock is outcrossed with other stuff. A fellow by the name of David Jones (I think that was his name) sold the Love's about 80 hatchlings that were pure Okeetee a number of years back. Apparently he was upset because Bill & Kathy crossed them all with hypos and Floridas and maybe some other things. I'm not saying this is necessarily a bad thing, I'm just saying that in my search for "pure" Okeetee's I had to look elsewhere. Also, in a breif phone conversation I had with Kathy I was not persuaded that her stock was still pure Okeetee.
I would not argue with anyone that thinks I'm being anal about it. I just personally am only interested in Okeetees that actually come from in or near Okeetee. As for pictures, there are some pictures of yearling Wild Caught Okeetees in the field collecting area over on that website that Kingsnake.com doesn't allow to be mentioned here. I hope this message doesn't get deleted for me saying that...

...that Kathy's 'Classic' line were the outcrossed Okeetees, and that her 'Okeetee' line were bred from pure locality lines...

I could be wrong, but that's how I'd always heard it.

-Kat
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"You keep WHAT in your freezer?"
"Mice. And rats. If that bothers you, I can call them 'cows' instead."

I wouldn't mind hearing from Kathy on this forum regarding her Okeetee stock to clear the matter up. Unless I was seriously mistaken, she acknowledged to me that she could not verify that her Okeetee's had nothing else in them. In fact, she referred me to another individual when I made it explicitly clear that I only was interested in Okeetee's that were descendants from solely Okeetee stock.
Like I said, for a lot of people it probably doesn't matter. But it matters to me.

...Kathy Love's hypo okeetees came out of her okeetee line. She did not outcross them to produce the hypo, but rather wound up with two animals from locality lines that produced the hypo. Furthermore, that form of hypomelanism (hypo B, aka Sunkissed) is apparently incompatable with the normal hypo (hypo A).
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"You keep WHAT in your freezer?"
"Mice. And rats. If that bothers you, I can call them 'cows' instead."

Love them all, but that two tone snake is fabulous. Hope you get some more like it. Great photographs.

Don
www.cornsnake.NET
South Mountain Reptiles

Thanks for sharing. That first snake is amazing. I hope mine turns out just as red
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Marcel Poots (Holland)

'Where is your crown King Nothing?' James Hettfield

Marcels snakepage

Thanks for sharing. That first snake is amazing. I hope mine turns out just as red
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Marcel Poots (Holland)

'Where is your crown King Nothing?' James Hettfield

Marcels snakepage

Here is my Okeetee yearling male. Do you think he will get any redder with age? He is supposed to be out of the Love line. What do you think?