Reptile & Amphibian Forums

I am hoping to keep unusual snakes mainly colubrids but i don't want to spend an absolte fortune just yet

Can anyone recommend any?

Depends what you consider "unusual"... Of course, the more rare, uncommon snakes will be the most expensive, but there are plenty of odd, interesting or unusual snakes to choose from, depending on your tastes. For example:

You might choose a leucistic (white) Texas Ratsnake. You could go out of your way to get one with "bug-eyes"...a trait not uncommon in leucistic texas rats, but considered by many to be undesirable. It is unusual. And there's actually nothing wrong with having one. You might not want to breed it, as the trait is not very highly regarded. On the other hand, you can probably get one pretty cheap (less than $40).

Lots of interesting colors of cornsnakes these days. Many of them are very inexpensive. You may consider some unusual.

You might consider any of the albino (amelanistic) snakes unusual, even though many of them are now common and inexpensive. Take a look at the albino ratsnakes, garters, kings, and others.

There's so much to choose from...One idea would be to attend a reptile show...Click on EVENTS at top to see if one comes near you. You will find a great combination of value and variety. Unusual? Probably yes. Duffy

I was thinking more along the lines of ratsnakes as they are not really recognised all too well,i do like lecuestics and albinos

i am not really into corns as they are all too common

I would like some unusual snakes to breed from

Thanks for your help

Try an Erythristic (I'm not sure if that's the right spelling) Garter Snake.
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Current Collection:
0.1 Antherystic elaphe guttata guttata - Corn Snake
1.0 Elaphe vulpina gloydi - Eastern Fox Snake
0.1 Leucistic elaphe obsoleta linheimeri - Texas Ratsnake
1.1 Morelia spilota cheyni - Jungle Carpet Python
0.1 Tiliqua scincoides intermedia - Northern Blue Tongue Skink

You would be surprise at how big the ratsnakes following is!! LOL Just head on over to the ratsnake forum and check it out!! You will enjoy it, lots of nice people over there and nice pics. I am a big ratsnake fan and have quite a few, one word of advice, they are extremely addictive!!
Brian

Here is my albino black rat snake, one of the best albinos I have seen yet! Dwight Good stock.

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RATS
1.0 Corn snake "Warpath" (KY locale)
1.0 Black rat snake "Havok" (KY locale)
1.1 Black rat snakes "Reaper and Mystique" (MO locale)
1.0 Albino Black rat snake "Malakai" (Dwight Good stock)
1.0 Everglades rat snake "Deadpool" (Dwight Good stock)
0.1 Greenish rat snake "Rogue" (Dwight Good stock)
1.0 Yellow rat snake "Wolverine" (Dwight Good stock)
1.0 Grey rat snake "Punisher" (White oak phase)(Dwight Good stock)

MILKS
0.0.1 Eastern Milk snake "Cable" (KY locale)
0.0.1 Eastern/Red milk intergrade "Omega Red" (KY locale)
Good luck and Happy Herping
Brian

Check out some of the pics of Baird's ratsnakes over on that forum. They are not super-common, yet they are not very expensive either. Beautiful animals as adults. Duffy

A couple inexpensive yet uncommon snakes, at least from what I've seen, would be African House snakes and African Egg Eating Snakes. I don't know anything about the care of these, but I do know that I've seen them for sale cheap but don't know anyone that has either.
Aside from that, here's something I learned early in my days of snakekeeping. It's not really as important what other people are keeping as it is that you enjoy what you keep. That being said, I can almost guarantee you that you'd enjoy a cornsnake or a kingsnake a hell of a lot more then you would some uncommonly kept colubrids like racers, coachwhips, watersnakes, etc.
Just my thoughts.
Cheers!

Racers and coachwhips are cool snakes and not very common in collections

Have you had any snakes in the past? When I first got into keeping snakes, I wanted some that werent common. and thats what i've continued keeping (for the most part.) I started by emailing mike joliff and he reccomended a licorice stick black rat...and she is EXTREMLY docile. When I feed her, she literally opens her mouth and lets me place the mouse in her mouth, then she closes it. Then I got a black rat snake with the genes to produce licorice sticks, in case i ever wanted to try my hand at breeding.

here's a pic of the two of 'em.

Then I got 2 bairds ratsnakes...I fell in love with draybars. lol.

Here's a picture of one of jimmys full grown.

Then I wanted a more agressive (to me interesting) snake, and I had always loved the blue beautys markings...so I got Brunhilde. She is very active, I get bitten a lot (first captive snake to bite me).

My newest addition is my green tree python (Claudius). I wil be getting him in about 2 weeks and I cant wait!!!

All these snakes (except for the black rat) are somewhat unusual, and thats what drew me to them. I'm not interested in corns either... I don't want to keep anything too TOO common, you know?

Good luck in snake hunting!
-Chris
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-Chris

The reason mainstream thought is thought of as a stream is because it's so shallow. -George Carlin

A fool doesn't learn. A smart man learns from his mistakes. A wise man learns from the mistakes of others. Which one are you?

My Website
Rat/Corn snake care sheet I wrote

Current snakes:
0.1 Licorice Stick Black Rat (Lola)
1.0 Black Rat (Frankie)
1.1 Texas Bairds (Jose and Rosa)
0.1 Blue Beauty (Brunhilde)
1.0 Green Tree Python (Claudius)... coming soon

Trans Pecos rat snakes aren't all too common but they're attractive, affordable and docile.
That said, there's a book published by Barron's called Corn Snakes and Other Rat Snakes by Bartlett and Bartlett. It was published about eight years ago so some of the info is probably a little old, but it still gives an impressive overview of the variety out there.

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0.2 chickens
0.2 dog mutts (half ownership, only mine when they misbehave)
0.1 Halflinger horse
0.0 reptiles due to living with
1.1 parents
Still searching for 1.0 WC human

An uncommon rat snake that I would like to have is the baja california rat snake (bogertophis rosaliae).
Another is the the mandarin rat snake (elaphe mandarina).
You do not see either one of these to often.

many species of asian rats which are not overly expensive, hard to keep, nor commonly kept. Check out the forum and feature articles here on KS. With rat snakes, there are many to tempt your fascination and imagination--good luck!