Reptile & Amphibian Forums

I scanned this pic out of a Vivarium article. Balck Milks must be the most consistent when it comes to large size of all Lamropeltis. They have to be one of the coolest Milks out there.

Keith

-----

Was it Dave Barker?

Jake

It was Alan Kardon & Erik R. Holmback The Vivarium Vol.7 No.4 1996. I believe Alan Kardon is the Reptile Curator at the San Antonio Zoo.
-----

I agree, they are onwe of the coolest milks. beautiful black,big but not too big,and boa like calm movements as they become large adults and easy goung dispositions make them fun and rewarding to work with.

I just wish it didn't take so long to turn all black and it's a bit of a nerve racker to see if your babies will turn all black because some strains retain obvious band remnants and others (like one recently posted in the classifieds) just look like muddy Hondurans. A well known reputable breeder that used to work with them and had REALLY nice Gaigeae told me a few years back that in the 90's some breeders were mixing them with Hondurans to get some morphs going with the public none the wiser. What a bummer to spend 2-3 years raising up an animal to not get that indigo blue/black.

A nice solid black gaigeae with no trace of pattern is not something to take for granted. it's why I got a bunch from several different breeders. Most San Antonio line, supposedly the blackest.

BobS

High Sierra herps has a very cool pic of one and Vivid reptiles used to have the best pic I've ever seen, an adult with a newborn that was drop dead awsome! He really captured the glossy black of the adult in contrast to the vivid tri colors of a new babe.

Im not suprised to hear past breeders would do this. How uncool would a Hypo Black Milk look ??? I guess we could call them Gray Milks then lol.

Keith
-----

I don't know..... What folks do with their snakes is up to them, I'd just hate to see someone waste all that time and energy on something thats not what they wanted.

......what people do with their snakes is their business. However, what happened to working with keeping subspecies and locale specific animals as pure as is possible? A lot of the North American milk breeders do it.

But I have seen some tropical milks that have been advertised as Hondurans that definitely have a LOT of stuarti in them (both albinos and normals), seen ads for crosses of Andeans X Hondurans, and even talked to an individual that thought it'd be neat to cross a Honduran with a micropholis. WHY? Why goof up the genetics of something as neat and uncommon as micropholis with a very common Honduran. Why do it with a black milk?

As you eluded to, Bob, sometimes all these crosses result in people getting something that they "thought" was something else, and then they spend all the time raising it to find out different. Maybe that is why sometimes it is so hard to help someone I.D. a milksnake that they bought and posted the pic of on this forum.

I'm not trying to open up a can of worms here. You just hit on something that I had to agree with. Maybe I'm too old-school.

Scott

Like most of us, I've kept a lot of different things over the years. I have regretted getting rid of some things and wondered why I kept others as long as I did. I don't know what the deal is with the gaigeae though, I'm enjoying them alot even though for some they are yeasterdays news.

Who knows where my interests will be in 5 years but I haven't enjoyed this kind of contentment and with an animal in a long time. I'm going to enjoy it while I can.

Happy Herping,
Bob

Hey now if the snake is seven feet how tall is that guy??? LOL At least in my view of the snake vs. guy the snake is a little shorter than the guy. Still a nice snake but I don't think Keith could handle all that color in his collection from the babies. I almost traded for a breeder pair of jet black ones a while back but at the time I wasn't interested. LOL OOOOOHHh hindsight.

later Jason

I think that length is verified, although I dont know for sure. Plus what the hell do you know about tall people half pint lol. Yer right a little color will be nice

Keith

>>Hey now if the snake is seven feet how tall is that guy??? LOL At least in my view of the snake vs. guy the snake is a little shorter than the guy. Still a nice snake but I don't think Keith could handle all that color in his collection from the babies. I almost traded for a breeder pair of jet black ones a while back but at the time I wasn't interested. LOL OOOOOHHh hindsight.
>>
>>later Jason
-----