Reptile & Amphibian Forums

It looks as if the forums could use another pointless question to ponder, so here goes. Are wild caught alterna as timid, slow, and deliberate as my captive bred? The only time I see my 5 y/o blairi male move at anything other than a slow crawl is when he's putting it to a mouse. He kills them himself so he actually has to work to make an energetic mouse dinner. So I know that he can move relatively fast. Just seems than other than when he feeds, he never does. Inside or ouside of his cage, a 55 gal long, even in the lawn, he's slow and deliberate. My querry is to whether wild caught alterna have this same lethargic behavior or are they still "wild"?

I have several graybands both wc and cb. My tamest is proably my Langtry female which I collected in 96 as a subadult. She is always placid when I open her cage or hold her. My least tame is probably her mate, a male I collected in 99 just two miles from her. He does not bite or pace but he bolts sometimes when I open his cage everytime I try to hold him he is always trying to get away. One cb Hwy. 277 female I have is pretty calm now but she was a spaz as a baby and it seems pretty much all of her babies are spastic too. So I think it is an individual thing and maybe at least partially genetic.

I have two alterna, both WC. My female is slow moving and docile. I pulled her off a cut and she slowly crawled through my fingers and has never offered any more resistance than that.

My male is the antichrist. The evening I picked him up off the road (before sunset), he sunk his teeth into the steering wheel of my truck. He has never calmed down in 5 years. If I open his cage, he coils and strikes like a coachwhip. Even if I wave my hand in front of his cage he strikes at it.
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Chris Harrison
San Antonio, Texas

I have had several CB and a few WC Alterna and they were all very tame and easy to handle. I have been reading this forum for years and have never really posted on it till last week. I have a ton of great pictures of my animals and once i figure out how to post them up i will share them with you guys..

I collected a male in 2000 on hwy 90 at the pecos high bridge - he was always an extremely docile animal, and he still is today. some graybands are docile, some are not.

Jim