Reptile & Amphibian Forums

im doing my first paring this year and though that i would start simple. i have two female corns. one is an albino and the other is a snow corn. (she's huge around 5' range) and a few wild caught male gopher snakes (just for the breeding, then their going back). im sure you guys can give me a few pointers on how to get them to breed and when to start trying them. and also, if i breed them, will this make a new tubo corn morph, possibly albino and something else with the snow corn? any help will be greatly appreciated. thanks
Aspen

I cannot give you any pointers on breeding these two together, but i can tell you two things:
1) Unless the gophers snakes are het for albino at the same locus as the corns, you will not get albinos.
2) You cannot release these snakes if they come into contact with you captive collection. Wild and captives harbor different microbes that if not encountered before can have catastrophic effects on animals. Therefore, the release of a snake into the wild that has come into contact with the captives may act fine, but could carry diseases potentially fatal to wild populations.

Warren
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Dr Warren Booth
North Carolina State University
Department of Entomology
3309 Gardner Hall
Raleigh, NC 27695-7613

i never thought of that. but i had a plan for the het. thing. i would breed the siblings back to the parents. yes its unhealthy, but how else is it going to get done?

it can be done if you do not plan to release the gopher snakes into the wild again. Then, its a case of taking your chances and hoping for the best.

Warren
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Dr Warren Booth
North Carolina State University
Department of Entomology
3309 Gardner Hall
Raleigh, NC 27695-7613

The unhealthy part is releasing the snakes back into the wild.

There's a reason laws involving liberating snakes into the wild, even if taken from the wild exists in many states.

You can introduce a bacterium or viruses that are alien to wild populations and therefore no natural defense exists for the wild snakes to fight off the introduced pathogen.

So you should do the breeding but KEEP the gophers or place them with someone who will keep them as pets and such.
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Thanks,

Frank Roberts

These are two 1/8th bullsnake hybrids. As you can see the top snake is amelanistic.

Bigfoot

thanks guys. i think that i will give the snakes to someone who has more room once they've bred. one of my females just shed so i think they are about ready!