Reptile & Amphibian Forums

I'm wondering if anyones has ever done any selective breeding with coachwhips for the red color.

I saw one this weekend crossing the road that was a solid 6ish feet, and bright red... not pink, not brown and red, but just red!. needless to say, it was a very impressive looking animal even though I only had eyes on it for a few seconds.

i hoped out of my car as fast as I could, and ran back to it, but once i was within 10' it took off down a ditch into various thorn/spine covered plants and was a lost cause.

I kept a young 3' one years ago just for the hell of it and it was high strung, but stopped biting after a few months. so i'm thinking if any solid red ones were ever bred in captivity, they might make a cool captives provided you could deal with the squirms and didnt mind setting them up in large cages. having seen tons in the field, i'd think a full grown adult would need to be kept in something maybe 8'L X 3'W X 3"H with some branches because they sure love to shoot up mesquite trees here in central TX.

There are more then bright red individuals. We have some over here that are crazy outa hand pretty, including red ones.
There was a guy in Kansas that bred coachwhips. I do not know if he line bred any.
The problem is, they will not work at all in rack systems. They are much like active lizards that require the ability to behave(do things).
I almost caught one last year that I would attempt to pair up. I will be going back to that area this year. I will keep my eyes wide open.

I'm glad to see someone besides me acknowledges how awesome these guys look. i think as long as you are willing to put the animals needs ahead of your own to give it a proper cage, they would be awesome to keep.

the 3' animal i had years ago started out in a 20gal, but i felt horrible after a couple days because it had no room to move and I know they really like to look around after watching them in the wild. so i sold my oscars and jack dempseys so i could turn my 55 gal aquarium into a snake tank to keep it in. I still didnt think that was big enough for it, but at least he quit banging his head into glass and calmed down a little. it was a neat captive and ate frozen thawed mice from tongs first time offered.

i ended up turning it loose along with about 20 water snakes in a field near my parents house. it was crawling with racerunner lizards and had a little stream running through it so i figured it was a great idea at the time (14years old). no clue how they all turned out though.

I think coachwhips and racers are really cool but they are a lot of snake...They watch you like a hawk from 10 feet then bolt when they see that you see them. They cover so much ground I also could not imagine how big a cage I would need for a adult pair of the eastern coachwhips...The cream color going down to black is super pretty with strong facial features..great snakes to see in the wild.

One of my favorite w/c snakes of all time was a Sonoran Whipsnake. It was amazing. It would feed out of my hands, I could put it in the yard and turn loose lizards and it would run them down. I fed it mice and chicks as well and it would grab a chick and carry it around the house, then eat it.
I think people miss a lot when stuck with sweater box species. Best wishes

Definitely right about that, Frank. Saw a yellow colored Coachwhip in a tall bush while hiking today in Chatsworth! They're normally a rust brown color here. Have to try to post a pic of it. About 3', it let me get close enough to touch it, but I didn't. It let me take 3 crappy cellphone pics and sat perfectly still. One of these days I'm gonna find a couple of Coast Patchnoses back on that route.

reako45

One of my other favorite captives was an Albino mountain patchnose. What an amazing animal. Another oddity was a coastal longnose I found that was totally striped(Temecula) Both were great captives.

Did you get the Longnose to eat mice. I kept a couple of Rhinos in the past at different times, but was unsuccessful in getting them to eat rodents.

reako45

No problem at all. This is going to sound weird, but when I lived in SoCal, I hunted Borrego religiously in the late sixties. I attempted to keep both longnose and Glossy's. Both would not eat mice. Then I met a young man who lived at Butterfield ranch, we hung out there in the day and overnight. he kept longnose and glossys. I asked him, do they eat rodents and he said yes. So he showed me, he fed them pocket mice and Krats. So I went home and cranked up the temps a bit, then my glossys and longnose ate rodents with no problem. One of my early lessons in keeping that formed who I am today.

First Glossy I ever kept took a while for me to get to eat, but I've kept 3 since then. All great captives, and never had a problem getting them to eat mice right out of the wild, even babies (hatchlings from the previous year).
Longnoses were a different story. Did you only feed them Pocket Mice, or were you able to get them to eat feeder mice as well?

reako45

normal feeder mice. Not sure I mentioned this, but I kept one I caught in Temecula a long time ago. It was fully striped. I flipped it.

You think keeping Rhinos @ higher temps facilitates them eating feeder mice? I might have to try that if I chance keeping them again.

reako45

You can at least give it a try. Whats funny to me is, I keep Cal kings basically freezing compared to other snake species. And they do great. I got a clutch yesterday from that pair I posted a while back. That's 50 years of cal king breeding. Kinda cool

Yeah, very cool. I keep a all of my CalKings at cooler temps than I do my rosys and they all eat like champs. Pretty hardy snakes. I'd like to eventually keep splendida as well and see how they compare to Cals.
As far as Rhinos interesting to hear that your success was predicated by turning p their heat because I have found active transients (to borrow your term) that appeared to be actively foraging at temps I would consider quite cool (high 50's) in a desert locale in April while road cruising.

reako45

Most of our snakes function well at temps like that. I have found rosies crossing the road, at 50F