Anthrax x Dwarf/Super Dwarf Retics? - Help Me Decide On A Pair?

I have fallen in love with Retics, but I can't justify keeping/breeding/marketing giant mainlands. So, I have decided to pursue a dwarf/super dwarf project. Of all the stunning Retic mutations out there, Anthrax are my favorite, but I have not been able to find anyone, who has dwarfed Anthrax varieties available. In fact, I can't find too many breeders, who are even working with dwarfs or super dwarfs at all, surprisingly. After much searching around on the internet, i'm guessing that like a lot of breeders, a lot of them either just don't have websites or they can't be found on the search engines. So, firstly, can you guys share links to as many different dwarf/super dwarf Retic breeder's websites/Facebook pages as you can think of? If anyone knows of and breeders, who have dwarfed Anthrax varieties in particular or even dwarf 100% het Anthrax available that would be awesome!

Here are some initial questions and considerations:

- If I am not able to locate a dwarf line of Anthrax Retics and have to get a mainland I would only consider getting a male that I would hopefully be able to keep under 10' or so. If I end up having to go that route, what would you guys say would be the highest percentage dwarf (smallest size) female would be that I would be able to breed it to in order to create my own dwarf Het Anthrax in order to breed back to each other and create my own future line of dwarfed Anthrax?

- With regards to laws and the Lacey Act, I have not been able to find any information whatsoever about the laws specifically in Pittsburgh, PA (Allegheny County). Can anyone give me a link? I'm pretty sure Pittsburgh hasn't been affected by any bans as of yet and I don't believe we have any permit requirements, but I definitely need to know for sure. As far as selling animals, such as Retics that have bans in certain areas of the US, it would be the responsibility of the people buying the animals to check the laws in their areas, correct? And, I couldn't get in trouble for selling/shipping them to buyers in areas with bans, could I?

I actually breed super dwarf and dwarf retics. This is my first year breeding (one pair) and will be my first clutch of eggs if I'm lucky. I'm breeding a white albino with a purple albino, so all babies will be lavender albinos. They will be a mix of super dwarf and dwarf with a little mainland in the mix (all super dwarf and dwarf will have mainland if they have a morph other than Normal). I'll be sure to post photos if I get eggs and let everyone know how it goes. Eventually I'd like to get other morphs but really don't want to start with Mainlands, I'll have to hunt down some SD crosses. One of my snakes is actually 100% het Anthrax so the babies will be 50% het.

As far as I know the only state that bans retics is Florida. I don't think there are any other restrictions in place. The Lacy act used to ban interstate transport of retics but that was defeated, now you can ship across state lines (thank goodness!).

I know a lot of people stress the percentage of super dwarf in the snake but I think the size really depends on the percentage of mainland. My super dwarf is only 12.5% mainland and my dwarf is 50% mainland. There's a big difference in size! My babies will be somewhere in the middle, they should grow to be about the size of a boa.

I might be wrong but from what i remember, white, lavender and purple phase are all the same albino gene(clark strain). The only different one is amel. So breeding any clark strain to another one can give you any of the 3 albinos phases.

And you definitely want to know the percentages of your SD/D because you are going to pay for it in the price. Also size has to do with a lot of factors other than just the percentage of mainland blood. My 37.5% SD, 31.5% dwarf male is 18 months old and is a little over 7 ft.

And to the OP, some of the people i would check out would be Shannon Roepke, Bob Clark, Daniel Solis and join the super dwarf retic FB page. Lots of guys selling stuff there with percentages and everything. I'm sure you could find or find out if anyone has bred the morph you want. I know i was looking for a SD pied retic and after asking around there, i found out no one has made them yet but there were a few people working on them.

As for the Lacey Act, that has nothing to do with ownership. That had to do with interstate transport. You need to check your local city/county codes to see if they are legal to keep where you are.

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Originally Posted by cchardwick

I actually breed super dwarf and dwarf retics. This is my first year breeding (one pair) and will be my first clutch of eggs if I'm lucky. I'm breeding a white albino with a purple albino, so all babies will be lavender albinos. They will be a mix of super dwarf and dwarf with a little mainland in the mix (all super dwarf and dwarf will have mainland if they have a morph other than Normal). I'll be sure to post photos if I get eggs and let everyone know how it goes. Eventually I'd like to get other morphs but really don't want to start with Mainlands, I'll have to hunt down some SD crosses. One of my snakes is actually 100% het Anthrax so the babies will be 50% het.

As far as I know the only state that bans retics is Florida. I don't think there are any other restrictions in place. The Lacy act used to ban interstate transport of retics but that was defeated, now you can ship across state lines (thank goodness!).

I know a lot of people stress the percentage of super dwarf in the snake but I think the size really depends on the percentage of mainland. My super dwarf is only 12.5% mainland and my dwarf is 50% mainland. There's a big difference in size! My babies will be somewhere in the middle, they should grow to be about the size of a boa.

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That's awesome, cchardwick! You must be sooo excited! I love all of the Albino Retic varieties, too! The snake in the one photo in your profile that is titled, "My HUGE albino dwarf retic" is exactly what I have in mind for the topped out, adult size dwarf Retics that I would love to be working with. Is that a boy or girl? How big is he/she, 8' or 9'? What are his/her Jampea/Kayuadi/mainland percentages? What was his/her age in that photo? You should share a bunch more photos of your Retics! It's a shame that both of your Retics aren't Het Anthrax or you might have been producing exactly what i'm hoping to find... I would definitely not rule out the possibility a pair of beautiful Albino Het Anthrax, though!

Boas have always had a special place in my heart and i've always said that if I had to choose only one species of snake to work with it would have to be Boas, but I can totally see dwarf Retics taking their place. In my opinion, no other species of constrictor even come close to the majestic colors and markings of Retics and they don't take 5 years to grow up!

Actually you want to work with super dwarfs. Dwarfs still can get pretty big. Super dwarfs are where its at though. About half the size of a mainland but all the personality of a full size retic. Plus there is limited morphs in them atm so if you get one of the desired ones like a cow or pied etc, you would be set.

I've been planning on trying to find a pair that are like 66% - 75% SD. A percentage where the females would top out around 8' - 10' (max) and males 7' - 8', etc. Something with a little size, but yet very handle-able... Wouldn't that size range fall somewhere within the 66% - 75% SD range?

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Originally Posted by Aedryan Methyus

I've been planning on trying to find a pair that are like 66% - 75% SD. A percentage where the females would top out around 8' - 10' (max) and males 7' - 8', etc. Something with a little size, but yet very handle-able... Wouldn't that size range fall somewhere within the 66% - 75% SD range?

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Depends on the snake and what gene he takes after for lack of a better term. Caesar is 37.5% SD, 31.5% dwarf and he is just over 7' at 18 months old. He was also fed pretty heavily as he would push hard as a baby if not kept full. I personally think the best judge of the size is to look at the parents. I got Caesar from Kris over at Vital Exotics and his parents were 6' dad and 8-9' mom and like i said, he is 7' ish. Kris figured he would top out at 7' with 'normal' feedings and even with my heavy feedings, he is still around 7'.

I personally would probably shoot for something in the 50% SD range. 75% SD in some of the rarer morphs might be really hard to find as well as costing you an arm and a leg and your first born child. Cant hurt to look though. Like i said, i would join the Super Dwarf retic FB and ask there. More people there with retics to pull knowledge from, plus Jacob aka JMCrook is a member there as well as me. I thought Steve was a member there too but i checked and he isnt so i put in a pending invite for him lol. The FB page is called Super Dwarf and Dwarf Retics-Keepers and Breeders.

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Originally Posted by Aedryan Methyus

I've been planning on trying to find a pair that are like 66% - 75% SD. A percentage where the females would top out around 8' - 10' (max) and males 7' - 8', etc. Something with a little size, but yet very handle-able... Wouldn't that size range fall somewhere within the 66% - 75% SD range?

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If that's your max size for a female I'd lean more towards a pure SD. My girl is from pure wild caught SD parents and she's already pushing 9' and about 13lbs at 21 months old.


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Here's a current photo of my retic. Her name is Lucy, she is a female and 50% Jampea (dwarf) and 50% mainland. She is just shy of 2 years old now and probably close to 30 pounds. I put a sharpie marker in the photo for a size comparison so you can get an idea of how big she is. She is a 'White Phase' (Clark) albino. The albino is associated with the purple and lavender albino. The Purple phase has two copies of the gene, the Lavender has one and the white phase has zero. It's kind of a separate but linked gene. So if you bred a purple albino with a normal you would get one copy of the albino gene and one copy of the purple gene, neither would be visual. If you bred a lavender albino with a normal you would get one copy of the albino gene (het) and a 50% chance of getting one copy of the purple gene.

When she was young I fed her pretty heavily and she probably grew twice as fast as others I have seen. Now that she is pretty much slowed down growing I feed her a large or jumbo rat once every 2-3 weeks and she is satisfied.

Also keep in mind that the more Mainland blood in the snake the more mellow and easy going it is. Super Dwarf makes them a bit skittish and aggressive by nature. You can work with them to get it out of their system but it comes naturally with Mainland blood. Also keep in mind that if you have a pure super dwarf you won't have any morphs at all. All of the color / pattern morphs come from crossing with Mainland. To reduce the % mainland you have to breed back to super dwarf. So to get this snake they probably bred a pure Jampea to an albino Mainland. Then bred the offspring together to get the visual albino.

https://ball-pythons.net/forums/cach...s.com/lucy.jpg

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Originally Posted by cchardwick

Here's a current photo of my retic. Her name is Lucy, she is a female and 50% Jampea (dwarf) and 50% mainland. She is just shy of 2 years old now and probably close to 30 pounds. I put a sharpie marker in the photo for a size comparison so you can get an idea of how big she is. She is a 'White Phase' (Clark) albino. The albino is associated with the purple and lavender albino. The Purple phase has two copies of the gene, the Lavender has one and the white phase has zero. It's kind of a separate but linked gene. So if you bred a purple albino with a normal you would get one copy of the albino gene and one copy of the purple gene, neither would be visual. If you bred a lavender albino with a normal you would get one copy of the albino gene (het) and a 50% chance of getting one copy of the purple gene.

When she was young I fed her pretty heavily and she probably grew twice as fast as others I have seen. Now that she is pretty much slowed down growing I feed her a large or jumbo rat once every 2-3 weeks and she is satisfied.

Also keep in mind that the more Mainland blood in the snake the more mellow and easy going it is. Super Dwarf makes them a bit skittish and aggressive by nature. You can work with them to get it out of their system but it comes naturally with Mainland blood. Also keep in mind that if you have a pure super dwarf you won't have any morphs at all. All of the color / pattern morphs come from crossing with Mainland. To reduce the % mainland you have to breed back to super dwarf. So to get this snake they probably bred a pure Jampea to an albino Mainland. Then bred the offspring together to get the visual albino.

https://ball-pythons.net/forums/cach...s.com/lucy.jpg

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To correct a couple things, the only snake that is 'aggressive' is a black mamba. Snakes are defensive. SD retics as well as dwarf retics can be more skittish and on the go than mainlands but this depends on how the snake was raised.

Also super dwarf does have a single naturally occurring morph. It's anery.

And from what i have been told, tiger gene tends to make bigger retics and more mellow retics. The tiger gene also changes the patterns a lot. Here is Caesar who is also a white albino but he's also tiger het snow and super dwarf/dwarf and you can see how different he looks even though both are white albinos but one with tiger and one without.
https://ball-pythons.net/forums/cach...ee22fd16_b.jpg

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Originally Posted by Aedryan Methyus

I've been planning on trying to find a pair that are like 66% - 75% SD. A percentage where the females would top out around 8' - 10' (max) and males 7' - 8', etc. Something with a little size, but yet very handle-able... Wouldn't that size range fall somewhere within the 66% - 75% SD range?

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Actually the percentage matters much less than people think (it's almost a marketing thing at this point imo). The actual parental sizes matter a lot. There are 75% SD females that are still over 12'. There are also 25% SD females that are under 8 foot. While percentage comes into play some, the actual genealogy and lineage of the animal matters much more. I have a 50% female who is 4 years old, healthy and fed well and she is maybe 7.5 feet, give or take a few inches. I have personally seen a 68.75% female that was ~13 feet. Whereas I have a 25% SD that was produced by Garrett Hartle that is almost 8 months old, fed a large meal every 5-7 days, and is probably 2 feet (still smaller than a male mainland hatchling as I have those too). And he is 25% Kayuadi at that, which is considered more "dwarf" than SD overall. So when you are shopping for SD's, make sure to find out the size of the parents, their age and their feeding schedule. You will thank yourself in the long run, trust me.


Just for reference, here is a picture of me with my 50% SD female GC Het Purple. As you can see, she is still very manageable (I am 5'7" for reference), being less than 8 foot and already breeding size and age. She is a F1 cross at that (mom was a pure SD ~7-8 foot and dad was a pure mainland GC Purple Albino that was ~7 foot). This is an example of what I mean when I say parental sizes matter more than percentages. There are also some with the field of thought that the babies tend to get more of the size from mom and the looks from dad.


https://ball-pythons.net/forums/cach...om/2w71zz6.jpg


P.S. I was doing a monthly mouth inspection as I do with all my retics to make sure everything looks in order (no signs of pushing, stomatitis, RI etc.). So please don't mind how I am holding her head. It looks rougher than it was.

Thanks so much for all of your valuable insight. You guys are great! It definitely sounds like the parent's sizes, ages and feeding schedules should be some of the biggest considerations with these guys. Also, I have seen Jay Brewer of Prehistoric pets stress many times how you can control the growth of even pure mainlands to however large or small you want depending on prey size and feeding schedule. I have pretty much seen that myself with my Boas, so I think that is a huge factor. I keep stressing how I don't really want anything over 10', but I sorta keep forgetting how even 12' or 14' Retics aren't really THAT big and are still very handle-able if you keep them slender, as they naturally should be. I guess my primary concerns are:

- I don't want to get into keeping animals that would require enclosures any larger than 6' x 3' x 18" as adults.
- I don't really want to have animals that require prey any larger than jumbo size rats, but if I would need to have a few breeder rabbits in the future to keep a few (very few) of my snakes fed in the future I would be alright with that.
- Marketability... Snakes (even Ball Pythons) have an extremely limited, niche target market as far as average pet snake buyers go and I think the larger the snakes get the smaller the market for them gets. I think once snakes start getting larger than the 6' range is probably when a lot of people start being hesitant about wanting to have them. I do feel that the dwarf and super dwarf Retics might be somewhat of an exception, though. Especially for those, who favor Boas over Ball Pythons. Aside from their irresistible beauty, I think their larger size wouldn't be as off-putting since they can be kept more slender and handle-able at larger sizes. I also feel that the dwarfs and super dwarfs will become (if they haven't already become?) extremely desirable within the more serious snake collector/breeder/hobbyist area of the market.
- Affordability... I don't mind starting off with a pair of nice, afforfable co-dominant Hets (though, I prefer 100% Hets) or lower priced recessive gene animals in order to be able to start producing what I really want within a couple/few years time. At the same time, as much as i'm sure all of us would love to be producing $1,000.00/$2,500.00/$5,000.00/$10,000.00 high end offspring, how many people out there can afford to dish out that kind of money on snakes? I sure can't! :( So, I would be fine with producing some lower to mid-price range offspring with the first clutch.

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Originally Posted by cchardwick

Here's a current photo of my retic. Her name is Lucy, she is a female and 50% Jampea (dwarf) and 50% mainland. She is just shy of 2 years old now and probably close to 30 pounds. I put a sharpie marker in the photo for a size comparison so you can get an idea of how big she is. She is a 'White Phase' (Clark) albino. The albino is associated with the purple and lavender albino. The Purple phase has two copies of the gene, the Lavender has one and the white phase has zero. It's kind of a separate but linked gene. So if you bred a purple albino with a normal you would get one copy of the albino gene and one copy of the purple gene, neither would be visual. If you bred a lavender albino with a normal you would get one copy of the albino gene (het) and a 50% chance of getting one copy of the purple gene.

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Originally Posted by cchardwick

When she was young I fed her pretty heavily and she probably grew twice as fast as others I have seen. Now that she is pretty much slowed down growing I feed her a large or jumbo rat once every 2-3 weeks and she is satisfied.

Also keep in mind that the more Mainland blood in the snake the more mellow and easy going it is. Super Dwarf makes them a bit skittish and aggressive by nature. You can work with them to get it out of their system but it comes naturally with Mainland blood. Also keep in mind that if you have a pure super dwarf you won't have any morphs at all. All of the color / pattern morphs come from crossing with Mainland. To reduce the % mainland you have to breed back to super dwarf. So to get this snake they probably bred a pure Jampea to an albino Mainland. Then bred the offspring together to get the visual albino.

https://ball-pythons.net/forums/cach...s.com/lucy.jpg

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The markings and colors on that girl are INSANE! Her side markings look like little crowns. It doesn't get much more majestic than that! lol If I had a girl like that I would name her Tiara...

And, I agree with you about the limited number of mutations available with the pure super dwarfs, cchardwick. I definitely want at least some percentage of mainland. As Sauzo suggested, I definitely think something in the 50% + SD range is the way to go for me...

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Originally Posted by Addiction

Actually the percentage matters much less than people think (it's almost a marketing thing at this point imo). The actual parental sizes matter a lot. There are 75% SD females that are still over 12'. There are also 25% SD females that are under 8 foot. While percentage comes into play some, the actual genealogy and lineage of the animal matters much more. I have a 50% female who is 4 years old, healthy and fed well and she is maybe 7.5 feet, give or take a few inches. I have personally seen a 68.75% female that was ~13 feet. Whereas I have a 25% SD that was produced by Garrett Hartle that is almost 8 months old, fed a large meal every 5-7 days, and is probably 2 feet (still smaller than a male mainland hatchling as I have those too). And he is 25% Kayuadi at that, which is considered more "dwarf" than SD overall. So when you are shopping for SD's, make sure to find out the size of the parents, their age and their feeding schedule. You will thank yourself in the long run, trust me.

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Originally Posted by Addiction

Just for reference, here is a picture of me with my 50% SD female GC Het Purple. As you can see, she is still very manageable (I am 5'7" for reference), being less than 8 foot and already breeding size and age. She is a F1 cross at that (mom was a pure SD ~7-8 foot and dad was a pure mainland GC Purple Albino that was ~7 foot). This is an example of what I mean when I say parental sizes matter more than percentages. There are also some with the field of thought that the babies tend to get more of the size from mom and the looks from dad.


https://ball-pythons.net/forums/cach...om/2w71zz6.jpg


P.S. I was doing a monthly mouth inspection as I do with all my retics to make sure everything looks in order (no signs of pushing, stomatitis, RI etc.). So please don't mind how I am holding her head. It looks rougher than it was.

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I would love to find a pair that would top out at the size of your girl there, Addiction! That would be ideal!

Thanks again for sharing all of your knowledge and insight, guys. It is greatly appreciated! I have already turned this into a long post, but I wanted to include the following videos by Cody Conway in this discussion, because I think they are the most informative dwarf/super dwarf Retic videos out there. By the way, I can't seem to find a website for Cody to see if he has any animals for sale. Do any of you happen to know him or know where I might find any animals he might have available? Does he have a company name, perhaps? I'm not even sure if he is even still working with these animals since his most recent video seems to be from 3 years ago...

https://youtu.be/A2UF4WGzDFw

https://youtu.be/PhxMtNIOWqE

https://youtu.be/PmYCnUzAJAc

From what i have seen, Cody aka Reptile Expert on the forums here has moved more into HOTs over retics now.

Thanks, Sauzo. Is that his exact name here on the forum? I did a member search for "Reptile Expert" and the results said that is was an invalid username... Please forgive my ignorance, but what does H.O.T. stand for? Out of curiosity I did a search on Google for "hot snakes" and all that comes up is websites for a band called "Hot Snakes"... In the urban dictionary, the definition of Hot Snakes is; The fecal matter typical of the morning after a heavy night of drinking. Resembles long thin coils of a snake and usually "hot" when coming out (think spicy food.) LOL! :P

Hot just refers to venomous snakes.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

Ohhhhh! Yeah, okay... I've heard that term before from a local breeder friend of mine... lol There are definitely some beautiful venomous snakes, but, man... I just never saw any sense in working with them. That's a whole other topic, though...

His forum name here is Reptileexpert, one word. And yeah, there are lots of aweomse looking hots. I'm still kicking around the idea of a gila monster as like i've said, i've always wanted one since i was a kid. They are legal here so thats what sparked the interest again haha. I just need to wait a few months for babies. I've already seen a few breeders show their babies being born. And like Jacob said, HOT just means venomous stuff.

Those super dwarf retics at three years old are still pretty small, maybe even smaller than a boa constrictor of the same age? Personally I'd like my retics to get a bit bigger and more impressive. I really like the size that Lucy is at, I would be happy if she stayed about the same size or slightly bigger but not too much bigger. She is still small enough to where I can handle her by myself but big enough to be incredibly impressive. After seeing the video of a three year old 50% super dwarf I'm not sure I want that much SD in my snakes, I prefer a snake that is a bit bigger than a boa.

Get a Peruvian BCC then. They can get up 9-10'. Would take like 9 years but they are the biggest of the boas...not counting anacondas...

Me personally, i prefer nothing over 10-11'. I want stuff that is easily manageable and doesnt need huge caging. While i know people keep retics and burms in 6' caging but for me, i prefer to give my snakes caging where they can stretch out in which is why i am looking at a T65 next year for Caesar. An 8x3 cage is about the biggest i want in caging. If i got something that got 13-16', i'd feel bad cramming them in a cage half their length but thats just me. Plus i dont want to go broke having to feed an army of snakes that eats goats lol.

I thought about getting a few boas but decided to do the dwarf and super dwarf retics instead. Not sure how many retics I can handle. I'm breeding my pair right now and plan on holding two of the babies back and breeding them together, they will be lavender albinos so their offspring should be a mix of white albino, lavender albino, and purple albino. I'm really hoping that none of them will outgrow my boa tubs! I think four adult retics is probably the limit for me right now LOL.

Depends what your definition of 'outgrow' is. I know breeders who keep their 6-8' boas in 4x2 cages. To me, that is unacceptable. But like i said, i try and give all my snakes cages they can stretch out in. My belief is if you cant afford them proper care, then you have too many snakes. Kind of the reason, i am kicking the idea of my next and probably last reptile. I am running out of space unless i take over the upstairs too lol. So i'm debating on a 50% SD ultra ivory retic, gila monster, Peruvian BCC, male Rio Bravo Pokigron Suriname, or female meltzer/Lincoln line Peruvian longtail BCL. Also been thinking of a male pied retic if i have to get Caesar a 8x3 cage since i can stack 3 of those like my 6x3 cages which would mean 1 for a pied retic and the last one would be for my Pokigron Suriname girl when she gets big.

Retics are a lot work. No way i could keep up with 4 of them as well as my other snakes. It would become just a job to me and it would lose the personal feel i have with all my snakes. I personally pride myself on having snakes that i would trust with pretty much anyone as i interact with them all the time. I mean Caesar is a handful but only because he loves to cruise around, not fast but just nonstop lol. The only time he sits still is on the bed sometimes when relaxing or the first time i gave him a bath. He sat there with his head on the tub edge while i wiped him down with a wet paper towel. He loves the attention which is kind of surprising to me. When i look in his cage, he will come out and sit at the front with his head on the litter dam looking at me. Not a food look either as i can open the cage and reach in and he just cruises over to the open door and hangs out by me lol.

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Originally Posted by cchardwick

Those super dwarf retics at three years old are still pretty small, maybe even smaller than a boa constrictor of the same age? Personally I'd like my retics to get a bit bigger and more impressive. I really like the size that Lucy is at, I would be happy if she stayed about the same size or slightly bigger but not too much bigger. She is still small enough to where I can handle her by myself but big enough to be incredibly impressive. After seeing the video of a three year old 50% super dwarf I'm not sure I want that much SD in my snakes, I prefer a snake that is a bit bigger than a boa.

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I really like the size of your Lucy girl, too. Anything that would top out somewhere between the size of Addiction's girl and Lucy would be perfect for me. I'm definitely still going to go with 50% + SD, though. I would rather have Retics that I might have to feed a little more to get up to size than end up being paranoid about creating a giant un-handle-able beast... lol I'm very curious about what kind of prey sizes and feeding schedules you and Addiction have had your females on to keep them at their sizes.

As I mentioned in my last reply, Jay Brewer is constantly stressing how you can completely control the size of Retics (and other species) with a combination of prey size and feeding schedule and breeding cycles. Here is a great comparison video of his that I just stumbled across tonight while researching and he really goes out of his way to prove his point:

https://youtu.be/rdHQf_DFtp4

The female he pulls off of the eggs is still much larger than I would care to have, but she is a breeding size pure mainlaind and much smaller than the big female he showed at the beginning. Something else this video made me aware of is that Anthrax is actually the largest Retic gene. So, I would definitely want at least 50% SD if I get Anthrax just to be safe...

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Originally Posted by Sauzo

Depends what your definition of 'outgrow' is. I know breeders who keep their 6-8' boas in 4x2 cages. To me, that is unacceptable. But like i said, i try and give all my snakes cages they can stretch out in. My belief is if you cant afford them proper care, then you have too many snakes. Kind of the reason, i am kicking the idea of my next and probably last reptile. I am running out of space unless i take over the upstairs too lol. So i'm debating on a 50% SD ultra ivory retic, gila monster, Peruvian BCC, male Rio Bravo Pokigron Suriname, or female meltzer/Lincoln line Peruvian longtail BCL. Also been thinking of a male pied retic if i have to get Caesar a 8x3 cage since i can stack 3 of those like my 6x3 cages which would mean 1 for a pied retic and the last one would be for my Pokigron Suriname girl when she gets big.

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Originally Posted by Sauzo

Retics are a lot work. No way i could keep up with 4 of them as well as my other snakes. It would become just a job to me and it would lose the personal feel i have with all my snakes. I personally pride myself on having snakes that i would trust with pretty much anyone as i interact with them all the time. I mean Caesar is a handful but only because he loves to cruise around, not fast but just nonstop lol. The only time he sits still is on the bed sometimes when relaxing or the first time i gave him a bath. He sat there with his head on the tub edge while i wiped him down with a wet paper towel. He loves the attention which is kind of surprising to me. When i look in his cage, he will come out and sit at the front with his head on the litter dam looking at me. Not a food look either as i can open the cage and reach in and he just cruises over to the open door and hangs out by me lol.

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I feel the same way, Sauzo. I think 6' is the max length a snake should be for a 4' x 2' enclosure. I live by the school of thought that an enclosure's combined length + width shouldn't be any less than the length of the snake. That's one of the reasons why I don't want Retics that would exceed 8' or 10'. I think a 10' Retic would be the very max size I would feel humane keeping in a 6' x 3' enclosure and I don't want 8' enclosures. I also feel the same way about the personal "relationship" I have (or at least FEEL) with my snakes. My collection is only at 13 at the moment and I already feel horrible only handling each of them for 5 - 10 minutes (sometimes longer), 3 or 4 times per week. But, for me, this is also a sideline business endeavor and with a little luck, possibly a retirement gig in the future. So, I think having a decent size selection of species and mutations is necessary...

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Originally Posted by Aedryan Methyus

I really like the size of your Lucy girl, too. Anything that would top out somewhere between the size of Addiction's girl and Lucy would be perfect for me. I'm definitely still going to go with 50% + SD, though. I would rather have Retics that I might have to feed a little more to get up to size than end up being paranoid about creating a giant un-handle-able beast... lol I'm very curious about what kind of prey sizes and feeding schedules you and Addiction have had your females on to keep them at their sizes.

As I mentioned in my last reply, Jay Brewer is constantly stressing how you can completely control the size of Retics (and other species) with a combination of prey size and feeding schedule and breeding cycles. Here is a great comparison video of his that I just stumbled across tonight while researching and he really goes out of his way to prove his point:

https://youtu.be/rdHQf_DFtp4

The female he pulls off of the eggs is still much larger than I would care to have, but she is a breeding size pure mainlaind and much smaller than the big female he showed at the beginning. Something else this video made me aware of is that Anthrax is actually the largest Retic gene. So, I would definitely want at least 50% SD if I get Anthrax just to be safe...



I feel the same way, Sauzo. I think 6' is the max length a snake should be for a 4' x 2' enclosure. I live by the school of thought that an enclosure's combined length + width shouldn't be any less than the length of the snake. That's one of the reasons why I don't want Retics that would exceed 8' or 10'. I think a 10' Retic would be the very max size I would feel humane keeping in a 6' x 3' enclosure and I don't want 8' enclosures. I also feel the same way about the personal "relationship" I have (or at least FEEL) with my snakes. My collection is only at 13 at the moment and I already feel horrible only handling each of them for 5 - 10 minutes (sometimes longer), 3 or 4 times per week. But, for me, this is also a sideline business endeavor and with a little luck, possibly a retirement gig in the future. So, I think having a decent size selection of species and mutations is necessary...

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Yeah i too have thought about doing it as a retirement thing which is kind of why im leaning towards another pure Rio Bravo Pokigron suriname male from Chris Wolf who is who i got Gina from. He got all his breeders straight from Gus Rentfro or Vin Russo as he is personal friends with Vin. And i wouldnt plan on breeding them until Gina was probably 6 years old. I believe when i talked to Chris, he told me Gina's mom was 8 years old and he sent me pics of Gina and her siblings being born. Was pretty neat.

And i too am from the school of the cage's length+width=snakes overall size but i prefer to give more if can which on something that is 15', no way i could spring for a 15' cage lol.

And I'm not sure i completely agree with Jay on completely comtrolling the size of the snake with food and schedule. If the snake is genetic going to be big, its going to be big. Thats like saying well if i feed it once a month, i can keep it the size of a garter snake. I think you can slow it down or stunt it to an extent but if the snake is going to be 9', then feeding and schedule might reduce it by a foot if that.

Perfect example is Gio's SD/D tiger he got from Kris at Vital Exotics. I got Caesar from the same guy and Gio's snake is i believe a month younger than mine. His was born in June i believe while Caesar was born in May. They are both males. Gio fed his guy very conservatively a small rat every 14 days. I fed Caesar a small rat every 5 days. Gio kept with the small rat for a very long time while Caesar was bumped to mediums and then larges. I believe by the time Gio's snake was up to medium rats, Caesar was on larges. Caesar initially grew a lot faster but in the end, i believe Gio said his retic was like 6' or 6.5' and Caesar was 7'. So even though i fed Caesar heavily he really only grew about 6" to a foot longer but he got there quicker and then just filled out. Not sure what happened to Gio, last i heard he said he was really business and didnt have time for the forums right now. I would be curious to see how large his retic is now compared to Caesar.

I personally believe feeding and schedule play a definite role in size to an extent but again like i said, if your snake pulls from the large gene pool, it will be large.

Oh and i forgot to mention, Gio's retic is the same percentage SD as Caesar but his is more dwarf and less mainland while Caesar is less dwarf and more mainland. I think Gio's was like 40% dwarf or something while Caesar is 31.5% dwarf. I think with SD crosses, its more of a cross your finger and pray game. You can stack the deck in your favor with more SD blood in the mix but ultimately it comes down to how the snakes genetics work as he is growing. It's like Jacobs pure Kalatoa Phyllis who is about 9'. I saw a guy selling pure Kalatoas tonight on the retic classifeds where the parents were both 6'. And then there is Steve's Gene who is believe is 25% SD 25% dwarf and about the same size as Caesar. A lot less SD and dwarf but alot more mainland yet is the same size as Caesar.

And i agree, having variety is nice. I was pretty shocked tonight when i was looking through the retic classfieds. Matt from Monster Kru was selling a bunch of stuff including a 2017 62.5% male SD lavender tiger for $1k. I was shocked as i got Caesar for $500 but it was kind of deal with Kris. i mean ok, its a lavender so it has 1 white gene and 1 purple gene and is 62,5% SD but Caesar is het snow(anery). So i guess i got a pretty good deal. Turned out, the year Gio and I bought our retics from Kris at Vital Exotics was the last year he was doing retics as he was focusing on his bison business which might explain it as Caesar was orginally listed at $700.