ID this snake please

[Brandon.O]

Well.....i was laying in my bed at 6 in the morning (like any normal person should on a saturday) and i heard my mom yell SNAKE !! BRANDON, COME HEEEEEERE !!

So i hopped up, ran outside and found this little guy..

To me he looks like a sonoran gopher but ive never seen a sonoran gopher with a head so dark. Its hard to tell becuase, bull snakes, pine snakes and gopher snakes all look somewhat alike.

I live in southern newmexico if that helps any, but i think all species i just named live here.






BTW, hes just a baby, only about ten inches long.

[daniel1983]

yep they all kinda look the same....I might have to look around. Do you plan on keeping the little one?(i know you were talking about getting something new)

[Brandon.O]

The thought of keeping it has run through my mind, But i really dont know how good of a pet it would make and i dont know if it has any health issues i want to deal with. He is alright with being handled, he will run away if he gets the chance to of course but when you are holding him he tolerates it pretty well.


Aside from that, i think i would feel bad keeping him knowing that he could be free and was meant to be in the wild, i think i would feel guilty, like im keeping him prisonor.


I know some people have succesfully kept animals they have caught in the wild, my breeder friend got a call from one of the schools here and they said they found a baby "rattle snake" slithering along the hallway but it ended up being a sonoran gopher, she has had the snake ever since (it was about 9 -10 years ago) and he is very friendly and eats extremly well. and is about 5 feet long...maybe longer, he is huge.

EDIT: I got him to eat a pinky ! Its a good thing he did too....the damn thing cost me two dollars......it was barely worth it, the thing looked so skinny and looked like it had been away from its mom for quite a long time, it was just a newborn.....oh well, at least there is SOMETHING in his stomach now.I checked my freezer for any smaller fuzzies, but they were all WAY to big for him, plus, i doubt he would eat F/T.

[frankykeno]

Wow Brandon that is a nice looking snake. I'd be in the same boat as you though wondering if it's fair to keep a wild creature especially if the environment around your house is good for it to survive in or if this type of snake is common or not in the wild in your area.

Let us know what it is, I'd love to know myself and what you decide to do with it.


~~Jo~~

[daniel1983]

Personally, I am on the fence about capturing wild animals. They do it all the time with imported species. But if I had to pick an wild snake to keep, It would definately be a newborn that eats when I feed it. ha ha....I know we say they were ment for the wild....but where would you rather be...living in the wild worrying of attack and such.....or well taken care of by a good keeper. It would not really be like you are taking an adult out of its environment. Since it is freshly hatched....just consider it a CH baby and keep the little one if you want Just my opinion

this could be a wicked poll thread...is taking animals out of the wild ok or not...or only in certain situations...

[Brandon.O]

Yes, that makes sense, if it was an adult, i wouldnt have even brought it inside or even wondered about keeping it, its so little and so cute and he is handleable and has eaten already.so keeping him is definitly a possibility

Roxy is a WC/CH so its basicly the same thing...only she came from africa, this guy basicly showed up at my doorstep.

I think im going to end up keeping him....maybe

I still havent got around to ordering the provent-a-mite i need from Matt, but as soon as it arrives he will be treated and then he'll be probed, i think its a female becuase the tail is very short and somewhat stubby.But im no snake sexing expert.

Since i wasnt sure exactly what species he was (bull, or gopher) i took him to the snake show today and had my breeder friend see if she could tell, she couldent give me a definit answer, we put him by the HUGE adult gopher and they looked alike, only mine has a darker head sne more defined "tear drop" markings under his eyes.

I have already started thinking about names. My breeder friend suggested "Wild Thing" i think its a cool, quirky kind of name for a snake. Or maybe something like Sunrise or Sunny becuase we found him very very early in the morning when the sun was coming up, and we live in a housing development with all the streets being named something like.....sundial,sunny side,sunglow,sunset,sunrise and zia (meaning Sun) there are quite a few more streets but i really cant think right now.

Yeah, he is a very cute snake, and the pictures didnt really show his true colors.

He has a patch of scales missing from his back(well, more like his "lower" back....by his tail) maybe from a predator who tried to make a meal out of him, its all healed up though. Like a ball python (or at least some of them) they would rather get away or put their head in thier coils than defend themselves by biting and striking......you can tell that is how he got that wound.Poor thing looks like he has been through alot.The dessert is not a very forgiving place or somewhere where its easy to survive.


Just thought i would mention this stuff...


I mentinoned taking him to a snake show somewhere up there.....i dont really mean the kind of show you are probly thinking about ( like a bunch of breeders selling thier babies at a convention sort of thing) Its actually kinda a snake science show with lots of information about snakes and some other reptiles, they hire this lady and she brings her collection (well a small chunk of it, she has 47 snakes....not counting all the eggs that are about to hatch) along and shows them.....thats where i come in, my job is basicly to handle the snakes and help pass out the information, we do it at the zoo.

[clizardb]

Your littlesnake looks just like the Gopher Snakes I see here in California. Does it have any orange color on it? The gophers here have some orange on them as well as the stripe that runs through the eye. I also see nothing wrong with keeping it, as once you learn the true species, you may want to acquire a mate and breed them. It would be a nice way to get some new genetics into some captive bred specimens.( If your local laws allow for it)

[Beardo]

That is an atypical Sonoran Gopher. They make great captives and are very common, so if you want to keep it, go ahead and do so. I'm sure you won't have any problem getting it to eat frozen/thawed.

[Brandon.O]

What does atypical mean ?? Differnt looking ??

Yes right now i am planning on keeping the little snake, im going to have "him" probed sometime next week.

He ate for me again just yesterday and so next time im going to try either P/K or F/T and see what happens.

[Brandon.O]

I just went to cherryville farms website and looked at thier picture of a bull snake and it looks exactly like mine.

Go to the website and click on bull and pine snakes, then go to het. bulls and you will see a picture of a young bull, campare it to mine and its almost an exact match.