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

[Sauzo]

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.

[cchardwick]

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.

[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.

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.

[Aedryan Methyus]

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.

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:



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...

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.

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...

[Sauzo]

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:



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...

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.