Burm or Retic??

[cstruthers]

I am trying to decide which one I want to get. Its between a male retic or a female burm... I chose these two because they will grow around the same length (18ft average) and thats the size I am looking for. So which ones would be easier to handle full grown and which one would you prefer to have? Im not interested in breeding, this would be strictly a pet... hopefully lol.

[Theartisticgemini]

I have heard retics are very smart ( For a snake )

I would personally go with a retic. BTW don't male retics get like 23 FT plus.

edit: Also im not sure if your SIG is up to date or not but if this is your first large snake from what i can see i would start of with something like a RTB.

[cstruthers]

Well if you manage the food intake properly then they will be under 20... It is possible to manage a retics size without starving it as some people like to think. Most people like to powerfeed (most of the time not intentional) the first year or two of the retics life because they want it to grow fast. These two years are the peak growing years, and if the meals are managed during this critical point he will stay significantly smaller and still maintain great health.

And yes this will be my first PERSONAL large snake. But I work with reptiles everyday where I work and we have MANY large pythons and boas that I am very comfortable and confident handling, so its actually not really my first cause I treat all the animals at work like they are my own.

O and just to add to my first point, we have a male retic that is 5 years old now and his size has been properly managed since he was born, he is now only a little over 13ft, and if you saw him you would see that he is definately healthy.

[AkHerps]

"Properly managed" sounds prettty fishy to me...kind of like a nice way of saying your not feeding them enough so that way they grow slower than they should be growing..

But maybe I'm wrong, but there's a difference between surviving, and thriving.

[Theartisticgemini]

A 5 year old retic just over 13 feet sounds like hella stunted growth if you ask me

[cstruthers]

It just like with a human, I could eat 6 meals a day and grow more than someone eating 2 day. The person eating 2 meals a day is still healthy, they just arent as big.

If I had pictures of the snake I would post them because he is defiantely not skinny or unhealthy. Its not that he doesnt get fed ENOUGH, but he just didnt get fed AS MUCH as most people feed there retics. Which most people feed them too much anyway like I said in the other post, trust me I see it every day with so many different snakes. A guy was feeding a three year old male ball python 4 medium rats at a time because he liked the "more full" look. A lot of people are idiots lol.

Just because an animal eats less doesnt mean it is unhealthy, just like a human on a good diet doesnt eat very much. Most people overeat too just like snakes.

[AkHerps]

Maybe you should get another species of snake if you aren't able to handle a 20+ foot snake, and this way you won't have to restrict it's feeding which can be detrimental to the snakes health. People on good diets usually eat 6 small healthy meals a day, so it's not really a small amount of food, just food throughout the day to keep the metabolism going. Snakes are not the same as us.

[JEWSKIN]

I choose other simply for the fact I have a male and female retic I have had burms and well it's all personal preference. My male, Hannibal, at two it just hitting the ten foot mark....yeah a bit small I got him from some people who were feeding him well kinda small meals every two three or even 4 weeks. They took great care of him aside from the feeding and he is well one of the most intelligent creatures I know a freak if I must say every so lovingly. I dont know whats more messed up the fact that I talk to him like I do my children or the fact that even people watching swear he responds (i.e. pouts when i tell him not holding tonight......go to sleep ur not getting the rabbit its not ours.....or goes in to a hussy when Clarice my baby girl tic isn't near him for a few days)

[cstruthers]

Maybe you should get another species of snake if you aren't able to handle a 20+ foot snake, and this way you won't have to restrict it's feeding which can be detrimental to the snakes health. People on good diets usually eat 6 small healthy meals a day, so it's not really a small amount of food, just food throughout the day to keep the metabolism going. Snakes are not the same as us.

I wasnt saying we are the same as snakes, it was an analogy... The only thing I was trying to get at was that if you eat more you get bigger, not healthier, and you can eat a small amount and be very healthy. Dont over analize things. And I also never said I cant handle a 20 foot snake, I said I handle them at work, we have retics over 20ft so its not a problem I was just saying there was a such thing as slightly managing size. I wasnt there while our small retic was growing up so maybe it was starved, but all I can say is that NOW it is healthy. Im not going to starve my snake so everything is ok. My post wasnt even about any of this crap, I just wanted to know what people thought would be a better large python, a Retic or Burm.

[cstruthers]

I choose other simply for the fact I have a male and female retic I have had burms and well it's all personal preference. My male, Hannibal, at two it just hitting the ten foot mark....yeah a bit small I got him from some people who were feeding him well kinda small meals every two three or even 4 weeks. They took great care of him aside from the feeding and he is well one of the most intelligent creatures I know a freak if I must say every so lovingly. I dont know whats more messed up the fact that I talk to him like I do my children or the fact that even people watching swear he responds (i.e. pouts when i tell him not holding tonight......go to sleep ur not getting the rabbit its not ours.....or goes in to a hussy when Clarice my baby girl tic isn't near him for a few days)

Gorgeous Retic! I think Im going to be getting a male tiger, they are amazing! And I do notice, out of all the snakes I handle, that retics do seem to show more emotion and personalilty... One of our male lav albino retics was up at the glass and I told him I wasnt taking him out and he just went down and laid his head on the ground like he was pouting lol... I just had to take him out after that haha