SD Gophers Keepers?

[SmoothScales]

Technically, our first snake here was a SD Gopher that was injured and trying to get itself hit on the road. After spending enough time with us to heal, she had become quite tame so we found ourselves - unintentionally - owners of a 4 foot female SD Gopher snake. This was several years ago and 'Trash Compactor' still enjoys her climate controlled viv in our living room. (Dubbed so because she's not very picky when it comes to her food - mice, rats, live, p/k...she'll eat it all!) Until recently, I had never considered that Gopher snakes might also be bred for morphs like other, more commonly kept snakes. A quick check on kingsnake revealed a few morphs available, but not many. While I have no intention of breeding or selling Trash Compactor, it did make me curious if anyone on here was a keeper/breeder of gopher snakes and how that market compares to other colubrids like corns?

[John1982]

Pituophis in general is a popular genus. Except for rare occasions, they come out of the egg ready to devour food yet calm down with little more effort than a corn snake. There are plenty of gopher subspecies available, many with cool locality looks to boot, for the purists. There are also color morphs galore. I currently keep some P. c. sayi and P. m. lodingi(pine) and am pretty smitten with pits. These are the only colubrids I've bred and sold, so I can't compare to corns and such, but mine sell quick.

[SmoothScales]

Wow! Those are some fantastic colors! I didn't realize they had such bright colors. For some reason I was thinking there'd be more shades of brown and grey, but those oranges are out there! I know when it comes to hognoses, there is a lot of emphasis on keeping the subspecies separate and not cross breeding. Does this same emphasis carry over to pits?

[Reinz]

Wow John those are some wicked colors!!!!

[EL-Ziggy]

I don't keep Gophers but I love my Bulls.

[Reinz]

Ziggy, you and John really have me thinking about Colubrids.

But, not until I get everyone in their proper enclosures first!

[distaff]

They are pretty snakes.
We seem to have a lot of them around here, but sadly I only find them as road kill.
Saw a fresh kill today, infact.

[John1982]

Wow! Those are some fantastic colors! I didn't realize they had such bright colors. For some reason I was thinking there'd be more shades of brown and grey, but those oranges are out there! I know when it comes to hognoses, there is a lot of emphasis on keeping the subspecies separate and not cross breeding. Does this same emphasis carry over to pits?

Most breeders keep the subspecies separate. Some have undoubtedly been crossed so just be careful who you buy from if you want to work with something specific - there are also natural intergrades where ranges overlap. All of my gophers are sayi(bull snakes) but there are some gorgeous choices in the other subspecies as well.

[EL-Ziggy]

@ John- Thanks for the knowledge. I didn't even know bulls were the subspecies of gopher snakes. So where do pine snakes fit into this family? Thanks again. I never stop learning.

[EL-Ziggy]

@ Reinz- I started with king snakes who are some really fierce critters but they're kinda small. Bulls are the perfect colubrid to me because they're large but very manageable. They'll eat like pigs (but I don't let them) and the husbandry is a breeze. No real downside to keeping them.