omni
antiunresemiretirismic
I started out with corns after catching a ratsnake vacationing in WV in the late 90's and kept it for a couple years.. One day, I saw a ratsnake at a petshop, asked how they knew it was a female and ended up taking mine there to have them sex it. They looked similiar in coloration and I didnt know anything, they said I had a male and would I be interested in store credit for him. I thought that was ok since I needed feed and pesticides, but I wanted one of the babies if they ever successfully bred them. I don't think they ever did, but months later gave me what they called "a 'common field snake' we found out back."
Brown, but silvery with black highlights and sort of dull, I thought I could just trade it at a reptile show in Cleveland I heard about for a turtle or something.
After getting there and seeing rows and rows of some really bizarre animals, I saw this gorgeous and shiny snake, it was $20(that was in '98 or 99) and labeled "Tennessee Corn Female $20." I asked if I bought it could I trade him a fieldsnake and $5 for the tank it was in. We talked a bit, he'd use it as a feeder, and so I went back to get my 'field or whatever snake'.
On seeing it, he said "Hey that's a baby corn," and I watched him handle it for only 3 secs when he said,"cute lil guy, but don't need any more male corns, got too many as it is.."
I didn't actually catch him probing its underside he did that very fast. I ended up just buying the tank with the new cornsnake, and know now that Flower was a "Normal" and multi het, the male was a dark Anery.
I never named the male since I thought him ugly, and my sister took his care. About 2 yrs. later, Fall '01 I think, the male, grown now, was put in to cohabitate with Flower and we're thinking should be ok, their same species, heck maybe even they'll breed and we can trade the babies off to a petstore like we had before.
They did breed, we didn't see it, but in Feb I think it was when we saw a pile of eggs in the tank! Shocked because I thought all snakes were livebearers, lol... We rehoused the male but didnt touch her or the eggs at first for a week. She apparently abandoned them we thought, and most looked bad. A few good white ones left, we had no incubator(OHNO), my sister put one in each of our hens' nests(OMG hehe). Their very good at that; they'll hatch ducklings as their own, np...
Well, only 3 of the 8 we saved hatched, an albino and 2 silver and blacks. We didn't know the color morph names then(an Amel and 2 Anerys).
That was my start, kept the amel for a couple years, bought other corns over the years going to the All-Ohio Exotic show, not progressing a line only repeat breedings from our favs, the others were just pets. But with a computer and internet now we've learned this is a particular hobby for lotsa ppl and now there's 20 diff morphs! There never were names for those colors back then when they occasionally popped up.
Sooo, now realizing breeding corns is a growing hobby and genetic data now being reported and shared, I thought I had better get into the 21st century and be more informed and structured with our snakes.
I'm now ACR registered breeder #444 and will be registering my breeders after we track down our genetics in order to 'thin the herd'. Browsing here (and ks), I found many super people to deal with. Decided on new blood for our program, I chose Jim Keenan from HomeGrownHerps as who we'd get our new stock from. He was very recommended, we loved the look of all their '07 hatchings.
It's all very exciting, we expect really nice things when the new babies can cross into our line.
Since snakes, I've taken on tree frogs, and for pets, a monitor and some inverts.
~Paul Sutter
Brown, but silvery with black highlights and sort of dull, I thought I could just trade it at a reptile show in Cleveland I heard about for a turtle or something.
After getting there and seeing rows and rows of some really bizarre animals, I saw this gorgeous and shiny snake, it was $20(that was in '98 or 99) and labeled "Tennessee Corn Female $20." I asked if I bought it could I trade him a fieldsnake and $5 for the tank it was in. We talked a bit, he'd use it as a feeder, and so I went back to get my 'field or whatever snake'.
On seeing it, he said "Hey that's a baby corn," and I watched him handle it for only 3 secs when he said,"cute lil guy, but don't need any more male corns, got too many as it is.."
I didn't actually catch him probing its underside he did that very fast. I ended up just buying the tank with the new cornsnake, and know now that Flower was a "Normal" and multi het, the male was a dark Anery.
I never named the male since I thought him ugly, and my sister took his care. About 2 yrs. later, Fall '01 I think, the male, grown now, was put in to cohabitate with Flower and we're thinking should be ok, their same species, heck maybe even they'll breed and we can trade the babies off to a petstore like we had before.
They did breed, we didn't see it, but in Feb I think it was when we saw a pile of eggs in the tank! Shocked because I thought all snakes were livebearers, lol... We rehoused the male but didnt touch her or the eggs at first for a week. She apparently abandoned them we thought, and most looked bad. A few good white ones left, we had no incubator(OHNO), my sister put one in each of our hens' nests(OMG hehe). Their very good at that; they'll hatch ducklings as their own, np...
Well, only 3 of the 8 we saved hatched, an albino and 2 silver and blacks. We didn't know the color morph names then(an Amel and 2 Anerys).
That was my start, kept the amel for a couple years, bought other corns over the years going to the All-Ohio Exotic show, not progressing a line only repeat breedings from our favs, the others were just pets. But with a computer and internet now we've learned this is a particular hobby for lotsa ppl and now there's 20 diff morphs! There never were names for those colors back then when they occasionally popped up.
Sooo, now realizing breeding corns is a growing hobby and genetic data now being reported and shared, I thought I had better get into the 21st century and be more informed and structured with our snakes.
I'm now ACR registered breeder #444 and will be registering my breeders after we track down our genetics in order to 'thin the herd'. Browsing here (and ks), I found many super people to deal with. Decided on new blood for our program, I chose Jim Keenan from HomeGrownHerps as who we'd get our new stock from. He was very recommended, we loved the look of all their '07 hatchings.
It's all very exciting, we expect really nice things when the new babies can cross into our line.
Since snakes, I've taken on tree frogs, and for pets, a monitor and some inverts.
~Paul Sutter
) sent me another one in Late May. That was my 3rd snake (in all, 2nd really though). THEN, about a week ago I got a leopard gecko. And now I only plan to get more...
