I know this isn't a corn... but...

It is interesting how all these W/C "palmetto/calicoish" rat snakes are popping up in the last couple years. And the fact that they manage to make it to such good size in the wild is crazy, since they are pretty noticeable.

You should probably get a fecal to your vet, if you haven't already. He's gotta be crawling with parasites.

Originally Posted by Nanci

You should probably get a fecal to your vet, if you haven't already. He's gotta be crawling with parasites.

I have a pretty strong background in microscopy, and I have spent years doing microscocopy work with herps. You'd probably be quite surprised how "clean" some wild caught animals are. I've had many wild caught animals over the years with very little to no parasite load. As long as the animal is not stressed and is kept in good conditions it is much more important to get an animal feeding and settled in than it is to stress them out and shove them full of meds. In fact I've known of animals to actually have more damage than good done to them by dosing them with meds and disrupting the intestinal fauna of the snake.

Except you said he's thin...

Originally Posted by Nanci

Except you said he's thin...

Yes, the snake is on the thin side of normal but no where near crashing. Have no worries, I'll be sifting through this snake's poop soon enough. Often times when I find a snake with heavy parasite loads they'll have mis-migrated parasites found subcutaneously. There's really no reason to force a fecal from the snake and stress it out, and it has eaten 2 smallish rats (I don't like to feed animals especially large food items, especially when they're settling in, too large of a meal can stress an animal) in the last week, so I'll just wait until then.

Originally Posted by 2ndGenSnakeDude

It is interesting how all these W/C "palmetto/calicoish" rat snakes are popping up in the last couple years. And the fact that they manage to make it to such good size in the wild is crazy, since they are pretty noticeable.

I have a feeling the animals have been around all along (in limited numbers mind you), however with the increased connectivity of humans these animals make their way to hobbyists. A good example is the fact that my friend caught the snake and let it go without realizing that anyone would actually want to breed it.

Go back 30-40 years and we're talking about mail-order herps, monthly price lists without photos, and very little interest in reptiles compared to what we have today. The internet has been a huge game changer in herpetoculture.

I know a lot of people are against the whole "hybrid" thing but I would like to see it bred to a palmetto corn to see if it is the same gene.

Originally Posted by SnakesAndStuff

The internet has been a huge game changer in herpetoculture.

Agrees with this completely

Going by what you've said I'd breed it to a nice dark locality black and also a combo morph black rat, just for fun. First gives you a clean slate to play with, the second a crazy palette to paint with. Good luck, everything new is cool to see, so thanks for sharing a secret

Chip Bridges here, we've been talking. I am in agreement that it's an obsoleta, and also I am wearing that same Woot shirt!

Well, it's a Woot Woot moment then Chip. Woot.

and it looks like what a calico black rat would look like to me