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Size

SMDminnesota

SMDminnesota

New member
Does anyone breed for size? I saw a couple videos online with huge corn snakes and a onewith huge BP (5000g).

If they do, do they sell them? I think that'd be awesome.
 
Don't know of anyone who is, but given that their lungs are not the best, I am not sure putting more stress on them by adding mass is a great idea. Also suspect the demand for such a beast would be limited...
 
I have not heard of anyone breeding for size but it could be done for sure.

Breeding for size could be done for good or for bad.

If you breed for weight then you might end up with unhealthy short lived animals.

If you breed for athletic long animals then you might breed for good health, as poor growth might depend on poor health.

There are several other rat snakes and bull snakes that grow bigger so why breed long cornsnakes (if not for health)?
 
I've heard about a locality where the BPs are quite a bit larger than the average ones in the pet trade. I think they are called Saharans or something like that.
 
kc261 said:
I've heard about a locality where the BPs are quite a bit larger than the average ones in the pet trade. I think they are called Saharans or something like that.
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It's the Sub Saharans or Voltas.

They are a crap shoot at best. Only a few are imported every so often, rarely ever do you see males. They do not come up for sale regularly. If you buy a captive bred one, you better pick a VERY trustworthy breeder. It's super easy for less than ethical breeders to try and scam with possible Sub Saharan offspring.

To get a true Sub Saharan import you have to be ready to spend $$$$.

I had a female from Sub Saharan lines and she was well over 5,000 grams at her biggest.


EDITED TO ADD:
To answer the OP's question, no I do not think anyone is breeding over-sized corns.

Corn snakes are not designed to get much over 5 feet max, 6 feet is possible, but uncommon. They are also not meant to weigh much over 1,000 grams, unless they are waaaaay over fed and over weight. It's just not how this species is built to grow.

If you like larger colubrids, then look at some of the species that are designed by nature to grow that big. Bull snakes, Indigo, and Pine snakes are all large. Yellowtail cribos have been known to get 10 feet.
 
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Also, if you're thinking of starting a selectively bred oversized line yourself, you should keep in mind that unlike other kinds of selective breeding, it's going to be very hard to pick out the keepers in a clutch. For the first rounds you may have to keep entire clutches and grow them out to adults in order to determine which ones to breed. In this time you'd also get a chance to observe the health implications of this project. I don't necessarily think it's too bad of an idea- sure, there are things like what the above commenters have said, but this is also how evolution happens. It's not natural for a snake to let itself be picked up and toyed with by a large predator or for it to be completely white (it may not even be healthy), yet here we're already breeding for these traits. You just have to make sure you're breeding for relative size, so the lungs, heart, and bones all grow relative to each other and in a healthy fashion. Seeing as this would be a VERY long term project, it may also be worthwhile to selectively breed for other traits in conjunction with size, such as anerys with very little yellow and thick borders or something.
 
Thanks for the responses guys!

I've never heard about the lung issue before. It makes sense though because humans who are very large run into all sorts of health issues.

Any selective breeding I would interested in (mine or others) would be within safe limits for the snakes. Having a large snake at the expense of the snake's health is just cruel. I'd assume there are some captive bred populations that are larger than others. I am not referring to over feeding the corn snake. I'd assume if the snake is longer than average it would also be heavier.

I'd imagine that there would be a pretty slim market for large corn snakes. Just another trait to line breed for. That's awesome that there is a locality BP that is just generally larger!

On the flip side, are there any smaller lines of corn snakes? I'm not referring to runts of the litter but shorter/lighter snakes. I have a little cinder but he's a bit of a runt and had troubles feeding as a hatchling. He's small due to environmental factors rather than genetic factors.
 
Topazfyre said:
it's going to be very hard to pick out the keepers in a clutch. For the first rounds you may have to keep entire clutches and grow them out to adults in order to determine which ones to breed.
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That can be managed by records of growthrate vs food input. Fast growers are more likely to get long. Then you might be able to chose the 4 best growers at six months.
 
marieK said:
In my local rep shop they sell 'dwarf corns' that supposedly max out at 3ft.
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I'm betting that may not be legitimate, as I've never read or heard about such animals. This is done with large constrictors (burms, retics, etc.) to create more manageable sizes, but I don't know about corns. Anyone with longer history care to comment on dwarf corns?
 
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