Well I haven't updated my blog in sometime now and a lot has been going on.  I tried to breed my pair of argentine boas last year and came out with nothing.  Looking back and thinking about it I think my female was just too young at that point and I am going to skip her this year and bulk her up over the next year and then go again next year.  As far as my breeding plans for this year I have a male motley boa that I am putting in with a female normal boa.  My goal is just to try and get some babies produced so I can get some experience with breeding.  My other breeding project is the one I have been waiting for since I first purchased this pair.  The pairing is Snow, my female ghost boa, and Baloo, my male ghost jungle boa.  The hope is that Snow proves out to be a super ghost, which if she does, they will create all ghost and ghost jungles

So far this pairing is looking good and after a small meal yesterday  came in to find that Snow looks much larger in the back 2/3 of her body- hopefully a sign of ovulation and soon she will be growing babies and then I enter the waiting game.
My other decision I have been going back and forth with has been whether or not to try and breed Princess, my platinum het albino reticulated python.

This picture was one of the first I took of her.  She is much larger now, last measurement was just under 16 ft and 60 lbs.  She has been eating 8-10lb rabbits once a month for the last 6 months with no problem but the last time I tried to feed her she had no interest in food, which could be a sign that  she is going into ovulation as well.  The only male we have that we could put with her is Valentine, our Lavender Motley Tiger.  The problem with that is he is much smaller than her and my wife is worried he could get hurt.  Decisions decisions.....

A couple other updates on life here at Colossal Constrictors.  We added a female granite Burmese python to the mix.  We have no plans to breed her at this time but she is so cute we could not pass her up.

We also added Batman, a Super Hypo Arabesque Het Kahl boa. We plan to breed him next year with Ariel, our Sunglow Motley female.

We also added just this past weekend three new animals, a male Purple Sunfire Retic, a male Hypo Blood 66% Het Kahl Albino boa, and a Blood 66% Het Kahl Albino female boa.

Purple Sunfire Male

Hypo Blood 66% Het Kahl Albino Male

Blood 66% Het Kahl Albino Female

( she is in shed- she will be more red after shed)

My goal with these last two boas is to produce a Albino Blood Boa

I'll keep you updated on the breeding projects and any other changes here at Colossal.  I'm going to try to get a few more blogs in this week and over the rest of the year.

Thanks for reading!

Reticulated Pythons

Today I decided I would write about the Reticulated Python.  For those of you who may not know, the reticulated python is the longest snake currently living, with the current record being 25ft 2 in, held by a female named Medusa.  As a hatchling, the reticulated python will normally be between 24-36 inches long and they quickly grow from there, in fact, it is not unheard of to be able to get a retic to 10ft in their first year by feeding them every 5-7 days.  As the retic grows so does its need for food.  An example I currently have in my collection is Valentine, our Lavender Albino Motley Tiger.

This picture is of Valentine the first day we brought him home, as you can see he easily fit in my wife's hands.  That picture was taken in July of 2015.  Now we have never power fed him and up until recently he was still eating small rats once a week.  He is now sitting at about 6.5 feet and growing faster since we moved him to the medium rats weekly.  As a result of their ability to grow so quickly most people are not aware of the incredible responsibility that comes with owning a retic.  My two bigger retics are both females, Princess is a platinum het albino, and Maleficent is a Motley het Snow, the biggest difference between them being that maleficent is part dwarf and not nearly as big as Princess.  Using Princess as an example, when we got her in February of 2015 she was about 4.5-5ft long and roughly 4 lbs.  On her last measurements, taken last month, she is approaching 14ft long and weighs almost 25lbs.  I know that 25lbs may not sound too large considering an adult female can easily get upwards of 200lbs, but she is only just now starting to fill out.  We are still feeding her slowly and she has gone from eating a medium rat weekly to eating a 4lb rabbit every 3 weeks in about a year and a half.

Aside from the incredible size that a retic can reach another thing to consider is the difference in intellect between these and other constrictors.  For lack of a better term, the boa constrictors we keep are generally dumb, they just sit around and wait to get fed.  They are either sleeping of eating, with the occasional wandering around.  Totally opposite of that are the retics.  These snakes are constantly on the move and trying to learn.  My one female, Maleficent, has watched me and now knows what needs to be done to try and unlock the latch on her cage, luckily they are tight latches and she is not big enough for that to work, but that does not stop her from trying.  Another thing that are the retics we own have figured out is feeding day.  They will actually come to the front of their cages on feeding day even before the food is ever brought into the room.  Its really amazing to see the difference in intelligence between the snakes.

However, a word of caution to anyone thinking of owing a retic, they have an extremely dangerous feeding response.  A lot of people talk about this with retics and I have first hand experience that even the nicest retic will turn on you in a second when food gets in the way.  I have been bit a few times by the retics and all but one was when they were in a defensive mode.  When a defensive strike occurs it is quick and over before you know it, but when a feeding strike occurs it is very painful and happens with lightining quick speed.  The one time I was bit in a feeding response it was by a 5 ft Purple Goldenchild female, Aurora, and she struck so fast I did not see it and she grabbed my hand and coiled around it before I could even think.  Luckily she realized I was not food she could eat and let go, but if it had been princess I would have been in a lot of trouble.

This is a picture showing the damage that an adult size retic can do to a person.

Now most people will tell you that retics are not the animal to have as a first snake and while I agree on many levels, I cannot say that I completely back that idea.  The reason behind that is the second snake we purchased was a retic and that snake made me fall in love with the reticulated python.  They are definitely a snake that has to be respected and treated accordingly, but they are extremely rewarding once you gain their trust.  Just remember to plan on having the space to house a 15 plus foot snake and be a responsible owner.  If for some reason you get to where you cannot handle the animal any longer, contact someone who can and do not release them into the wild.  If you have any questions about retics or snakes in general, please email me and I will do my best to answer them for you, I love teaching and talking about them,

intelligence

Growing Addition

Well over the last few months the snake collection has continued to grow.  When we started on this journey almost 3 years ago we were thinking of 1 or 2 animals and that was about it.  Since then we have fallen in love with everything about them.  As a result of my obsession with them, I have convinced my wife to allow the collection to continue to grow, so much so that we now have 15 snakes.  For the most part they are either boa constrictors or reticulated pythons, however lately we have added two more that are in categories all by themselves. 

 The first addition was Sunshine, our Albino Burmese Python female.  She was spur of the moment purchase that had a lot to do with her well being rather than us needing to add one to the collection.  Without going to far into detail, she was not in the best of living conditions and we felt that something needed to be done.  When we brought her home we had to quarantine here due to mites and after a two month period she is now mite free and doing amazing.

Sunshine, the albino Burmese python

Sunshine is truly a pleasure to work with.  She is extremely docile and slow moving with a great personality.  Our goal is that as she gets bigger we will try and use her for educational shows and demonstrations, allowing people to see what a gentle giant the Burmese can be.

Our second addition recently is Rock, a Sumatran Short Tailed Python, otherwise know as a black blood python.  Purchasing him was more a long drawn out process.  I worked on convincing my wife for a few months that we should add one to the collection because they are nothing like what we currently have.  Short tailed pythons are more like a chubby lawn ornament that a snake when they get bigger.  There are three types of short tailed pythons, the Blood, the Borneo, and the Sumatran.  The Sumatran is the smallest of them and he should max out at about 4.5 to 5 feet, but will get close to 20lbs. 

Rock- the Sumatran Short tailed Python

As we learn more and more about the different types of snakes available we have found ourselves just wanting to acquire more and more.  Some of the future goals include a Green Anaconda, a blood boa, a Nicaraguan boa, and hopefully a leopard boa.  Aside from the anaconda, the other boas are all relatively small and should be easily managed.  I'll keep you in the loop.

Preparing for our first season

Well we are starting to prepare for our first season here at Colossal Constrictors.  Our plans this year include breeding our male RC Pastel Jungle to our newest boa addition, a female RC Pastel Motley.
We purchased the female from Richard himself and she has been bred once so this will be her second breeding season.

Here is a picture of the male out in the sun.

This is the female, not the best light but you get the idea.

Together we are hoping to create some awesome results, including Pastel Jungle Motleys, which I'm sure a few will be holdbacks.

We are also debating on two other pairings this year.  The first of which would be to breed out to Argentine boas together, Hiss and Jasmine.

This is Hiss, our large male Argentine

This is Jasmine, our female Argentine

We think Jasmine should be large enough to attempt breeding this year, however only time will tell.

The second pairing we are contemplating is actually two females and one male.  We are debating on using Baloo, our Ghost Jungle male and breeding him to one of two females.  The first is Snow, our potential Super Ghost female.  The second choice would be Ariel, our Sunglow Motley. 

If we breed Baloo to Snow, we would get some more ghost boas and some Anery boas, both normal and Jungle morphs.  I feel as though having an Anery Jungle would be nice addition to the collection.

Now if we were to breed Baloo to Ariel, we would not really get anything spectacular this go around but we would get dual het animals for both Anery and Albino, if we kept two hypo versions we would have a chance at breeding them together a few years from now and creating Snow boas, which would be awesome.

This is what a snow boa looks like as a baby.

Amazing looking!

Well today I decided I should write a follow up to my introduction writing.  I wanted to go more in depth into the current collection we have here at Colossal Constrictors.  As of today, we are sitting at a grand total of 12 snakes, 4 of them being reticulated pythons and the other 8 being some type of boa constrictor.  Initially we had chosen boa constrictors because they were bigger than ball pythons and I didn't consider them to be as main stream as ball pythons as well.  The bigger reticulated pythons and Burmese pythons did not seem to be the best choice of initial snake to purchase due to the massive size they can become.
Here is the currently rundown and a brief description of the boas in our collection:

Motley-  Motley was the first snake we purchased.  He is a normal Motley Boa, which is a co-dominant trait, meaning that when bred to a normal boa, 50% of the babies will be motley and the rest will be normal.  This is important to consider if you are going to get into breeding as it becomes easier to make better morphs when using snakes with dominant traits.  Visually, a motley boa is easy to spot.  They have a circular pattern running along their backs and will normally change to a solid pattern at their tails.  As they grow, the pattern seems to become washed out and the distinct lines along the sides of the snake slowly disappear.  This ends up giving the snake an out of focus look and is one of my favorite pattern morphs.  The down side of the motley trait is that, to date, the super form, which is the result of breeding two of the same morphs together, is a lethal combination.  There has yet to be a super motley make it to breeding age, and from the pictures I have seen, the skull has a deformed look to it, with eyes that protrude out, causing a very strange look. 

Snow- Snow was the second boa we purchased and the first female.  She is a ghost boa, which is a result of two genes being expressed in the same animal.  The first gene is the hypo gene, which removes some of the black pigment in the boa and brings out the red colors in the boa.  The second gene is anery, which is a recessive trait that gives the boa a lack of red pigment.  When these two genes are expressed in one boa, it produces a boa with grays, silvers, and blacks and is one of my favorite boa color morphs.  In order to create a ghost, you would need to breed a hypo het anery boa with either an anery or het anery animal.

Huff- Huff was our third boa and is a Pastel Jungle boa.  The pastel is actually a result of line breeding and has yet to be proven as a an actual gene.  Pastels are bred by taking the brightest colored boas and breeding them together in order to produce brighter animals.  Huff also has the jungle gene in him, which is a co-dominant gene and produces a pattern change resulting in different saddles along the back. 

Bella-  Bella is the fourth boa acquired and is a Hypo Jungle, possibly het albino,  She has the brighter colors associated with the hypo gene and the reduced pattern of a jungle.  She has a great deal of pinks, orange, and blues along her sides and also has a unique skull pattern on her tail, making her one of my wife's favorite boas.

Baloo-  Baloo was purchased along with Aurora as the 5th and 6th boa.  He is a ghost jungle and if you compare his picture to that of Snows you can clearly see the pattern change as well as notice he is much lighter than her.  He actually has almost no black on him and has blue colored eyes.  He will be the future breeding partner of Snow in the next few years.

Aurora-  Aurora is a Sunglow Motley.  The sunglow is the result of breeding a hypo and an albino together, resulting in an extremely brightly colored animal.  She is full of yellows, oranges, and pinks.  She is definitely our brightest boa we have and is actually the most inquisitive of the boas.  She can always be found at the front of her cage looking to see what is going on in the room

The last two boas we have are both Argentine Boas.  I will go into them and the pythons on the next addition to this blog.

How it all began

      I have always been fascinated with snakes, for as long as I can remember I had read books about them and watched every show I could involving them.  I liked all types of snakes, but was most interested in constrictors.  I think it was the size and strength of them that I first fell in love with, they just seems to dwarf every other snake there was.  I found it interesting that they were always made out to be scary and mean, when in fact every interaction I had with them growing up they were quite the opposite, being intriguing and relaxing to deal with.  I was never really encouraged to learn about them and eventually stopped reading about them during my high school years.  It wasn't until March of 2014 that I started to rekindle the passion I had previously had for them.
     It was a few months before I married my wife, Randi, that we found ourselves bored on the weekend and decided to do something different.  We stopped by a local reptile shop, Reptile Mogul, and went in to see what it was like.  The place was small and smelled funny, but the owner was very nice and spent time talking to me.  I explained I had always been interested in snakes, but was never allowed to own one.  He showed Randi and I a few different animals and while looking around I found a male Argentine Boa.   I asked what was different about the Argentine and he explained that they were a certain locality and grew to be one of the largest boas in the world.  While that was interesting, the thing that most caught my attention was the amazing patterns and the beautiful black and white coloring on him.  I asked if we could see him and he graciously took the big male out and showed him to us.  This was the first time my wife had ever touched a snake and she was nervous but excited at the same time.  I was amazed at just how big he was, according to the owner, almost 7 ft.  We let him go back in his cage and thanked the owner for his time.  As we got in the car to leave I found myself checking the area to see if there were anymore stores nearby specializing in reptiles, to my surprise there were two others, Arizona Reptile Center and Predators Reptiles.  We headed over to ARC to check it out.  We walked in and noticed a much better appearance right away, however the people were not nearly as inviting and didn't acknowledge us, which seemed rude, but we were just looking so I guess it didn't matter.  The first thing that we saw when coming in was a very large Burmese python, which made all other snakes I had seen seem tiny.  My guess was that it was close to 15ft long and easily over 100 pounds.  We looked around a little more but saw nothing that really interested us and decided to move on.


     The next stop was Predators, a small little store in a strip mall not far from ARC.  We walked in and noticed how much nicer this store looked compared to the others.  Also, as soon as we came in the door we were greeted by two people, including the owner, Christian.  We explained we were looking and he spent the next few minutes showing us different examples of what he had and offered to let us see anything in the store.  We found two little boa constrictors that were very nice looking.  The first was a small male Paradigm boa, the second an equally small Motley Boa.  I was so excited to be able to hold them both and my wife was not as intimidated by the smaller boas and held them both.  A few weeks later she surprised me by purchasing the Motley and that's how this whole thing got started.

Our first boa, Motley

Motley, 1 year later- close to 4ft

A few months after handling Motley and getting used to him we decided we wanted to add another snake to our home and went back to see Christian at Predators.  This time we decided we wanted to get something a little different and I felt like it had to be something bigger.  We looked around and found little male reticulated python that looked amazing and wasn't too expensive.  We handled him a few times and found that even though he was already bigger than the boa, he seemed to be easily controlled and we decided to get him.  He is a Tiger reticulated python, which is a dominant trait found in retics that creates an elongated pattern along his back when mixed with a normal retic.  It has also been found that adding it to other morphs will cause a cleaner look, but that is for a different time.

This was Tiger when we first got him, all 3 feet of him.

Tiger, 1 year old and almost 9 ft



After picking up Tiger we decided we were done, or so we thought.  I started doing more and more research and learning about different morphs and genetics in both the boa and the retics.  The more I learned the more I became fascinated in everything about them.  We decided to go to a reptile show at the Mesa Convention Center to see what the shows were about,  I even convinced my mother, who hates snakes, to join us so she could see all the different color and patterns that were out there.  It was at that show that we acquired our third snake, Snow.  Snow is a ghost boa, which is a combination of an Anery and a Hypo boa, which creates a lack of red coloration in boas.  I will get more into the genetics of our animals in another page.

This is Snow the day she came home from the show

A newer picture with a better camera showing her colors, or lack there of

Those are the first three snakes we purchased.  I will get into the others later on, and will start to go over the genetics and morphs as well, both in boas and retics.  We will also discuss the future of our business and what goals we hope to achieve.  Please feel free to ask me any questions you have and I will do my best to answer them.  Thanks for reading!