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9/24/10 Talk about a lucky find!!! I have been walking at lunch around a walking/biking trail lately to help get back in shape and the other day I found a ringneck smashed by a bike on the trail. The trail cuts through a rolling hill area with wild tall grass prairie, with small creeks in the valleys, perfect garter habitat. Today I was walking on the trail and I saw a snake on the trail and I figured it was probably a garter killed by a bike, but as I got closer it started to move so I ran up and caught it, thinking I would have a look at it and then let it go, but once I had it in my hands I realized how gorgeous it was and could not believe it, I was stunned. I had heard there was a wild population of red radix in the area, but in the 42 yrs that I have lived in the area I have never seen one by where I live, but apparently they live right by where I work. Additionally this snake is a female, not sure who I will breed her to this spring but it will either be the blue axanthic or the iowa albino, or possibly the wild caught nebraska albino below. She has a really orange dorsal stripe and redish brown background color. What an amazing find!!!
 
7/1/10 Just received a young female from Chad Howser that was caught within 100yrds of the albino in Dodge Co. Nebraska, what an amazing find, thanks tons Chad!!! She looks exactly as I would have guessed. She has a lot of red color and just like the albino the very orange dorsal stripe that fades as it goes back towards the tail. She also has some interesting orange spots on her head and under her tail. Super stoked about this because with this female I can now produce a locale specific new line of red albino plains garter. Not to mention strengthen an existing line if they prove out to be compatible.
06/17/10 Wow, talk about an exciting week, this week I aquired some amazing new animals.
First and foremost today I aquired a newly found wild caught Albino plains garter T. radix.
This snake was aquired from Chad Howser, this snake was found in Dodge Co. in Nebraska, about 50 miles west of Omaha. This general area is rich with morphs and has produced several albinos and erythristic (red) radix over the years. This albino was found in the general region were my red radix was found that I aquired from Ian Cambell last year. I got lucky because this snake was caught about a month ago and pictures were posted of it on a local pet shops facebook page, but luckily it didn't receive a ton of attention otherwise I would have maybe got in a bidding war, like the other wild caughts this year and I would have come up short. Lucky for me I had talked with Chad several times last year about corn snakes that I had for sale and so he knew I was big into garters and contacted me first. I paid a pretty penny for this snake but I love it even though I will not likely make my money back any time soon. It is a male, was actually hoping it was a female and I was going to breed it to my Ian Cambell red radix, but I have a couple other ideas now. I would like to breed it to a locality female first to keep the strain locality, before making other crosses. I believe this snake may end up being compatible to the current Nebraska albino strain or Iowa strain, however it may not, and while it has some similarities in appearance it has some definately distiguishing characteristics as well and I belive that is has some of the red radix characteristics as well. This animal has a much lighter and duller straw colored background color, the eyes are lighter, yet a much darker orange dorsal stripe, and has orange color surrounding the dark checkers on the sides, and it has a pinkish/orangish ghostly look to it, which is why I believe it has red parentage. Update he has eaten twice now so over the first hurdle.
 
 
I also aquired two new erythristic eastern garters from Scott Felzer a few days ago, he was kind enough to offer me some of his absolute best stock breeder females, can't keep them all right Scott?
First off, this is the original wild caught Mertle Beach erythristic eastern T.sirtalis sirtalis. I had told Scott a year or two ago that if ever wanted to part with this snake to please give me first crack at it, and thats exactly what he did, this snake was never even advertised, Thanks bud!!! This snake is a deep plum red bordering on purple, the pictures don't really do these snake justice.
The second snake is an extremely nice holdback female Carteret Co. erythristic het albino female, red, red, red, she will make some smoking ery albinos.
Aquired 2 pairs of florida albinos and 2 pairs of poss hets from Ed Hoene, thanks Ed!!! These guys have a lot of attitude and are huge babies, with a really neat head pattern. Can't wait to start working on some new projects with these guys. I already have a few ideas for them in the future.
I aquired 2 females that are erythristic flames het for albino from Scott Felzer, these should make good breeders. I had a hard time getting a good picture of them because they are still very small.
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