Loki, my Eastern Indigo

[eminart]

Originally Posted by whistlepig

He is still awesome. If I've read right, it seems he's always been small for his age since you got him. Just curious, do you know anything about his parents and whether they were smaller than normal for their age? Wondering how much genetics vs feeding plays into it.

Yes, when I got him, he was almost a year old. He'd apparently been "maintenance" fed since hatching and was very small for his age. He's also always been sort of a picky eater for a drymarchon, so maybe that had something to do with it. I did a lot of reading and thinking, and I don't know if a snake that gets off to a slow start during the normal growing years will ever catch up or not. There doesn't seem to be a lot of info on that.

No, I don't know much about his parents. But, I do know there is entirely too much inbreeding with captive eastern indigos. And that can stunt size. There just aren't enough unrelated snakes in captivity. For that reason, I may not ever have another eastern. If I do, it will be from the best cross I can find.