Quote:
Originally Posted by dannybgoode
Lovely snake. I sometimes wonder why corns are so pervasive in the hobby-particularly at the beginner end when there's so many great rat snake species to be explored.
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I think it is due to a few primary factors.
1. As babies they look like {insert generic rat snake species}. They are small and cute but in reality nothing really draws people to them they are grey with banding patterns.
2. They are quite variable, my female is more metallic looking, my male has a lot more red/orange to him and with a light brown/silver snake as a baby you aren't guaranteed anything. There are blah specimens out there and there are really only a few people working with lines.
3. Little to no way in terms of morphs. There is a hypo/T+ albino (they don't know which it is from what I understand). I'm not really big into morphs but I know that has been a major driving factor in the popularity of corns, kings, balls, retics and the other big names. There is my variety which is far eastern range locality. A Mexican locality that is known as San Antonio Zoo line which is like a yellow version. And the generic banded snake silver snake that is most common in the wild. So you have 4 colors. My orange/metallic kind, San Antonio Zoo yellow, hypo/t+ or generic.
4. The really cool specimens don't photograph well without natural light. If someone is selling a Baird's with a photo from a tub they aren't gonna get their asking price quite frankly.
5. Lack of information, there seems to be this weird thing from the bygone era when all the snake books used to be awesome where everyone assumed that every subspecies was totally unique in care based on there range and other stuff like that. There are like 2-3 caresheets online, no books to speak of outside of mentions in the backs of some. People aren't talking about them all the time either. I think that this kind of scares first time keepers who hear nothing but "corns or ball pythons are the starter snakes period". When in reality a hatchling Baird's is WAY easier to feed because they are beefy babies compared to the little pencil corn snakes and arguably I would consider a better starter species because of that.
Personally I don't care about all of that. I know my snakes are top notch. The breeder I got them from has been working with them for decades. As far as I'm concerned my snakes are just as designer as any ball python or corn snake morph and I will be pricing their offspring as such although with respect to the realities of the market.
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