• In case most of you have not noticed, I made changes to the donation amounts as well as the durations for all of the paid membership levels. Things are winding down here, and this seems to be the most prudent way to deal with the "end of life" period of this site.

    Contributor level members - $10 per 30 days
    Sponsors - Eliminated
    Benefactor level members - $25 per 30 days
    Endowment level members - $50 per 30 days

    Account Upgrades Page
  • Responding to email notices you receive.
    **************************************************
    In short, DON'T! Email notices are to ONLY alert you of a reply to your private message or your ad on this site. Replying to the email just wastes your time as it goes NOWHERE, and probably pisses off the person you thought you replied to when they think you just ignored them. So instead of complaining to me about your messages not being replied to from this site via email, please READ that email notice that plainly states what you need to do in order to reply to who you are trying to converse with.

Smaller ssp./localities of Pituophis?

P

Pituophis_

getting back into it
Joined
Jul 15, 2017
Messages
17
Reaction score
1
Points
0
Location
Albuquerque, NM
I know Pituophis generally get kinda big, but I was wondering if there are ssp. or localities of pituophis that get a little smaller?

I think I heard christmas mountain bulls get a little smaller, might be remembering wrong.
 
If you are looking for smaller pits, I would keep away from bullsnakes, as well as northern and southern pines. These get to be quite large in size. My largest bull is somewhere between 7 and 7.5 feet long, and I have seen some pines that were in that range.

I would recommend any of the other kinds of gopher snakes. I have a sonoran gopher that's 5 yo and is just shy of 5 feet long. If I recall, most of the other gopher snake subspecies are similar in terms of maximum size.
 
I once saw a cape gopher snake that I remember because it was pretty. I wanted to buy it so I asked questions, and remember it was roughly 3.5 feet at 4 years. That sounded small, so I asked if that was normal, and the seller said it was a healthy animal. Who know if that was true. However, of all the cape gophers I've seen, I've never seen one I thought was over 5 feet.

Stay away from the pacific gopher snake. It's a great snake, but I personally owned one that was, while not measured, potentially as big as 7 feet, judged by the fact that it was almost as big as a boa constrictor who had been measured as 7'5"

I'd also recommend staying away from bullsnakes, because while I know that there are definitely some bulls that don't get big, there are few sellers who keep the kind of accurate records about their bullsnakes to really predict exactly how big they would be. If you didn't care about what kind of bullsnake you had, you could post an ad saying you would pay good money for adult bullsnakes of any kind, and the most important information you wanted about the animal was exactly how big and exactly how old. 20 people would respond with their unwanted normal bullsnakes they never thought would sell. If you didn't specify, the people who would lie about the size of their bull to sell it would assume you wanted a nice, big one, and exaggerate how big theirs was. They would be weeded out. Then you could see which were the smallest for their age and make sure they were small genetically, and not due to underfeeding, history of illness or some deformity.
 
Thanks for the replies.
Always loved bulls, but for what I can house right now it probably wouldn't be best for the animal, so for now not gonna get any, someday though :).
Cape gophers are very interesting.
 
Many of the Pits that are referred to as bulls are actually gophers. The Christmas Mountain Bulls being one of them. They are actually Sonoran gopher snakes. My two year old female is around 4.5 feet and the male of the same age is barely four.
 
Since I can't edit my post for whatever reason:
Makes me wonder how "pure" certain animals are within the the hobby. Like if someone bred a christmas mountain "bull" with, say a kingsville hypo under the assumption that xmas mtn bulls were in fact bulls. I think this applies to other "hobby" colubrids. short rant over, haha
 
As far as I'm concerned, unless I collected the animal myself, in a place in which I know the exact taxonomy of the animals present, I can't really truly honestly know in my heart that it is "pure." People lie or make mistakes.
 
Purity in this hobby also depends on WHO was breeding it, in terms of who they are, what kind of person they are, their honesty, and their reputation. Fortunately, I know the most incredible, responsible, and honest breeders in this hobby, and am blessed to have many pure animals by them.

Smaller types of pituophis that you can consider, Brandon, are San Diego Gophers and Great Basin Gophers. Both can be much smaller versus other pits but are fun to own!!

Bulls do indeed vary, as some can get quite large. My bulls, northern and southern pines, all vary between 4 1/2 feet up to over 5 1/2 feet, with only one bull I have owned ever reaching 6.

Good luck!
 
I've not posted in this forum before, but the only "smaller" pits I've come are Santa Cruz Island Gopher Snakes (p c pumilis) which are usually around 3'. Bull snakes from Red Lodge, Montana were at one time marketed as topping out around 3'-4'.
 
Back
Top