African Rock Pythons

[jimmy62alan]

I've just bought a Female Afrock to go with my Male Afrock, the male is nearly ready for breeding just needs a bit of weight on for the fasting period and the female needs to grow a bit more in length. The both of them are good healthy pythons and have both got their own Character, Roy The Rock is a lovely snake and gets passed around if we have visiters and he's great to have in our home. We have just got Ruby Rock this week and she is taking some settling in time lol, she's slightly smaller than Roy but she's more stockier than he is. The previous owners were a bit concerned about how fast she was and her mouth may of been a deciding factor as well lol.
I do like a snake with character and she does that, I will be working with Ruby a fare bit to get her to calm down a bit and to get her size and weight up. The previous owner were feeding her medium rats and just moved her on to Jumbo's on the weekend before we were going to get her. A lot of people think I'm a bit nuts as I always go for the snakes with as I like think lots of character lol. We will be breeding them in the near future but I do want to get her chilled out a bit so we will have easier maintenace of the breeding pair together.
ALAN
Sheffield, England, uk, S25

[MCB]

Lovely, good luck with her :)

[jimmy62alan]

Cheers I will be patient and I'm sure she'll get better, I think some people get a bit worried with Rocks as they are very hissy but when you get them out they are usually realy good. From handling Ruby I can tell she has not been handled much and you must keep the contact up with Rocks to keep the bond up.
When she susses out the ugly bugger is soft as shite she will melt to my charms lol, said he fingers cross. Joking aside I do feel confident she will get better its just the lack of handling I think, we have people visiting the snakes not us and she will soon be part of the gathering as all the snakes are. ALAN

[MCB]

Cool, my dwarf retic throws the odd hissy fit every now and then but he's fine when you get him out and settles right down.

Plenty of 'playtime' then :)

[aRepDysfunction]

Lovely animal, cant keep those here anymore without looking like a madman :(

[sharthun]

Cool snake!!!

[drumcrush]

Real nice!

[metalcopper]

Love the pattern on the Rocks!

[jimmy62alan]

The pattern on Rocks are realy good and the head patterns can be so differant as well. I got our male a while ago and he's realy good, but I went searching for a Burmese to pair with him not a Female Rock lol. I will get a Burmese Female at a later date and do the Cateater Python Hybrid the mix of Burm and Afrock skin pattern is really good.
ALAN

[jimmy62alan]

Cool, my dwarf retic throws the odd hissy fit every now and then but he's fine when you get him out and settles right down.

Plenty of 'playtime' then :)
How big do those dwarf retic,s get to, they do look awsome snakes to have. If my hit list of snakes get any bigger I have to move to a massive house lol.
ALAN

[Tsubaki]

Very nice looking!


@jimmy62alan Depends on what kind of dwarf, they can get up to around 15ish feet.

[dave himself]

Very nice mate :)

[MCB]

How big do those dwarf retic,s get to, they do look awsome snakes to have. If my hit list of snakes get any bigger I have to move to a massive house lol.
ALAN

Anything up to 12/15ft, think it depends on lineage for a true Dwarf and Super Dwarf, the supers can max out at 6ft.

My guys about 8-9ft, he'll fill out but I doubt he'll getting any longer.

[jimmy62alan]

I suppose 15ft for a retic is a dwarf lol

[jimmy62alan]

Super Dwarfs are these a man made size I take it??? I had a dwarf Boa and the misses her son nag me for it but I would like to get into all types of dwarfs when we get moved to a bigger house lol For the people that like the colours but don't want the size, I personally like all snakes small big medium, the mental ones and the calm one's lol ALAN

[Tsubaki]

Superdwarf is not a 'man made' size, they are retics originating from tiny islands.

The bigger the (is)land of origin, the bigger prey it has.. And that affects the size of the hunter. A mainland retic from a place like Java, can find bigger prey than a Retic from the tiny island of madu. And they will both grow accordingly.

[thinkbig317]

Very nice Rock Alan!

[jimmy62alan]

Ruby the Rock is calming down a bit and she is getting to be a Bath time Junky lol. I'm really enjoying this snakes character lol.
She's settling in very nicely and I can't wait to pair her up with our Male (ROY) Rock Python, she would possibly breed now but I want to get her over 9 and half foot to get her to a good length and weight to help cope with being gravid.
ALAN

[Sublimeballs]

Awesome rocks. All the ones I've interacted with were completely mental.

I thought Id shed more light on the dwarf/super dwarf retics for you.

Dwarf retics:

Selayar- from the island of selayar, off the coast of South Sulawesi. These look very similar to the Sulawesi retics. Crazy patterns, incredible colors, some of the best looking retics in the world. They are considered dwarf by some and mid sized by others. They usually fall in the range of 10-16 feet.

(True dwarves)
Jampea- these originate from the island of tanahjampea, just south of Sulawesi(where some true giants grow). These are one of my favorite retic locales. Tons of personality, completely insane feeding response(so much so they arnt recomended as a first retic even though they are dwarves). Jamps usually fall in the 8-12 foot range but have gotten to 17 feet( Jason gaspars). I have a female that i got from bob clark, turns out shes a gaspar line jamp and ill be amazed if she gets to 12 feet.

Kayuadi - from the island of kayuadi(gets pretty predictable, I know). Kayuadi is within eye sight just north of tanahjampea; and as expected the kaydu's are very similar to the jamps. These top out a little smaller then the jamps. Usually in the 8-11 foot range, but I've heard of 14.

Super dwarves

Madu- aka "honey island". Honey island is the translation of island of madu. These are hard to find pures in the states(as are most of the dwarves), can't speak for other countries. These typically top out around 6-9 feet, 10 at the extreme.

Kalatoa - from kalatoa. the smallest of the known retics, and the original super dwarf retics( name coined by Bob Clark and Mike Wilbanks. The importer didnt tell where they came from for several years. Bob later found out and I've heard it from his mouth.). These look very similar to madus with more red as opposed to yellow pigment. Adults typically range from 5-8 feet. Travis kubes has some of the best pure kalatoas. I got my pair from him. He said the females typically top out 7-7.5 feet.


Hope this helps.

[jimmy62alan]

Thats very useful for future reference I have loads of other snakes lined up first but if I came across a retic I would not turn it down, the local shop has one in and he's a 14 footer, just seeing you can see he has loads of growing room left. Do you have any good links to find out more about the Retics I like to find as much as possible about snakes before I get any.
Saying that I did not do this with the Rocks lol, I found out about my male last year and the same day went for him then went googling African Rock Pythons afterwards haha. I'm pleased I did go for him as he's my first big snake, well apart from the 3 x 7ft6inch, 8ft and 9ft female Boa's lol I want a female and male Burmese in the very near future as well.
I hope our house move comes sooner rather than later lol.
Cheers again
ALAN

[Sublimeballs]

Pm me, ill help you with whatever you want to know about retics. I only keep dwarves, but the care is the same. There is plenty of good info on the web about retics, but I've spent many hours talking to some of the best breeders in the states.