Tangerine Honduran

[toddnbecka]

Snapped a quick pic of the new baby milk I brought home from the Hamburg show last Saturday. I was surprised to see this one out in front of the water bowl today, didn't want to disturb, so I just grabbed the camera and then left alone to continue settling in/getting bored with the new tub.
Got this one from the breeder, same person I got the larger Dominicans from last year. I've seen a lot of milks, this one just appealed to me more than the others. Almost picked up an Okeetee corn instead, but there's no doubt about the adult colors this one will show. Het albino, won't darken much with size and age. Not a tiny baby, but doesn't look quite ready for fuzzy mice yet. Waiting for a fresh litter of pinkies to offer food.
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v628/toddnbecka/Snakes/P1060842_zpscunhrlen.jpg (http://smg.photobucket.com/user/toddnbecka/media/Snakes/P1060842_zpscunhrlen.jpg.html)
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v628/toddnbecka/Snakes/P1060845_zpswmc8fyki.jpg (http://smg.photobucket.com/user/toddnbecka/media/Snakes/P1060845_zpswmc8fyki.jpg.html)

[Herpo]

Very nice little guy! Nice pickup!

[Albert Clark]

Cool pickup tb! Great tangerine coloration. He looks fantastic.

[Andy_G]

Nice pickup! They get to a really nice size and calm down quite well with age. With age, comes a bit of black tipping and some of the oranges in the wider bands can darken to a red, but depending on lineage it can be minimal. Even the dark ones look really awesome to me, though! You'll love experiencing that one growing up. I'm betting that it'll be ready for fuzzies if not now than after a few meals.

[Charis]

Very nice! Looks a lot like our Smaug did at that size.

[EL Ziggy]

Very nice Hondo TnB. Looks like you made out pretty good at Hamburg!

[toddnbecka]

Nice pickup! They get to a really nice size and calm down quite well with age. With age, comes a bit of black tipping and some of the oranges in the wider bands can darken to a red, but depending on lineage it can be minimal. Even the dark ones look really awesome to me, though! You'll love experiencing that one growing up. I'm betting that it'll be ready for fuzzies if not now than after a few meals.

I asked the breeder about darkening with age, he said this one wouldn't as much as some others, presumably because it's het albino.
My genetics understanding is a bit sketchy, but isn't 100% het an offspring of 2 albino parents?
I offered this one a f/t large pink/peach fuzzy, smallest I had, and it took that. I was going by the size of prey/diameter of snake's body rule for sizing up feeders.
Ironically, I never was particularly a fan of milk snakes in general, the red/black/white or /yellow just didn't appeal to me. (Some of the abberrant patterns are a different matter, but those are usually too pricey for me, lol.) After handling an adult Honduran several times that belongs to one of Becka's friends they sort of grew on me, and I started looking at them more closely. As easy as my kings are to maintain, I couldn't pass this pretty little one up.
Didn't act flighty or defensive when I handled it at the show, I thought that may have been partly due to being cooler than preferred, but it seems to like the cooler end of the tub. It has been in the warm hide since eating, but if it follows the same pattern as the everglades rat it will be back off the warmer area after a day or two of digesting over the warmth.

[Andy_G]

100%het is the result of an albino being bred with either a normal or an albino.

Albino x albino = all albinos
Albino x normal = 100% hets
Albino x het albino = albinos and 100% het albinos
Het albino x het albino = 66% possible het albinos (2/3 of the offspring should be hets)
Het albino x normal = 50% possible hets (1/2 of the offspring should be hets)

As far as the darkening (usually called "tipping" in milk snakes) it would have much more to do with lineage and how clean the parents are and not the specific genes that the individual is carrying. Clean adults tend to produce clean babies. Albinos can have white tipping as well, so albino does not always constitute clean lineage nor would the albino gene be solely responsible for cleaning up a line of it's tipping.

You'll find with hondurans as well as the other larger central american milksnakes (ecuadoran, andean, and costa rican black) that they will spend most of their time on the cooler side of the enclosure and they don't need access to anything over 85 for a hot spot. They like it cooler.

[toddnbecka]

100%het is the result of an albino being bred with either a normal or an albino.

Albino x albino = all albinos
Albino x normal = 100% hets
Albino x het albino = albinos and 100% het albinos
Het albino x het albino = 66% possible het albinos (2/3 of the offspring should be hets)
Het albino x normal = 50% possible hets (1/2 of the offspring should be hets)

As far as the darkening (usually called "tipping" in milk snakes) it would have much more to do with lineage and how clean the parents are and not the specific genes that the individual is carrying. Clean adults tend to produce clean babies. Albinos can have white tipping as well, so albino does not always constitute clean lineage nor would the albino gene be solely responsible for cleaning up a line of it's tipping.

You'll find with hondurans as well as the other larger central american milksnakes (ecuadoran, andean, and costa rican black) that they will spend most of their time on the cooler side of the enclosure and they don't need access to anything over 85 for a hot spot. They like it cooler.

Good info, thanks. When I looked in on them tonight the milk was still in the warm hide, and the temp was 84 checked with the laser.
Is it safe to assume that any other het albino Honduran would be good for breeding? I know there are two different lines of albino boas, and they aren't interchangeable if you want to produce albino offspring.

Amanda, if this one grows out to look like your Smaug I certainly won't complain. Had to spend a couple minutes searching for his pics last night, couldn't remember quite what he looked like, then I saw my comment on the thread. I like them best w/out the white or even yellow bands, and yours is just great IMO.

[Andy_G]

As far as hondurans go there is only onrle strain of albinism. There are tricolours or tangerines though and each colour breeds true, so it depends what you want to do there. I'd use a tangerine het albino or a tangerine albino to breed that one to if it were me.

[toddnbecka]

This one didn't eat last weekend, was getting ready to shed and ignored the f/t. I unburied him to see if the shed was done yet, and found just an inch or so from the head and tail had come off, with the rest still on there and dried out. I tried a damp washcloth, but it wasn't coming off, so I wet down some sphagnum moss in a ventilated deli cup and let the wee one duck into that. After resting in the wet moss for a couple hours I got the wet washcloth again, and this time it peeled off smoothly. I offered the smallest rat pink I had on hand, but it was ignored, so I went out and picked up a couple of frozen pink mice. Put one (thawed) in the ceramic cave the snake had ducked into when returned to the tub, and left alone. Couple hours later I checked again, the pinkie was gone and the Hondo was in the usual spot, burrowed under the aspen and the ceramic cave on the cool end. I'm thinking I'll need to mist the substrate the next time shedding comes around. The thayeri kings have basically the same setup, but they shed perfectly every time w/out any extra humidity.

[toddnbecka]

Found the baby Hondo dead tonight. Had just picked out a live pinky to feed, and found him lying on top of the bedding with a chunk of aspen and paper sticking out of his mouth. Not sure if he tried to eat it or what, but he looks sort of shrunken overall, with loose folds of skin around the body. Would dehydration do that? He did regurge a couple weeks ago (overfed w/2 pinky mice) but seemed to digest the single pinky just fine over the past week.

[EL Ziggy]

Sorry for your loss TnB. Are you totally convinced the first regurge was the result of overfeeding? Those mice pinks are only 2-4g each and I've fed lots of baby snakes 2 pinks with no issues. Your critter was at least (4) months old so 2 pinks shouldn't be too much food. And if your temps and humidity were on point, which I know you're good about, and he has access to water, it doesn't seem like he would die of dehydration. Poor little guy may have just had some unseen health issues.

[Andy_G]

Dehydration definitely does that but when a snake dies it tends to look a bit flattened and deflated, especially a hatchling or younger individual. Sorry for your loss, wish you could pinpoint the cause.

[toddnbecka]

I'm thinking the dehydration may have been after he died, I didn't open the tub and check on him a day or two before I found him. The belly was sunkem all along the leangth, and the eyeballs looked a bit sunken as well. Naturally there was water in the bowl. I assumed the pinkies were regurged because they were too much to digest, but neither one looked like it had been affected by stomach acid when I found them.