Chuck Hurd Serpentology: pit viper photos

[ChuckHurd]

During the winter break from school, I had to rearrange several of my snakes. It gave me an opportunity to get a few photographs of some of my pit vipers. These are a few that I am most proud of, most will be breeding this coming season, but a couple are long term projects. Hope you enjoy. Feel free to ask me any questions about them.


This is an F3 Eastern Diamondback project. This is a group project with Mike Williams. My male was CB 04 and his female was CB 03. Both are about 4.5 feet and in prefect health. His female is the snake on top. She holds a very pretty yellow outlining of the diamonds. [/COLOR][/URL]

F2 KY locality male timber rattlesnake
[img]http://secw.bravepages.com/Chuck/pics/F2kytimber.JPG[/img]
This is my F2 KY locality timber. He was CB in 02 from F1's collected from Hazard, KY.


F2 NY locality female timber rattlesnake
[img]http://secw.bravepages.com/Chuck/pics/NYtimber.JPG[/img]
I am very proud to have this animal. She is a CB 03 NY locality timber rattlesnake. If I am unable to acquire a pure blood line NY male by spring, I intend to put her back on the F2 KY male.

Cottonhead breeding project
[img]http://secw.bravepages.com/Chuck/pics/cottonheadproject1.JPG[/img]
This is one of my ongoing cottonhead projects. Here we are putting a large and exceptional colored male southern copperhead (collected north FL 05), back with a FL cottonmouth (collected 03 south FL). Both are around 3.5 feet. Very healthy and exceptionally docile animals. The third member of this trio is a very large western cottonmouth, that was collected in east TX in 04.


Cottonhead breeding project 2
[img]http://secw.bravepages.com/Chuck/pics/cottonheadproject2.JPG[/img]
If this trio produces, the offspring will be spectacular. We have put a male cottonmouth (collected south FL 2005) back with two exceptional sized female copperheads. The inter grade female was collected in Madison County, AL in 1999. The high orange female was CB from F1 parents off the SC sand hills in 2004. Both copperheads are over 4 feet. The male cottonmouth is only about 3.5 feet, but colored very unusual. Strikes a resemblance to a cantil.

Dark timber breeding project
[img]http://secw.bravepages.com/Chuck/pics/darktimbers.JPG[/img]
If this pairing produces, they have the potential to be the darkest of timbers. Both parents are LTC F1's and very dark for their locality standards. The female, shown on the left, is the darker of the two. She is from WV and has been in captivity over 10 years. The male, on the right, is from KY and been in captivity just over 2 years.

Hypomelanistic timber rattlesnake
[img]http://secw.bravepages.com/Chuck/pics/hypotimber.JPG[/img]
This F1 female was collected from a north GA mountain. She is pictured here with another female from the same mountain range. The darker snake in the photo is a good example of the normal coloration of this locality. This female is exceptionally light by comparison. Her chevrons are not all all black, more of a light brown and her background is almost white, fading to a light brown near the rattle. We have a male “high yellow” timber from the Blue Ridge Mountains of PA. We plan to put him back on this female and try to produce a captive line of “high yellow” pastel timbers.

Hypermelanistic Canebrake Rattlesnake
[img]http://secw.bravepages.com/Chuck/pics/hypermelcane.JPG[/img]
She is one of the more unusual canes we have ever seen. She is pictured here along with a normal colored cane from her locality. She has the wide head of a cane, and the rust dorsal strip, but she has a background as dark as our KY locality timbers. She produced 9 off spring in 2007. We held back one male to line breed with her later.

Hypermelanistic “spotless” northern copperhead breeding project
[img]http://secw.bravepages.com/Chuck/pics/hypermelcopperproject.JPG[/img]
These are two very unusual copperheads. We acquired the female (the darker of the two) in 2003. We sat on her till this year waiting for an appropriate male. She is not only exceptionally dark, she also lacks the mid band spots that is indicative of northern copperheads. She is a PA locality and certainly 100% pure northern bloodline. We finally acquired this male in 2007. He is a KY locality and rather dark for his locality. Under this light, he shows a little more “red” this in life and his pattern is much more pronounced. Under normal lighting, he is almost patternless. He also lacks the northern spots.

CB 07 Hypomelanistic western cottonmouth
[img]http://secw.bravepages.com/Chuck/pics/hypocotton.JPG[/img]
This is an exceptional pink cottonmouth from the south MS locality. Pictured here with a normal cottonmouth of the locality. Our hopes are to acquire an amelanistic cottonmouth and use this specimen to breed out the first in a line of sunglow cottonmouths.


CB 07Striped yellow timber rattlesnake
[img]http://secw.bravepages.com/Chuck/pics/strippedyellowtimber.JPG[/img]
This female F2 timber was produced from F1 patents from KY. Pattern mutation are often the product of temperature fluctuations rather then genetic traits, so we will have to experiment with her to see if this is a treat we can prove in captivity.

Thank you,
Chuck Hurd
www.ChuckHurd.com