This is great to know. I was on the fence about getting a retic. Now I will do even more serious research on owning one. I would love to have one six to eight ft. For years to come. Thanks again Jay
finally, someone who dares tackleing this subject!!! Recently I've met way too many people who think snakes should grow as quick as possible. Your retic looks and acts healthy. very helpful and needed video
I know this is old, but ive noticed that snakes that grow a little slower have much better muscle tone than a snake that gets big while still young. Ive also noticed that burmese pythons in particular can develop respiratory issues if you let them grow too quickly. I think both species just need a little more time to develop properly than some people give them. Otherwise it can lead to poorer and poorer muscle tone later in life. It just snowballs. I like to think of it this way. Imagine 2 human males. The 1st being a 200lb 12 year old, and the other being a 200lb 22 year old. Who would you expect to have the better muscle tone? And who would you expect to be healthier? Almost certainly the 22 year old right? I think something similar applies to snakes.
I'm not sure i believe that a full mainland female, that is properly fed, could stay that small that long. But I've been wrong before. My theory is that it was fed every 2 weeks or so. Probably fed mice for the first 2 or 3 years of its life as well.
I have a 4 year old OG platinum motley super tiger female that's a healthy 6 foot. She is more active than any of my large retics, great feeder, tame, and her colour is like a baby as super bright. Fed weekly to two weekly substantial sized large rats. As far as I know she is a mainland. Mixed with small rabbits and Guinea pigs on occasions.
I have a 2yr old purple tiger (see avatar photo) I got from Jay. I’v fed him an appropriate sized prey item every 10-14 days. He’s about 2yrs old now and looks almost identical to this snake.
Great video J, I love the educational ones talking about growth. Maybe some videos explaining the different genes like how they appear? Example the difference between Sunfire and platinum?
Honestly, its pretty easy to keep a mainland male around 10ft. You dont need to get superdwarf or a dwarf if you want a snake thats 10-13ft. The males have no need to to grow to more than 10 or 11ft, even the full sized males. They wont get more than 10 or 11 feet unless you allow them too, through heavy feeding. My 6 year old male retic is 10ft and 20lbs. The vet even kept complimenting me on how healthy he was. Its easy to overfeed these guys because they almost never turn down food. People also tend to feed them to make them stop rubbing, which can make them far larger and fattier than necessary. Its also hard to get them to "unlearn" that behavior.
Could you maybe do an update on her? I really love retics but my country is super strict with cage size per size of the snake so a regular retic is out of question to own. I'm really interested in the dwarfs and super dwarfs but its so hard to get good videos of their adult sizes. I would love a video where you do like a size comparison. I know you guys love them big, but it would be cool to see the differences in size compared to parentage and feeding scedule. That would be so awesome. :-)
Hey, could you make a video explaining how temperature affects the coloring like you said around the 2 minute mark? (I love you, Jay, but sometimes you really circle the airport and need to land. lol)
This dude has thousands of retics, and he just found one that happened to genetically stay small. Getting a snake this small is statistically possible, just highly unlikely.
Thats what i notice too. Between my retics, burms, and my afrock, the growth rates are all over the place. Any of them has the potential reach 8ft by their 1st birthday, but they may also potentially only reach 3ft or so in the same time. Its more about genetics and food than which of the big 3 they happen to be. All of them have crazy variation in growth rates from individual to individual.
you didn't tell ,or I didnt get it how exactly does temperature effects caramels? do they need lower temperatures or higher or maybe just good gradient to achive darker colors?
Yeaaaaah, I can fix connecting rods, weld shit, throw garbage, fix PCs, and basically anything mechanical. I cannot Reptile very well yet. I am thinking about getting a white snake, either Pied or Lucistic...It's like, Desert Eagle or Snake...Hmmmmm
Hey how big will a male retic get if i feed it smaller meals and u said in a email that female can stay around 10-12 feet so how big will a male get not a super or a dwarf
Hey Jay - I just bought a baby retic and want to keep it puppy size, so I'm feeding it stuff the width of its midsection. Its working great but I noticed she shakes her head a lot and whistles in her sleep. She also started growling at the dog and will occasionally head butt some its pals. What do you do with these guys? I'm considering putting it on ebay or releasing it into woodlands, but not sure if that's a permit deal.
just wondering if you would know i think you would but umm i bought a tiger retic the other day about 9 months old and i believe the guy i bought it from lied to me with loads of bullshit and basically i think its a super dwarf or dwarf or something and i was just wondering is it possible for a 9 month old retic not super dwarf to be only 27 inches and 150 odd g's??
I highly doubt anyone would lie about a super dwarf being a mainland, especially 7 years ago, when superdwarfs were still worth a fortune. People pretend mainlands are superdwarfs, all the damn time, but ive never even heard of people saying a superdwarf was a mainland. Just my 2 cents.
+SJSuperiorPythons My first 3 all just turned 2 and are all right around 5.5-6ft. I feed a large rat every 7 days or 3 rat pups every 5 days. My 4th is right at 6 ft and is only 10 months old but gets guinea pigs every 5-7 days. A friend is using him for breeding so that snake's feeding is larger and more frequent. He wants to use 2 of my others as well so they are going to large rats every 5-7 days and will likely graduate to guinea pigs in short time.
+SJSuperiorPythons I fed an item the same size as the thickest part of their body every 7 days. There was a bump yes. As I grew a bit braver, I fed a little bit larger items so the bump was larger.
+SJSuperiorPythons Some really like to push the food when they are young as they do a lot of growing in their first year or two of life and then slow down. I don't want giants though, just fairly large and of course healthy.
Yeah you are right. My bad. I thought there was a uvb light shining down from the middle but I don't think there is after looking closer. And I didn't even notice the other iguana sitting there. Thought it was a log. lol. Yeah could definitely use some improvements
I find it so odd that companys can be so good at keeping one animal, yet bad at another. LLLreptile says savannah monitors can live in a 6x2 cage, dont need dirt to dig in, or whole food :O.
