big bloody retics

I got permission to post these pics of the owner after i saw them on another forum.No how many times i see pics(never seen a snake this size in the flesh) of large retics they never fail to impress.

snakes and photos owned by Steve Dawson.

this first pic is of a snake he calls Rosie,she is 21ft 8inchs
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WOW! and i thought my snake was big!!

shelbyb wrote:WOW! and i thought my snake was big!!

I describe my 8ft female common as the "BIG GIRL"!!! LOL

now that IS a snake !!

id love to own a snake that size but its risky, and scary just imaging that thing tagin you!!
the size scares the crap clean out of me but yet it impresses me!!

Incredible size !!
Love looking at them when someone else is holding them lol

Cracker pics Phil, they are impressive snakes - especially when someone else is keeping them!

Great shots of superb animals...

I've seen these pics before and they never fail to impress...neither do steve's arms, haha! He looks quite short there, but I think I recall him saying he's over 6 ft, so these snakes really are big. We've a 12 ft retic here at mo and she's a nasty piece of work. I can never stress enough how fast and dangerous these animals can be...def not to be taken lightly!

lisafay wrote:def not to be taken lightly!

I personally find retics to be one of the most beautifull python,but as you say Lisa"not to be taken lightly",you would need to put a lot of thought into taking somthing on that can grow to such proportions.I have held a 13ft retic and the strength,as with any large boids,is staggering.

Ditto Phil, they are stunning pythons......roll on an increase in the number of Super Dwarfs IMO :)

morelia wrote:Ditto Phil, they are stunning pythons......roll on an increase in the number of Super Dwarfs IMO :)

even super dwarf get to around 12ft,although they are ment to be much more slender so give the impression of being much smaller.From what i have seen the seem to be reasonable well natured aswell.I think i could be persuaded to own a couple.

Phil wrote:

morelia wrote:Ditto Phil, they are stunning pythons......roll on an increase in the number of Super Dwarfs IMO :)

even super dwarf get to around 12ft,although they are ment to be much more slender so give the impression of being much smaller.From what i have seen the seem to be reasonable well natured aswell.I think i could be persuaded to own a couple.

I could cope with a slender 12ft well-tempered snake...anyone wanna buy me a pair? LOL

Regular dwarfs can reach 12 ft easy - we have a 12/13ft jampea bad tempered monster in the house at the mo.
Superdwarfs reach nothing like these lengths. Bob Clark's adult males are all around the 4ft mark, females rarely moving past 6 ft - and at that they are truly slender.
We have an almost two yr old BC superdwarf ourselves, and a guy we recently bought a retic off produced the first UK superdwarf purple albino from his 05 hets, originating from prehistoric Pets. The male is a little under 4 ft, and the female is just over 5, both slender as corn snakes. This is the way forward with retics in my opinion.

Superdwarfs also have a typical retic temperment, as inclined to variation as it is with such intelligent snakes...they are every bit as intelligent and alert and have typical retic feeding response - but hey, they're not going to kill you!

lisafay wrote:Regular dwarfs can reach 12 ft easy - we have a 12/13ft jampea bad tempered monster in the house at the mo.
Superdwarfs reach nothing like these lengths. Bob Clark's adult males are all around the 4ft mark, females rarely moving past 6 ft - and at that they are truly slender.
We have an almost two yr old BC superdwarf ourselves, and a guy we recently bought a retic off produced the first UK superdwarf purple albino from his 05 hets, originating from prehistoric Pets. The male is a little under 4 ft, and the female is just over 5, both slender as corn snakes. This is the way forward with retics in my opinion.

Superdwarfs also have a typical retic temperment, as inclined to variation as it is with such intelligent snakes...they are every bit as intelligent and alert and have typical retic feeding response - but hey, they're not going to kill you!

My friend has a pair of 3 year old super dwarfs from Bob,the male is 6ft and the female just under 5,unless we have the sexes mixed up!! maybe a probing season comming up.I have heard that they get alot bigger than people are saying and have been told 12ft super dwarf is not unheard of,but that only what ive heard.Both my friend super dwarfs are pretty chilled out.

Are these Trunx's pair?
Retic temperments will always vary. We have some pretty chilled out retics and some pretty nasty ones. What I have found is that many turn nasty as they reach sexual maturity.
The confusion around superdwarf size results from inconsistent labelling of various retics as 'superdwarf'. I have seen Kalatoas and Kalatoa x mainland crosses labelled as superdwarfs. a well known European breeder has recently hatched out a clutch resulting from a mainland ivory x madu cross and labelled them superdwarf. In my opinion these would be more accurately described as 50/50 mainland x dwarf. People need to be very wary of the label, and question where their 'superdwarfs' are coming from, what the parents are and what size they are.
12 ft superdwarf is completely unheard of in the Bob Clark/Mike Wilbanks line. This kind of talk angers me to be honest, as it results as I said from misinformation and mislabelling (not applying this to you, I know you're only going on what you heard ) This is the kind of talk that comes from people who label the term 'superdwarf' an American marketing scam.
I have spent months researching various 'superdwarf' lines for an article, and what I've come up with is quite interesting - I'm not finished so not going to say much here.
What I will say, however, is that I can personally attest to the small adult size of Clark/Milbanks line SD's. We have mainland, dwarf and superdwarf sized retics of similiar ages in the house and have been monitoring their growth rates. The difference bet all three is gobsmacking. i can't vouch for the true origin of the superdwarf as the info available is sketchy at best, and I can't vouch for lines other than Prehistoric Pets and Clark/Wilbanks. I don't think they are from the same origin, but that's another story.
6 and 5 ft retics at three yrs of age should not get much bigger. We have a 6 mth old mainland sized retic that is past the 6 ft mark and at least twice the girth size of our almost two yr old superdwarf.
The difference in hatchweights is indisputable.
Something to bear in mind is that morph introduction will affect sizes, at least in the short-term - perhaps in the long term as well, only time will tell. How an animal is fed will also affect size, which obviously you know, and the amount of dwarf retics I've seen power fed to prove a somewhat lost point is a little depressing.
If the Clark superdwarf is, as Bob claims, a true locality retic, then I worry that over time their tiny size will become a thing of the past as they are fed and bred without regard for maintaining their size. Selective breeding of smaller animals and appropriate feeding regimes are crucial, in my opinion, esp when it comes to outbreeding for morphs. Bob assures me that all of his superdwarfs have been bred to small dwarfs to introduce new morphs, but I would take that with a pinch of salt...he has a habit of saying what you want to hear.
The only way we can be truly sure of what we're breeding is to do it ourselves, and that is what we intend to do

Not Trunx,the pair i am talking about i imported striaght from Bob himself.
And WOW,lots of info,thankyou for putting things striaght lisa.

woops, sorry phil, I get verbal diarrhoea when it comes to retics

You know what, our original preoccupation was with dwarfs and superdwarfs and lately we just seem to be collecting more and more mainland sized tics!!

'superdwarf' can definitely be a term of contention, and I would never buy one from a source I couldn't be assured of

lisafay wrote:woops, sorry phil, I get verbal diarrhoea when it comes to retics

You know what, our original preoccupation was with dwarfs and superdwarfs and lately we just seem to be collecting more and more mainland sized tics!!

'superdwarf' can definitely be a term of contention, and I would never buy one from a source I couldn't be assured of

lol,no need to appologise Lisa,thats good infofmation.

my two are touching seven foot. bob clarke line, not sure onage, we estimate 4 -5. hey have a typical retic tempemaent but not feeding response at all, they only feed overnight in the dark-weirdos..

if bob clarks line is a true locality retic and is known as 'super dwarf' (no definte locality is known) and the kayuda retic is a 'super' dwarf retic that is known as the kayuda retic, then it is misleading to call the morph 'suuper dwarfs', no? at best they can be a certain % super dwarf no matter how many generations down the line they are.............

Excellent thread...

trunx wrote:my two are touching seven foot. bob clarke line, not sure onage, we estimate 4 -5. hey have a typical retic tempemaent but not feeding response at all, they only feed overnight in the dark-weirdos..

if bob clarks line is a true locality retic and is known as 'super dwarf' (no definte locality is known) and the kayuda retic is a 'super' dwarf retic that is known as the kayuda retic, then it is misleading to call the morph 'suuper dwarfs', no? at best they can be a certain % super dwarf no matter how many generations down the line they are.............

You should post some pics of yours trunx I do think footage is somtimes a poor representation of size, as it is really girth size that makes the difference. However, 7 ft would exceed the size of the parents of my male, and the mature parents of two females i'm collecting soon by quite a lot.
I don't agree with calling Kayaudis superdwarfs at all. They are separate from the clark line, if we are to go on what we are told.
Calling any morph a dwarf or superdwarf can always be misleading. I'm in a hurry, but I believe Bob always refers to his dwarf morphs as 25% mainland. Breeders, however, are not statisticians. Statistics at best are descriptive terms of large scale phenomenon and do not describe individual situations/animals very well, neither are they always good predictors.
When buying a dwarf/superdwarf morph, you should always take into consideration how many generations have been bred since mainland influence. Bob says he will not sell something as a dwarf/superdwarf unless there have been three generations since the original crossing. I'm not sure about that in general - in fact, I'd bet it's not always the case, esp where co-dom or dom morphs are introduced. But I do my background homework and ask for pics and history in detail before I commit to buying any dwarf morphs.
There will always be a certain % of mainland in the mix where albino morphs etc are concerned, but sizes thus far are looking good. Albino superdwarfs are very, very new and only time will tell where sizes will end up - if hatch weights and first yr growth rates are anything to go by, I think they're a good buy if you want a tiny retic. Depending who you buy from of course....

thanx for the pleasant replies about my big retics cheers guys

Cracker thread - thanks for the info Lisa, thats great reading!

The same spam seems to permeat the Retic world as it does the world of carpet pythons - there is some absolute crap floating around out there, so much myth and so many lies. It takes personal research and attention to detail to tease out the rubbish from the gold-dust where correct information is concerned so its great to hear some of your findings Lisa.

Do keep us posted on your Retic article whenever its ready!

steve dawson wrote:thanx for the pleasant replies about my big retics cheers guys

Your welcome Steve,thanx for letting me use your pics,awsome looking retics you have.I think the tigers are my favourite.Although some of the albinos ive seen(only in pictures) are hard to beat.Do you breed many retics/retic morphs? Do you work with dwarf or super dwarf lines?