This is my newest addition, Ares. I took him up from the expo a week ago. Now, here in Italy bullsnakes are very difficult to come by, and usually are pretty expensive- and not as beautiful as he is (unless derived from German lines). But I’m digressing.
He is sweet and definitely accustomed to people, he should be 4 years old. The seller told me that he reproduced him twice, and had her daughter and niece next to him at the expo. Now, the crux of the matter is: he is tiny. And also were his daughter and niece, but that might have been explained by their relative younger age
Again, I’m no expert of the various localities of bulls, and the breeder just referred to him as a “Texas red”. I know that there are at least three localities of red bulls in texas- and despite being colorful, they all seem to get much, much bigger than he is.
He’s a little bigger than my adult corn, definitely not the huge bulls that I see on social media and forums (my only point of reference). Also, I thought that 4 years old for a colubrids would mean almost complete size, as they shouldn’t be slow growers at all.
Could he be a juvie? Or some sort of hybrid with a Sonoran?
Oh my he is absolutely gorgeous! @eorr53 Eric should be able answer your questions. However without lineage there may be some questions he won’t be able to answer.
I only own 1 bull, a female with a pretty significant wobble, so she is the only bull I have any experience with. I will say that the size of the animal depends upon how much it’s fed. So yours might be 4 years old, just not power fed to be huge. If it were me I would be thankful that it is a manageable size, tbh.
Indeed the manageable size was one of the factors that just made me almost impulse buy him (I’ve been researching bulls a lot- it’s one of my dream colubrids species- and definitely not having a dragon and their dragon poop would be a dream, as I already have to clean the horrors of my Taiwan beauties hahaha)
He is around 120 cm long. That’s very small even for a small adult I think.
Hello! Beautiful red bull! He is on the small size but I wouldn’t call him tiny either. He can certainly breed at that age and size. As others have said, he probably just hasn’t been fed as much. Genetics plays a role as well. Not all of them get huge and to be perfectly honest I think truly large bulls (7’+) are somewhat rare in captive populations. Most of my 3-yr old adult males are around 5.5’ but I have one that is only 5’.
I don’t power feed. When they are under 2-yrs old it is really hard to over feed them but I generally do an appropriately sized meal every 7ish days. Once they begin taking medium rats I will space it out more to every 10-14 days. The exception being my breeding females during breeding season. I will feed them a medium rat every 7ish days for the extra resources for egg production.
As far as a specific locality is concerned, unless the animal came with traceable lineage back to wild caught stock it is not locality. A lot of people these days call any red bull a “kingsville” for marketing purposes. If it’s not traced back to wild caught stock, or it’s been outcrossed to introduce a morph, it is not locality.
Hope this helps. Happy to answer any other questions you have.
Bullsnakes are 3 - 5.5 ft. generally. Some have been listed as up to 8ft… But I don’t know what the % that hit that size in the hobby is.
It could be a matter of what they’re being fed as they start, Trying to powerfeed a snake to get them to size can sometimes lead to larger sizes. But there’s a higher risk of obesity as well which can lead to poor breeding
As far as locality, I imagined it was more of a guess than anything. Bulls are rare here and have almost zero marketplace, except for some morphs, so definitely having a super certified animal was a losing battle from the start. Not that I care in this case honestly. He’s beautiful and I already enjoy him a lot!
What would you suggest as a feeding schedule for him? Also, the breeder told me that he should go into winter stop, even if not factually brumating. I’m used to this since my four lined European ratsnakes did it naturally, so it’s not a big deal. I was thinking to feed him 40/50 grams rats once a week or every 10 days
At his size I would offer a larger sized small rat or smaller sized medium every ten days or so. Sorry, I’ll have to check the weights on my bags in the freezer to give you the actual grams on those. I usually just eye ball it based on the size the feeder compared to the size of the snake. Very scientific!
hahahaha I get it, I’m a total improvisation master too (and I’m a scientist)
I usually do the width trick- prey as wide as the widest part of the body. But I admit that following a more “data driven” approach has been useful for bringing up my baby, so why not use it in this occasion where’s still some (hope just some and not too much) growth to experience
