I just realized I have never shared our two Okeetee Corns here so here they are.
Funny story on why we have two. We originally had planned to only have one corn snake for my son after he did research and saved money for several months to help pay for half the snake. We finally reached that point and he picked out a nice red factor extreme okeetee from Don at SMR. Shortly after the snake arrived we realized it was not the snake we had ordered. I contacted Don and he confirmed he had accidentally shipped the wrong snake. He apologized and told us he would be sending the correct snake. He also told us to just keep the other snake FOC. Yay free snake!
So now we have The Kernel and BOGO. They’re both just about a year old and I haven’t tried to get an actual measurement on them but I’d guess they’re both around 22”. They’re also due for a weigh-in so that’ll happen so.
I’m not sure if BOGO is really red factor based on my understanding of the visual expression created by the gene. He does have a pink/red wash coming in on his belly and he has some pink/red mixed in with the orange base color on his dorsal, but his head does not have the increased red that you typically see. He is more red and bright overall compared to The Kernel. Perhaps he’s just low expression red factor?
It’s funny how different they are behavior wise. BOGO is a lot more confident and prefers to hang out down low and burrows a lot. He’s also a very aggressive feeder. The Kernel is much more shy, loves to climb and prefers his elevated cork round hide. He also waits till lights out to come out and eat.
Anyway, nothing fancy but I think they’re handsome little fellas.
Yes, Don was great to work with. I recommend him when ever I come across someone looking for a corn breeder recommendation. He was actually recommended to me by David (spottedbull) on another forum. I almost pulled the trigger on two other corns from him when he had his Black Friday sale recently but I was already eyeing the new Boa so I held off.
They’re beautiful! It’s very hard to get prettier than a nice Oketee. It’s great that you got a BOGO, too.
If you’re wondering, reach out to Don with that question. Red Factor does brighten the reds, as you describe. As I understand it, you won’t necessarily see a red wash over your Oketee’s other colors. I’m sure Don will clarify it for you based on parentage.
I don’t doubt Don, he’s got way more experience than I do. I have info on the parents as well that Don gave us when we purchased them.
BOGOs reds are definitely brighter than our other guy. I think I was just expecting more red all over but based on what you said how it expresses in Okeetee lines, I think that’s way he appears more vibrant than the other guy.
At the end of the day I don’t have any plans for these guys so it doesn’t really matter all that much.
My son is off school this week so we deep cleaned their cages. He made it about halfway through the process before bugging out to play with his friends. I want him to learn how to do this but it was a good start. I work faster with out him so kind of a win I guess.
