Red individuals occur naturally through much of the range of bullsnakes, but they aren't extremely common anywhere.  There are a couple of lines of red bullsnakes available to hobbyists, but they are all still fairly uncommon in most peoples' collections.  Part of this is due to the fact that red bullsnakes look pretty normal as hatchlings, and the red coloration only comes out with age.  Bullsnakes that are more red tend to produce redder offspring - and a higher percentage of their young ARE red - but not all of the bullsnakes produced by a pair will turn out red!  There is no foolproof way to determine at hatching time which ones will be red and which ones will not be red.  There are some clues to help you pick out the reddest one, but this process will always be a little bit of a gamble.  There is no way to assure someone that the red bullsnake they get will be as red as the parents that produced it.

However, THAT is where selective breeding comes in.  In our red bullsnake colony, we breed for coloration - and coloration has our main emphasis in each generation when we select our future breeders.  We started with the Crumbly line of red bullsnakes and selectively bred them (including outcrossing them into other red bullsnakes) to produce brighter red individuals, and we raise up MANY more than we need almost every year.  It is typical for us to raise up 5 or 6 red bullsnakes for 6-18 months before selecting the ONE from that group that we will keep as our future breeder.  Why are we being so drastic?  This is how we plan to make our line produce as close to 100% red individuals - and really red ones at that - in the upcoming generations.  Because of this, we plan to stay on the cutting edge level of red bullsnake production in the US and make them available to others that want to work with them as much as we do.  It is important to realize that the Crumbly line of red bullsnakes are not locality animals, but they are almost definitely descended from south Texas stock based on adult morphology.   We do still produce some straight "Crumbly line" red bullsnakes each year.

As a surprising side-line in our red bullsnake project, we started getting a few individuals that we refer to as "Tiger Stripe" bullsnakes.  These guys are the next step in the evolution of the red bullsnake morph!  Not only do they come from our extremely red "red bullsnake" line, but the body blotches have been compressed and increased in number to a point well beyond anything seen in bullsnakes so far!  Many of our hold-backs have in excess of 100 body blotches (which excludes any blotches on the tail, of course).  This high blotch count seems to function in a similar manner to stripes on a garter snake or a zebra: when the animal moves the complex pattern breaks it up so that a predator can't really see the animal.  Boy, does it work, too!  These "tiger stripes" almost get you dizzy to watch when the snakes are trying to quickly crawl away from you!  In our colony, anything with about 85 body blotches or more is called a Tiger Stripe (red) bullsnake.  We are extremely excited and hopeful about what this project will produce in the future.  It is important to note that some Kingsville red bulls have connected lateral blotches across the dorsal surface.  These connected lateral blotches are different from the Tiger pattern because most do not connect down the length of the body and, where they do occasionally connect, they give the bullsnake a thick/thin/thick/thin banding pattern that is not as visually pleasing or consistent as with the real Tiger pattern.  Our Tiger bulls do have differing saddle widths from head to tail, but the change is more gradual: each adjacent saddle is approximately the same size! 

We were lucky enough to acquire an entire clutch of Kingsville red bullsnakes directly from John Ginter.  From this entire clutch, we kept the best pair to begin the process of drastic culling in hopes of doing to the Kingsville reds what we have already done to the Crumbly reds - improve them much further.  We are starting this project the right way - we selected only the best from an entire clutch - not as hatchlings but as yearlings to subadults only after coloration had time to develop!  We do also produce straight "Kingsville line" red bullsnakes each year.  Of course, we have as our continued long-term goal the further combination of all of the best red bullsnakes specimens that we can acquire (whether they are additional CB, WC, "Kingsville line," or "Crumbly line" red bullsnakes) to improve the coloration and consistency of our line of red bullsnakes.  

The new motley gene has been shown to be a codominant or dominant mutation, but it is not yet known if there is a "super" form or not.  This pure Great Basin gophersnake mutation produces a hypomelanistic looking Great Basin gophersnake with a very clean background and round blotches that are greatly reduced in size.  Speckled, or patternless, great basins display a trait very similar to the speckled gene in bullsnakes; however, it is completely unrelated the the bullsnake mutation.  As in bullsnakes, this mutation removes all blotches and puts a small speck of black on the center of each light brown colored scale all over the body of the snake. 

Currently, we are working on proving out the genetics of a potential new morph of Pacific gophersnakes.  This wild-collected female appears anerythristic-ish, but we have no idea if it is allelic or not with the more typical anerythristic mutation currently available.  Regardless of if it is the same line of anerythrism or not, this female has a very distinctive patterns that we have never before seen in this subspecies.  This female appears as if she is an intermediate between a striped and a blotched Pacific gophersnake: she is striped anteriorly and blotched posteriorly.  Only future breeding trials will tell if this trait is inheritable or not.