Brian from California

Hey all.

My name's Brian, been interested in reptiles all my life, venomous animals especially.
In my state we can only keep native venomous, which is what I plan to do when I gain more experience.
Glad to be here.

Welcome, Brian.
I've lived in CA my whole life... until last summer.
California crotes are definitely something worth getting into once you have experience with hots. I have personally kept or worked with all species/subs in the past.

I'd like to get a Crotalus Cerastes first.
My only problem is gaining more experience.
There's only so much you can learn from books, and I'm not so sure what to do about gaining hands on experience.

Aside from crotes, I'd like to get some Beaded's and Gila's.

Gilas will not be an easy task for you, as there is A LOT of paperwork, permits, etc. and it gets VERY timely and expensive, but beadeds are easy to get.

As far as keeping crotes, C. cerastes are one of the better to start out with, in my opinion, however, they are tough to get feeding sometimes. As babies they feed almost exclusively on lizards and Coleonyx sp. of geckos. Babies are a challenge to get switched to rodents, and you usually have to scent them, heavily at first, with lizards anyways, so I can only recommend cerastes if you are able to go out and consistently catch lizards for it. They do have a lower toxicity when it comes to venom than rest of the CA crotes, however.
Second choice, I would recommend C. oreganus (oreganus). Northern pacifics will eat lizards or rodents from the get go, and have less potent venom (most populations at least) than C. helleri, C. ruber, C. atrox, etc.

Heard about Cerastes being hard to switch to rodents, but I'd deffinately like to keep one someday.
I've been admiring Oreganus for quite some time.
They seem to be quite popular in European collections.

As far as Beaded's go, I know of a breeder located in California who has some amazing animals.

There are a couple good, respected breeders in CA.
I've found more Oreganus than any other crote, since I'm from the bay area. One of the main reasons I'm so attracted to them is because of the high variability that can be found even within the same populations.

It is pretty amazing to see the different coloration of Oreganus.
From solid olive green, to yellow, and so on.
Great looking snakes. Very Happy

Yup. Feel free to PM me or Email me if you have any other questions about the natives or keeping them.

Will do.
Thanks for the kind welcome!

Welcome Brian! What part of California are you in?

I'm in Torrance.
I'm Ectotherm1 on Venom Center, btw.

Cool. I will let you know when I am doing those herping trips down southeast California to see if you want to partake. Hopefully we can find cerastes, rubers, and some specks!

Sounds good to me.
Even if I can't make it, Let me know what you find!
Very Happy

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