Okeetee corn snake morphs find significant use in the creation of other designer morphs. These designer morphs arise from breeding the Okeetee morph with another base morph. The Okeetee morph generally belongs to the Pantherophis guttatus species.
Okeetee corn snake morphs stand out for their dorsal saddle markings (which are significantly deep) bordered by black bands with the combination sitting on a base color of sharp orange. Compared to the traditional saddle marks of the corn snake, okeetees are significantly redder. Okeetees have diverse patterns. When you progress upwards to the head of the Okeetee, you notice that the bands’ thickness increases, even enough to cover the red markings fully.
The Okeetee is one lovely morph you should spend your time knowing. There are several exciting Okeetee morphs, each with its differing appearance. You would probably like to learn more about how Okeetees shed, how their hatchlings look, how big they get, and their cost. Let us learn all this in this guide.
Okeetee Corn Snake Colors
Okeetee corn snakes are famed for their red dorsal saddle markings, which are far deeper than you would get from your regular corn snake. These dorsal marks, which are surrounded by dark bands, sit on a vibrant background color of orange. The thickness of these bands increases as you move up their heads – sufficiently to conceal the red markings.
How Much is an Okeetee Corn Snake?
Typically, you would get Okeetee corn snakes for almost twice the cost of your regular corn snake. The cost of the Okeetee corn snake depends majorly on the breeder you are getting from and the genetic makeup of the particular Okeetee morph you are getting.
A regular Okeetee corn snake can be found as cheap as $50. If you are looking for Okeetees with rarer genetic makeup like the scaleless Abbotts, you should be budgeting for around $650.
What Do Baby Okeetee Corn Snakes Look Like?
The typical adult Okeetee has bright red blotches spread around its body bounded by jet black bands. A fraction of these blotches is distributed around the tail, although they tend to be solid black. All these sit on a sharp red background with the underbelly having patterns of dark checkers.
The hatchlings don’t have significant color differences from the adult Okeetee corn snake. Their major typifying feature is their seeming more robust build than the adult Okeetee.
Okeetee Corn Snake Morphs
There are several Okeetee corn snake morphs that you would be excited about. Would you mind us examining them?
Buckskin Okeetee Snake
The Buckskin Okeetee comes with brick red saddles sitting on a tan base color. Buckskin Okeetees don’t look much different from the normal Okeetee snake, just that the former doesn’t have the characteristic orange color of the normal Okeetee.
This red Buckskin Okeetees are not definite as there are the black Buckskin Okeetees. For the latter category, their saddles are darker compared to the regular Okeetee. Unlike what you get from Okeetees, the Buckskin could have some spots adorning their backs.
Extreme Okeetee Snake
The black bands of the Extreme Okeetee are wider than the normal Okeetee. This may be the only major feature differentiating them from the regular Okeetee. Due to the successive breeding we have seen across generations from breeders, the black bands of the Extreme are almost covering the underlying color. Therefore, you would see an Extreme Okeetee thoroughly dressed in black.
Reverse Okeetee Corn Snake
The Reverse Okeetee is a lovely Albino and one of the most intriguing Okeetee corn snake morphs we have seen. The Reverse Okeetee stands out from the traditional Albino corn snake for its Okeeteee pattern. The difference is embellished in the widening bands of the Reverse Okeetee.
For reverse Okeetee corn snakes, their scale color tends to combine white, yellow, orange, and red. When they grow older, the border color varies from light green to white.
Indeed, Reverse Okeetees are selectively bred amelanistic corn snakes. While you may readily mistake these snakes as originating from the Okeetee area, they are bred selectively to enhance their larger pattern bands.
The Reverse Okeetee is mainly active at night and prefers to spend the majority of the day hiding away in burrows or the undercover of loosening tree bark.
Okeetee Tessera Corn Snake
The pattern of this morph differs from what you get in your regular snake. Okeetee Tessera has stripes that run along their backs. These stripes are colored in light tan with black bounding it. The patterns along the Okeetee Tessera’s side appear pixelated as they appear intermittently broken.
This corn snake morph’s distinct red color is interrupted at intervals by a yellowish-tan pattern. The Okeetee Tessera is extremely rare, as not many have been bred. Therefore, you can expect to spend a premium on this morph.
Okeetee Corn Snake Shedding
Just like any other corn snake morph, the Okeetee will shed. Your Okeetee corn snake may shed once in weeks, especially when it is younger. The interval between its shedding extends as the Okeetee corn snake matures.
For an adult Okeetee corn snake, it would shed once in 2-3 months. You can know the shedding period for your Okeetee is approaching from the blue phase. The blue phase is when you notice that the colors of your Okeetee begin to lose their vibrancy, going noticeably dull.
With the shedding approaching much closer, the eyes of your Okeetee gets cloudy like they are going blue. This is what we refer to as the deep blue phase. After this period, it takes about 4 days for the eyes and the color to come back to normal, and your Okeetee starts shedding.
When your Okeetee corn snake starts shedding, you will notice it rubbing its nose against items in its terrarium or rubbing energetically on glass. Conventionally, the Okeetee’s shed should be worn off in a piece. This is not always the case as low humidity levels could negate the shed coming off in one piece.
You can aid this shedding process by providing a water dish for your Okeetee to soak on its own prior to shedding. This is referred to as a moist hide, which aids the shedding process.
You can also locate a damp moss under the hides. This is simple. You wouldn’t need to do more than cutting an entrance hole into any lidded container. After this, you load damp moss into this cut container.
This moss is readily available at home improvement shops, greenhouses, plant-selling merchandise stores, and craft stores. This moss is commonly labeled spaghnum moss. If you notice that your Okeetee doesn’t have a complete shed, you could put in this lidded container perforated and filled with this spaghnum moss.
You can also use wet paper towels instead of moss. You can simply let your Okeetee corn snake slither through a wet towel if you don’t want to go with lidded containers. This is essentially to soften the older skin so it can be shed off more easily.
Okeetee Corn Snake Facts
Nesting is one interesting fact to note about Okeeetee corn snakes.
The Okeetee corn snake would mate all its life. Typically, you could get your Oketee corn snake laying 2-3 eggs in 12 months. These snakes tend to expand their nest yearly. These nests could be extensively expanded over time, running into nests whose diameters run into 10 feet.
Okeetees rarely change mates neither are they are rarely moving from one nest to another. It is typical to find a mature Okeetee nesting within 100 miles of where it was hatched.
Feeding is also another exciting thing about Okeetees. Just as is typical of corn snakes, the Okeetee cherishes a meal of mice or smaller rats. The Okeetee would defecate about 48-96 hours after the latest meal. Indeed, the Okeetee is not a fervent eater.
They tend to go for another meal only after they have defecated from the previous meal. This doesn’t mean that your Okeetee would rush into its next meal immediately after defecating. If the Okeetee was in the wild, it would take about 7 days after defecating to look for its next meal. In this process, they would exercise.
In captivity, your Okeetee would be okay eating one rodent every 7-14 days. It is always advisable to leave an Okeetee to rest for about 72 hours after its meal. Don’t bother or handle it within this interval, if possible.
How Big Do Okeetee Corn Snakes Get?
The Okeetee corn snake grows a length anywhere from 2-5 feet. The males tend to be longer, while the females are shorter. This is in contrast to what you get from other corn snakes. The Okeetee could weigh anywhere from 500g-750g.
How to Breed Okeetee Corn Snake?
To successfully breed Okeetees, we have to learn about its genetic makeup. Genes act in three ways. These are the recessive, dominant, or co-dominant genes. Just as the name suggests, the dominant genes are majorly expressed while the recessive genes are inhibited.
Interestingly, the Okeetee corn snake boasts two sets of one dominant gene. To increase your chances of landing an offspring that is purely an Okeetee, it is preferable to breed both Okeetees. There isn’t much to distinguish the breeding of an Okeetee from the traditional breeding process of a corn snake.
As always, ensure you are informed as possible about the sex and the genetic makeup of the Okeetees you are breeding. Typically, the Okeetee is achieved from several stages of selective breeding of the amelanistic corn snakes to enable their black borders to stand out wider.
Breeders love these wider bands of black as they give an enhanced beautifying effect to the snake’s typical red or yellow scale colors. Originally, the Okeetee corn snake was bred in South Carolina.
When your Okeetee gets to about 18 months old, it is mature enough to be bred. We don’t recommend you breeding an Okeetee that is more than 2 years old.
When you bring two Okeetees together to mate, they will stay interlocked for about 10-20 minutes. Ensure that the temperature is appropriate as well. Anywhere around 50 degrees Fahrenheit is good to go!
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