The 'Classic' corn that everyone dreams about! The Okeetee line is famous for it's big red blotches on an orange background with broad black borders around the blotches. Through selective breeding and controlled outcrossing, I have produced a strain that is breathtaking in coloration. Big bold red blotches on a brilliant orange background. The dorsal blotches often have bold black borders around them to give an outstanding looking animal. Babies will only be the barest hint of what it will turn out looking like as an adult. The coloration typically reaches it's peak when the animal gets about three feet long.
When someone asks you to show them a pretty normal-colored corn snake, this will be the one you pull out.
There is often a controversy raging on one message board or another about the 'Okeetee' Corn Snakes. Generally the topic is about what a *true* Okeetee corn really is. Some will claim that it is the overall appearance of the animal and others will say it is based on the locality that the exact animal or it's ancestors came from that tell the tale. Obviously, very un-Okeetee looking animals can come from dead center in the Okeetee Hunt Club and extremely nice looking, very 'Okeetee' looking animals can come from localities far removed from the hunt club. I have been involved in more than my share of these discussions, which sometimes got quite heated. I tend to favor a blend of the descriptions, only calling animals that look like a classic, mind's eye view of what an Okeetee corn snake has habitually been described as, and has some of it's ancestry from animals that have been claimed to have come from the Okeetee area. Of course, there is the problem of verification when someone says that the animals he/she is offering came from Okeetee.
I tend to resist the hard core locality definition. My argument against the locality definition always has ended asking the people to sharply define the limits of the locality where they would claim that corn snakes coming from that locality, and nowhere else, should be called 'Okeetee Corn Snakes'. No matter where this physical limit is, suppose it is the road bordering the Okeetee Hunt Club and you catch an animal in the center of the road. What kind of corn is it? If it is heading towards the hunt club, is it just a normal corn until it reaches the hunt club side of the road? And if it is heading away from the club, was it an Okeetee corn before it crossed the road and is now just a normal corn? If I am the one attempting to catch this snake, should I chase it back over to the Okeetee side of the road before I pick it up? Then what about a corn snake that is not from the Okeetee area that is released onto the hunt club grounds? What is that now? So far, no one has presented a reasonable argument that is convincing that the boundaries they picked are not just blatantly arbitrary and completely indefensible.
People buying an Okeetee corn snake probably have a certain look of the animal in mind and that is what they are hoping to receive. That is what I try to provide, within the limits that are naturally inherent in the variability of offspring and the sometimes difficult task of predicting exactly what a juvenile is going to turn out looking like as it matures.
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