KJUN Snakehaven - Breeders of high quality Captive Snakes

This page was written just to give you a brief idea about who (or what) we are. KJ Lodrigue, Jr., is currently working at Texas A&M University, College Station, in the herpetology department with his research interests concentrating around the population dynamics of American alligators along the Texas Gulf coast. He started this immediately after leaving a position with Texas Parks & Wildlife Department as a "wetland wildlife biologist on the Upper Coast Wetland Ecosystems Project." That's a long dang title to just say that he worked as a state biologist in Orange, Jefferson, and Chambers Counties, mostly on the Tony Houseman SP/WMA & J. D. Murphree WMA (and the other 3 WMA areas on the upper coast of Texas). A large portion of his job duties involved coordinating programs and research as part of the Texas Alligator Program. He has a B.S. in Wildlife & Fisheries Conservation and a M.S. in Wildlife Management, and he conducted some postgraduate research on Reproductive and Digestive Endocrine Physiology of snakes at Louisiana State University, Baton Rouge. He is also an instructor of Wildlife Management & Conservation at Blinn College in College Station, TX.

Kasi E. Russell-Lodrigue, DVM, is a research-oriented veterinarian (also an LSU graduate) who completed a residency in laboratory animal medicine and a PhD in microbiology in the department of veterinary pathobiology at Texas A&M University, College Station. She continues to work in the lab animal and microbiology fields, with a primary focus on zoonotic diseases of biodefense significance, at TAMU Health Sciences Center, in College Station, TX.

We've been breeding and selling snakes since the early mid-1990's (which helped pay for both of our college degrees), and we've gone through two strenuous culling events in that time. Both of those events were due to long-distance relocations (job and research oriented), but they allowed us to greatly improve our colony through time. In the late 1990's, we were the largest producers of captive snakes based out of the state of Louisiana. In early 2000, we moved to Texas and were forced to sell off 85% of our colony. (You can't move that many snakes in 100+F weather without killing many of them, so we didn't even try!) Before the move, we already had an outstanding colony. The 15% we were left with were the cream of the crop of an already top of the line colony. Due to the new jobs, we only slightly increased our colony between 2001 and 2004, but we were highly selective on what we purchased and held back for ourselves. Our colony continued to improve in quality during that time. In 2004, another move related to research resulted in a ~50% reduction in or colony. This culling event left us with the top half of a colony that was already amazing in quality. Since that time, we've been forced to have super high selection qualities on what we acquired and held back in our own colony. All of these culling events have forced us to continually improve the quality of our breeder animals, and we refuse to add something to our colony that is not better than what we already own! This policy will keep us in the forefront of quality snake breeding in the decades to come!

As far as this webpage and our business name goes, "KJUN" is a tribute to both our Cajun heritage and KJ's swollen ego. As you can tell from the name (and for those that know KJ), we've got a LOT of pride in our southern heritage, honor, and "Cajun way of life!" Because of our respect to the hobby and our natural ecosystems, all of our snakes are taxonomically pure to the best of our knowledge, determination, and scientific evaluation. We don't deal with known hybrids, and the only intergrades we deal with are naturally occurring ones with verifiable data.

We go above and beyond what is normally expected to keep our husbandry methods and breeding plans as up-to-date as possible. We spend WAY too many days reading or searching for new published literature on the snakes we keep and on the husbandry methods we utilize. We encourage herpers to get their noses out of just the popular magazines and start searching peer-reviewed journals for facts to help them better manage their animals. That's how we do it. It isn't cheap, and it isn't quick, but we see the rewards immediately! From the way our friends "bug" us about new data, it seems people are greatly interested in the newest data out there. With KJ and Kasi both working in related fields professionally, we have many reasons to stay on top of our game. Keeping as up-to-date as possible on the taxonomy, husbandry, etc. of the snakes we keep is one of our biggest goals, chores, and hobbies.

Since we are always concerned with the animals' welfare, we commonly produce fewer hatchlings each year than we actually could. This is because we are very picky about which animals we will even think about trying to breed, almost never try to double clutch, and wait until animals are typically larger and older than the minimum required size and age to try and breed them. Many of our "breedable" females are left virgins for an assortment of reasons: too young regardless of size, slightly less robust than we would prefer, or some other usually minor factor. We've adopted the idea that the current adults' health is more important than possible offspring in the NOW. If we don't bred them this year, there is always next year or the year after.

All this is saying is that if you want quality animals from well maintained adults for a reasonable price with complete honesty, you've found it. If you have any questions on the care of any animal you may have purchased from us, feel free to e-mail us and ask. We'll do our best to try and help you!
KJ & Kasi Lodrigue