Family Values

With the recent moves in legislation to limit reptile ownership, there is no end to long winded arguments about why large reptiles are dangerous, why they aren't, who is at risk, blah blah blah. My stance on those issues is very clear, so I want to put that aside for a minute and focus on why I'm so adamant about these issues. There's my belief that it is important to have stable captive bred populations of reptiles and amphibians in the case that their natural habitat is threatened or gone (axolotls, various species of dart frog, etc). It's also a very educational experience caring for reptiles and amphibians because of their specialized needs in thermoregulation, diet, and specific behaviors to the species.

But my biggest and most important reason for fighting the anti-reptile laws and legislation?

I. Love. My. Pets.

They will never come when I call. They won't fetch, or seek out my every drop of attention, or "play" with brightly colored toys that I can pick up at Petco or Walmart. They don't have the capacity to learn tricks as other pets can, or wander around my house free range without significant modification to my home (someday...). 

With all my heart I love these enigmatic, beautiful, and sometimes very strange creatures. It doesn't particularly matter to me that they don't act like dogs, cats, horses, or any other common mammalian pets. To me, that's why we have dogs, cats, horses, and other mammalian pets; they fill those roles just fine. My reptiles will always need a space of habitat suited to their needs where the humidity is just right, the temperatures have the right range, and they're able to climb, burrow, or whatever their particular behavior requires. I enjoy providing these things for them, and as long as they're healthy I'm happy.

To anyone who has an animal of any kind that they look after and love, I hope you can relate and possibly understand that even though our reptiles and amphibians aren't your typical "family member" they are equally important to us. You have every right not to be fond of them (I'd feed every yappy lap dog to a boa if I had my way) but don't attack our rights to care for them just because you don't personally like them

Blind Determination

I can never say it enough: I just neglect this blog

But I did want to do a little something on my newest ball python additions. Due to space concerns, diversity interests, and my little pastel project I told myself I'd hold off on ANY new ball pythons for now. There's always the exception... and... well... Meet Stevie and Ray!!

Ray, male classic

I've always been in love with the eyeless snake that's become a sort of "mascot" for one of the members on ball-pythons.net (I'll use BP.net for convenience from now on). Technically, it's a deformity, and we're really not sure what causes it still. It doesn't seem to be genetic, repeated pairings have not yielded masses of baby eyeless ball pythons. Some people are worried about it being a sign of mass inbreeding. However, if that were the case I'd think we'd see a lot more issues in corn snakes, which are so numerous and bred so widely that snake inbreeding would probably be much more of a concern.

Stevie, female classic

My theory is that it happens with fluctuating incubation temperatures, but I have nothing to back that up other than seeing a correlation of thermostat troubles, hot/hard to manage summer, and then a slew of eyeless babies that have been showcased this year.Without somebody running a study on it I don't think we'll ever know.

Whatever the case may be, I am so excited to have my own eyeless pythons. I inquired after seeing a breeder post pictures on BP.net of an eyeless from one of his clutches, and he said that if she could eat on her own, and didn't have significant issues living, that he'd be happy to let me give her a home. Weeks of getting a PM or two saying things along the lines of "Not hopeless! But still assist feeding" happened, and then a surprise message saying he'd hatched out another eyeless baby, and if I wanted to I could have him too.

Anecdotal accounts from my boyfriend may include squee-ing, but you won't find me admitting it.

I will never breed these snakes, as it really seems like an ethical no-no to me. I have plenty of completely healthy snakes that can do that for me. They're very inquisitive little buggers, though Stevie is continually having feeding issues. Ray isn't so bad, eats like a champ! Anything with a heartbeat, or moderately over room temp seems like game to him. Anything.

Ball Python Ring, I think it could catch on!

It's friggin adorable to me, and I think he'll grow out of it once he can differentiate the smells, and isn't starving all the time. I've been tagged before by the bigger snakes, but none of them were under the impression I was edible. Every time it's been:
*WHACK!*
"Wait... What is this? This isn't rat, this won't even fit in my mouth!"
*Spit out hand and look rather offended, maybe eat rat, maybe sulk*

Still, it hasn't ever hurt one bit. The first couple of close calls when I just had Monty and Ember put me on my toes, but when I was finally hit once, I was more surprised that I didn't feel, well, anything. For anyone out there wondering: Yes, snakes have the ability to bite, most of the time it'll be your fault, and anything that has a head smaller than 5" and nonvenomous will probably be less painful than a hornet bite (Youch!)

The feeding day idea didn't work out so well, but I think I'll try and stick with it. Everyone's on different feeding schedules at the moment, and different levels of sick (Ember has an escape story I still have to write up and document. 2 weeks out of the house, came home alive, and for the most part indifferent). Until next time!

Back on Track!

So after moving and not having any internet connection outside of work for a month, then having internet, but no computer for two months, I am now to the (quite overdue) state of having a computer AND internet access at the same time!

This means I can get snapping on a blog that I actually update! It nearly made my brain explode when I thought of it.

Anyhow, my scheme is to do a post every feeding day (or at least write it down and post it later) so that I can keep track of feeding and force myself to get back to writing every five days or so. Win win, or so I figure. Individual blog posts for each snake proved to be too tedious for my lazy ass (forgetful sounds more accurate to me, but lazy is probably at the root of it).

On that note, I finally managed to establish a feeding routine since we've gotten this house, and it's really a relief. I know the snakes were fine with the sporadic "getting everything figured out now we actually have a house" feeding plan, but it severely irked me whenever I tried to remember the last shed/poo/feed or find the scrap of paper I'd scribbled it on. I'm going back to feeding every five days since this last Monday. On the 30th, I'll feed (or attempt to, in some cases) again, and again on the 5th, and so on. I know in between months sometimes it'll be more than five days, but I figure they won't mind too much.

Back to watching the iguana run around, I'll post more later!

-Eri

It's All About the View Point

When it comes to breeding reptiles the subject of finances, profit, business, etc. are often debated; Especially in regard to ball pythons. I'll admit, when I first started researching snakes the idea of breeding two animals each worth $400 and having a chance to produce a baby worth $700-$1000 was enticing. With a lot of reading/involvement (~4 years), and now having kept my snakes for over two years I can say I've been educated. The idea of making a living off of my hobby has really faded into fantasy. Not that I wouldn't love to do it, or that I couldn't, but I find that I'm not terribly interested in trying to plan out my breeding ideas in order to maximize profit. Coming up with a realistic, solid business plan isn't difficult, I just don't want to do it. What I want to do? Buy animals that fit the bill EXACTLY for what I'm looking for, and replicate/improve all the qualities I admire in the snake whether it's "popular" and expensive or not.

This has been crossing my mind pretty often with the BP breeding season in full swing. My favorite threads on the forums are the ones with hatching eggs, or seeing fresh hatchlings (SO COOL to see new combos when they happen!). I've had some ideas tumbling around in my head about line breeding though. I love me some 3, 4 and 5 gene eye candy, but my favorite snakes are the single or double gene animals that blow everything else out of the water.

In particular, I want to make some nice pastels. They're probably the most common morph aside from albinos, but they're a staple enhancing morph, and without fail I fall in love with every nice looking one I come across. I have a faint idea in the back of my head to start looking for very clean, very reduced normal ball pythons. Only two or three to keep the project in sane proportions for me (this is a hobby, not a living) but enough to breed them to the nicer examples of pastels I can find, and see exactly what characteristics of the normal parent come through.

Due to the nature of my project it means that I'll be keeping an eye out for any normals that fit what I'm wanting to experiment with, regardless of gender. It's a very odd feeling for me because if anyone were to ask for my thoughts on breeding, I'd never recommend the practice to anyone else. Normal males are "worthless" from a breeding standpoint (NOT saying they are worthless as living things) simply because morphs males are fairly easy to acquire for a very reasonable price, and you want to add to your genetic arsenal rather than simply extend what you have. A spider male to a lesser, pinstripe, and enchi would be much smarter than a normal to those three girls IF you are breeding to support yourself. And there's nothing wrong with that! It's smart, if you have nice looking animals to begin with you'll have some smokin babies, and (hopefully) it's combos that you wanted to produce.

This is mostly a brain spill on my part, with no real end point defined in my head. I'm somewhat apprehensive about doing something I know is backwards from what I'd advise anyone else to do, but it has a specific purpose. If it turns out that the pastel qualities aren't enhanced by being mixed with nice looking normals I'll scrap the project, but I've always want to at least try line breeding out. Should it play out like it does in my head, I think that it'll be absolutely worth the odd feeling

Feeding Woes

In the last couple of feeding days I've been testing out a new method of heating up the snake food. When it comes to frozen/thawed (f/t) vs live, I prefer f/t because it's easier for me personally. If I ever get a small rat breeding project going on to supplement I may do live out of convenience (especially for anything weaned or smaller) but for now it isn't an option unless I want to drive 20 miles out of town or more. The downside to the f/t method is having to heat the rodents to the point where the snakes can "see" them enough to strike. When they smell food they tend to get excited, and they don't have big brains to begin with, so if the rat isn't warm enough my hand can look like a delicious heated rodent!

Previously (the majority of the time that I've had Monty and Ember) I've used a warm water method where they thaw out, and I put them in warm water for 15-20 minutes. It's worked for me great! Only had my hands latched onto a couple of times, and they were all my fault because I'd forgotten and the water had cooled or something of that nature. However, in the state of my current living situation I'd have to spend a lot of time cleaning and sanitizing and moving other people's belongings just to make space to feed the snakes, let alone prepare the rats. Until the situation improves and/or I move out, I wanted to figure something out to work in the meantime. I have read many forum posts where people have let the rats thaw out at room temperature and then they blow them with a hair dryer to heat them up. Seemed easy enough, so I tried it out

Results?

Less than satisfying, but not a loss altogether. The little snakes have much less of an issue than the larger ones do. Ember hasn't eaten any that have been heated this way, and Monty has had spotty success at best. My guess is that the smaller prey items do heat up well with this method due to their smaller mass. When I start getting to the bigger ones then all I'm doing is temporarily heating up the outside and they cool a great deal before I'm even able to walk the 6 steps or so back to the snake tub. I tried focusing on the head/chest area just to make a hot spot for them to aim for, but Monty still ended up striking the middle and Ember didn't seem to know what to do with it. She was flicking her tongue and showed a little interest, but when I dangled it closer or held it there longer than 10 seconds she would pull back under her hide/coils and ignore me.

As soon as I'm able I'll just switch back. "If it ain't broke, don't fix it"

The Adventures of Monty the Python

When I first started looking into ball pythons, I knew I was going to attempt breeding at some point. With so many colors and patterns that could be combined to enhance traits, change the "paintjob", it's funny now to think I considered making a table to try and predict every combination. The morph that caught my admiration most was one they call a Mojave. These beautiful snakes have a mahogany to black background with golden yellow alien heads and white highlighting. Google "mojave ball python" and you'll see many examples. Something about the smoothness of the pattern and contrast of the colors looks so beautiful to me. And in designer combinations they can really make a bold looking animal.

So my rookie self went to the breeder's website that I browsed most and went to pick out the mojave I had been going back to look at several times. I loved his blushed sides and a little hook at the beginning of his dorsal stripe. Enter: Monty.  Added the best looking female pastel the guy had and had Ember and Monty as my first two personal pets as well as the beginning of this crazy reptile thing.

Since I've had them Monty has been the most pet like snake. Always relaxed, minor reaction to things bumping his head, and he's more slender than Ember is with a less intimidating build. He also has the damn cutest face, but that may be the biased half of me talk. Being the go-to snake in my collection to introduce to nervous people, his relaxed demeanor when being handled, and one of my first pet snakes I'm pretty attached to him, I'll admit it. 

So imagine the bowling ball dropping in my stomach when I went to feed him Saturday night and his tub lid was popped up on one side. Tested the edge and my heart sank as the lid came off with no resistance. Empty tub and no snake in the immediate area. Pretty much spent the rest of the night tearing up the living room, kitchen, bedrooms, anywhere in the house where it might seem warmer or more snake friendly. There was no sign of him anywhere, and I pretty much sank into resigned sadness. It had been a busy and stressful week, so I was pretty worn emotionally anyway, and I hadn't had a chance to really check on the snakes in about 5 days. Had I not put the lid on correctly? Or had someone gotten him out without letting me know/asking? Or maybe Monty had pushed the lid up? 

Everyone in the house said they hadn't gotten Monty out, and hadn't seen anyone messing with the snake tubs. I went to sleep that night dismayed and expecting the worst. Snakes tend to be found when they reveal themselves, searching was an intimidating task seeing as the snake could fit anywhere a quarter could. Sunday was a day I spent biting my nails at work, and keeping myself occupied with cleaning and talking online on forums and facebook. To be perfectly honest it was a lot of doom and gloom from me and getting encouraging/helpful/supportive replies from friends, family, and complete strangers. 

Got home to search more, no dice. I even started wondering what I'd do if Toby (the house cat) came back to my roomie with snake skin. Burst into tears perhaps, or would I just go into a red eye rage. I'm not a terribly emotive or emotional person, and it was strange for me to be so upset over something that would be much simpler if I would think logically. The snake couldn't have gotten far, and chances were he was somewhere that the other animals wouldn't bother him and he could take a nap. 

A little side note on Toby. Like most cats, he is pretty independent as a critter, and has his own ideas of how things should be. I usually don't mind this in cats, really I'm usually pretty enthusiastic about them and how autonomous they are. However, Toby lacks that normal feline grace and sensibility part. Maybe I'm just used to animals with manners and been lucky in that respect, but this cat is just a BUTTHEAD! If left to his devices  he'll go into the living room or kitchen and trash whatever he might be able to, and if there's food he can get to? Absolute destruction, it's more delicious if made as messy as possible. 

I woke up Monday morning to the sounds of Toby delightfully doing something out in the living room. Being before the alarm and a Monday on top of that I didn't take the time to listen for details and trudged out to either prevent a furry hurricane or clean up after one. I didn't see much out of place at first, some spilled gold fish food (irritating), but it seemed I was in luck this morning. Toby appeared on the top of the corner piece of the sofa set, turning around and staring back into the 3 square foot space behind it. Climbed onto it and looked behind to see if I had to clean anything back there.

A very cold, grumpy, dust bunny covered snake greeted me, his head tucked under his coils and breathing pretty heavy. After containing a rather excited noise (not sure if it would've been a squeal or a yawp) I clambered back there and scooped his cranky butt up. Got a very emphasized SSSSSSsssss! from him, but it was a bluff, and his bite is about as painful as a kitten sneezing anyway. 

As of right now he's taking a break in his tub, drinking lots of water and hanging out on his heat pad. There was a vet appointment scheduled for today, but my car's alternator ended up killing itself, so the trip will have to wait until the mechanical beast gets fixed. They had tried to get me in soon because their vet is taking a 2 week vacation starting tomorrow, but obviously I won't be able to make it today. Thankfully they are an extraordinarily helpful and understanding bunch, so they gave me a number for another vet in the area who can see him. I don't feel comfortable waiting two weeks (and they agreed). 

Stay tuned for updates. I'm just RELIEVED that Monty seems relatively fine, one minor scratch on his neck but otherwise just dirty and quite a bit more reserved than he used to be. Though Ember definitely pulls off the "Quiet, watchful, and cautious" snake thing more than he does. Still not head shy, and still alive.

General Herp Wishlist (2-11-12)

Just general herp plans. I'll have the realistic actual planned stuff first and the bigger overall wishlist after.

Key:

PO = Pet only

BRP = Breeding Project

SOA = Significant Other's Additions (There are some pets my boyfriend wishes to have that overlap on my own pet plans. They'll be his pets, but I'll be involved in their care. If we break up, I'll get one of whatever for myself)

Addition List:

1.0 Citrus or Leucistic Bearded Dragon (PO)

1.2 Fire Skinks (BRP)

0.0.1 Frilled Dragon (SOA)

0.1 Brazilian Rainbow Boa (PO)

1.1 Super Dwarf Reticulated Pythons (BRP)

Wishlist

1.1 Mandarin Ratsnakes (BRP)

1.0 Dumeril's Boa (PO)

1.0 Chinese Water Dragon (PO)

1.0 Xanthic Green Iguana (SOA)

0.0.1 Red Tegu ( PO )

1.0 Giant or Super Giant Leopard Gecko ( PO )

0.1 Carrot Tail or Sunset Leopard Gecko ( PO )

0.2-3 Whiteout or Zero Fat Tail Geckos ( PO )

1.0 Pucallpa Peruvian Boa ( PO )

0.0.4 Cinnamon Frogs ( PO )

0.0.1 Pixie Frog ( PO )

0.0.2 Red Eye Croc Skinks ( PO )

1.0 Tokay Gecko ( PO )

0.0.1 Leachie ( PO )

0.0.1 Boelens Python (PO)

1.1 Jamaican Boas (BRP)

0.0.1 Concentric Diamondback Terrapin ( PO )

0.0.1 Cherry Red Footed Tortoise ( PO )

0.0.1 Caiman ( PO )

0.1 Gaboon Viper ( PO )

1.0 Burmese Python ( PO )
0.0.1 Dominican Red Mountain Boa
0.0.1 Red Tailed Green Rat Snake
0.0.1 Blue Tongue Skink
0.0.4 Amazon Milk Frogs
0.0.1 Durango Mountain Kingsnake
0.0.1 Blue Beauty Snake
0.0.1 Blue/Calico GTP
1.0 Panther Chameleon
0.1 Savu Python
0.0.2 Uromastyx
0.0.1 Desert Iguana
0.1 Woma Python
0.1 Black Headed Python (Full black back)
0.0.1 Jaguar Carpet Python
0.0.1 Jungle Carpet Python (Trophy quality)
1.0 Bredli's Python
0.0.2 Red eye croc skinks
1.0 Chuckwalla
0.0.1 Gila Monster

Ball Python Wishlist/Brainstorm (1-28-12)

This is where you can find my ultimate designer morph wishlist, as well as what my more realistic new additions will be

Addition list

0.1 Caramel Albino

0.1 Bumblebee het Axanthic

0.1 Lesserbee/Butterbee

Dream list

Albino Pied (Any strain of albino)

Panda Pied

Urban Camo

True Ghost Clown

Axanthic Killer Bee

Firefly Caramel Albino

High White Humblebee

Sable Mojave

Black Magic 

Solid Breeding Plan and News

Alright! I don't post here often enough. But I figured with a new addition in the works I should put something up.

All the balls are doing well. Ember just keeps getting more monstrous in comparison to everyone else, and the babies are doing great. I keep forgetting how exciting it'll be for super fire potential in the future (fingers crossed for a fire combo or fire male to put with Nova in my 3rd season!). I've made the decision to not get ANY more ball pythons until I have a rack setup, incubator, and just a general idea of what I want to do in the future. Breeding plans are as follows with the current arrangement

2012 (THIS YEAR!!! :D )

Monty x Ember
-Possible offspring: 25% wild type, mojave, pastels, pastaves

Comments: What I'm hoping for most is that I get some nice pastaves to hold back. If I happen to have a really nice pastel girl come out of it I might keep her too (not bad to have a stable of pastel girls around, I want to avoid wild type breeders if possible until they are necessary). If I get a male pastave then he will replace Monty as a breeder in 2013. Going to go with it in the following plans for hope's sake.


2013


1.0 Pastave x Ember
-Possible offspring: wild type, pastel, mojave, super pastel, pastave, super pastel mojave
1.0 Pastave x Nova
-Possible offspring: wild type, pastel, fire, mojave, fireflies, pastaves, fire mojaves, firefly mojaves

Comments: I'd LOVE to have some firefly mojaves of any gender, and some firefly females. If I don't produce a pastave in 2012 then I'll do these pairings with Monty and bump the pastave pairing plans to the next year.

2014


Hopeful pairings
1.0 fire mojave x Ember
-Possible offspring: wild type, fire, pastel, mojave, firefly, pastave, fire mojave, firefly mojave
1.0 fire or fire combo x Nova
-Possible offspring: Just hoping for a super fire

If 0.1 pastave or pastel was produced in 2012 and held back, then:
1.0 fire mojave/fire combo x 0.1 pastave
-Possible offspring: same as fire mojave x Ember, unless by luck it's 1.0 firefly mojave. If the firefly mojave male is produced then I will also be pairing it with Ember and Nova

Comments: This is the point where it gets very hazy. I might have the means to buy more balls at this point, and I'm not sure what kind of holdbacks I'll have for sure, or even what breeders. I don't breed for maximum profit or even put a serious thought to making -any- money off of this, it's for a personal hobby. Due to this lots of my breeding snakes will be produced by myself , and makes it hard to plan more than a year in the future.


And that is where it stands in this current moment. There are LOTS of projects I want to get into, but I don't have the means to support that many ball pythons. I'm tentatively planning on getting a caramel albino female for some combo play (firefly carmel, can you imagine?!), and a bumblebee het axanthic female to grow up and eventually pair with a pastel axanthic male. That's about it though, my dream list of morphs is enormous and I'm going to do my best to stick with producing my favorite designer morphs and building up more of a "pet" collection as I complete them. For example, lesserbees/butterbees are another favorite of mine, but I'm not going to invest in breeding them when I can simply buy one now for a reasonable price.

Onto other news. I was starting to do some serious research on subocs (trans-pecos ratsnakes) to the point where I was contacting members on BP.net for in depth information and making arrangements to house a pair and breed for fun. However, while browsing classifieds I started looking at bullsnakes and others in the gopher snake family, and started narrowing my focus on pine snakes (general research is just a past time of mine). I found a guy selling pied black pine snake females for a killer price on kingsnake, and just couldn't help myself. I've made the first of four payments as of right now, and should have it paid off just as weather starts getting better around here for shipping. I'm insanely excited about the whole situation, new pets are exciting in general but I'm looking forward to starting a variety in my herp keeping rather than just having ball pythons.
Few pics the guy sent to me:

Don't get me wrong, I love ball pythons. It's why I bought a pair for myself in the first place. But the longer I've been involved with the hobby the more I'm finding a deep set love for all snakes, and a desire to keep more species rather than a big breeding operation of one species. Breeding isn't my focus anyway, I just love having and caring for snakes in general.

As for future addition plans, I'm going to do my best to control myself and keep it at no more snakes (or lizards) until I get the permanent ball rack either built or ordered (along with a thermostat of course). I'm so tired of having my animals scattered all over the place in the house, and multiple tubs with different heating elements, opening and closing procedures... I just want to make it more uniform.

I'll do a separate post for current wish list stuff. Since I realized that I want to start acquiring some animals as pets only for my own enjoyment I started with goals of a single bearded dragon male (Hopefully a snow/leucistic or citrus male from fireandicedragons.com). Fire skinks are also floating around in my head. I don't see them for sale often, and it would be fun to have a small project to just produce some CBB fire skinks.