PE Desert X Pastel
Crystal X Mojave
Caramel X 100% Het. Caramel
Pastel 100% Het Pied X Poss. Het. Pied
Champagne X Normal
Super Vanilla X Normal
Genetic Stripe X 100% Het. Genetic Stripe
Super Stripe X Pastel Yellowbelly
November 2011: We had a blast at the Texas Reptiles expo in San Antonio at the Live Oak Civic Center. The show went well, attendance was very good. Lots of animals and supplies to choose from, and it’s always a treat to meet fellow herpers together in one place. We were able to only take one pic from the show (Jason with a Blue Monster, of course!) since we were so busy both days!
September 2011: Just thought I’d share a pic of our Belgian Malinois female Jinx staring down Jade, our Granite Het Albino Burmese female. This photo was taken by our good friend Malinda Julien.
August 2011: We are fortunate enough to live in a rural area that is crawling with wildlife. The last few months have been hard on everything out here, but one good thing taken from it are the wildlife sightings closer to our facilities as they move nearer to us for water. Modern technology (iPhones!) make this so much easier to capture when we are on the go, and recently the picture opportunities have been abundant. We’d like to share some of these.
During construction of the rodent building the crew found a coachwhip inside the building. Luckily they didn’t kill it! They thought it might be one of our snakes and brought it to us in a box. We took it to a safer area and let it go.
Here’s a shot of a blotched watersnake. This was taken early in the morning when we were just starting to work on a horse fence. It was near a brush pile that’s not too far off from a small water pond on the property, but unfortunately the drought has made that pond disappear!
Last, but my personal favorite, was a hognose snake that was crossing the driveway early in the morning. It felt cornered enough to start it’s threat display. Notice how his neck is flared out.
July 2011: Beautiful clutch of granites and albino granites. We got 22 babies, 11 of each!
Here are a few shots from the 2011 ball python clutches:
Albinos (We got lots of females this year!)
Spotnose
Calico (Female heavy as well!)
Cinnamon and the Cinnacal (it’s a boy!)
Axanthic het Pied and Pied poss. het Axanthic (these are turning out really nice!)
Pinstripe
Yellowbellies
June 2011: We’ve got a few clutches out of the eggs already, but the latest two are definitely our favorites so far. They were both attempts to prove out possible heterozygous ball pythons, which is always exciting. It’s part of what makes breeding snakes rewarding. Here are the results from both of those breeding attempts.
The first one was simple: we have a group of 50% possible het piebald females that are all breeding size, and a male Piebald who was tasked to “find” the hets. The interesting thing about that male piebald, however, is that he was also a possible het for axanthic. After successfully breeding one of the females, she gave us 4 good eggs. When the first egg pipped, it was a piebald! Out of the four eggs we got three pieds.
Here’s the part that makes the above clutch that much more special, however. We were able to prove that the sire of that clutch was also 100% het for axanthic, making those piebalds all 50% possible het for VPI axanthic. To do this we bred the piebald poss. het axanthic male to a 100% het for axanthic female. She gave us 9 eggs, and upon hatching the first head to poke out was an axanthic! We ended up with five Axanthic 100% het for piebald babies! The Axanthic Piebald, or “Lightning Pied”, is a beautiful combo, and with these two clutches we are that much closer to producing it ourselves. .
