Tuesday, December 27, 2011

- Feeding Day

Mice, rats, chicks, geckos, ASFs, guinea pigs, snails, mice tails, and quail - it's quite an exhaustive process to feed the collection of snakes I have. It'd be so much easier to only care for one species of snake that eats only one type of food, but then what kind of collection would that be?!

My JCP will take any type of prey at times (large rats, guinea pigs, quail), and then go off feed and only accept adult mice (this is small for a 1700+ gram snake) once a month. All of my ball pythons are on to mice or rats, except for one that refuses to eat anything but the hard to find African Soft-furred rats. Now my Leptodiera and Oxyrhopus will eat scented pinks, but I stick with the natural items, so they get feeder geckos delivered from LLLReptile every few weeks. There's even one Solomon Islands tree boa (SITB) that only eats geckos, unless it's really reared up and mistakes an offered pinky for food. The Sibon only eat snails... a real pain to find in a place where winter causes everything to go into hibernation. A couple ball pythons get picky every so often and only want chicks or quail. Lastly, the baby haitian boas are very picky and are still being assist fed mice tails. Good thing I'm patient and they're comfortable with me.

The saving graces are my Adult Haitian boas, my DCI python, and my Het VPI Snow male BP. These consistently eat large rats! I love them! They eat like clockwork, only need one meal, and are gaining a lot of weight.

The great thing about feeding day is that everyone is getting bigger and healthier (I don't overfeed), and it's another week before I need to feed them all again.

Monday, December 26, 2011

- A New Year & Lots of Breeding Plans

A new year is coming up - 2012 - and I have a lot of big plans in mind. To start, I will be launching a small breeding company called New York Exotics - at least that's what I plan on calling it. I know, it sounds a little like a strip club company, but I assure you it's only going to be for pet snakes and other reptiles/amphibians.

This will be the first year dedicated to proving out a lot of my collection. There will be holdbacks, but if you'd like to get on a waiting list for any breeding project just send me an e-mail and I will answer any questions you have and put your name down.

So to start off the new year, I am working on getting a few females up to weight, but will soon be breeding several species. I plan to start with my Amazon Tree Boas (Corallus hortulanus) and the first pairing will be Chromia and Lucy. Chromia is a yellow "patternless" female and Lucy is a lighter yellow "patternless" male.
Lucy

Chromia











I am very interested in this pairing for a couple reasons: first off, they're just a really hot pairing and at the very least, they should produce some amazing yellow snakes; secondly, these two both exhibit faint orange/red patterning that can only be seen in certain lighting; lastly, they both exhibit heterochromia - a condition in this particular case that makes them both have blue eyes with a think orange strip around the retina. The second two reasons are the main reasons why I'm interested. From what I've heard and read, the "hypos," produced by GCR, possess those two traits. When the "hypos" are bred together they produced the famed blue-eyed lucy - an all-white (off-white) snake that has baby blue eyes. Now, I know it's a real long shot, but I'm hoping for a miracle!

The second big pairing of ATBs for the season, will be two very dark ones picked up from Matt Edgar. This pair is very, very black with dark bellies and really aberrant patterning. They also have silver eyes and change color from a darker gray to a much lighter gray at night. These are traits exhibited in Leopard ATBs. I'm not saying mine are leopards, but I think these two have something else going on (genetically)  that will produce some wild looking offspring. Anna Mollie is an '09 female and Noir is an '08 male.
Tint
Anna Mollie
A couple shots to show off their heavy head-patterning and silvery eyes.
Last up for the ATBs, I have a granite colored male with nice patterning and a beautiful red and gray female that has a bright yellow head. I'm not sure if I'm going to use the male this year, but the female will definitely be able to go. I think I may end up putting her on breeding loan to a friend with a Danny Mendez Tiger ATB. I've always wanted a tiger, and this will produce some amazing tigers and tiger siblings. I should be able to holdback one or two tigers and still have one (or a sibling) for sale after the split with my friend.