The Snake Keeper Blog

I got it, I got it, I finally got the permit to build the new facility. FOUR months in plan check can you believe that? Yesterday I had had enough called up the supervisor down there had some words with him and amazingly enough he pulled out the plans while I was on the phone looked at the fire walls and passed them off. So that is it. DONE.
Now I just need to work the builder over on the price a bit and we will have the ball rolling. Any ways I thought you would like to know. Many of you know we have been fighting this for some time. I wanted to be in the building by Dec. 1st but now I am looking at Feb. 1st if I am lucky. Well we will see how it goes. We are taking next week off for Thanksgiving so we will get started after the holiday.

Not much else going on here, few snakes breeding here and there have a clutch hatching next week. Trying to get a few male up to size for breeding but you all know how that is we are all doing the same thing. I should get some more pics of snakes for sale up after the 1st as well. If you are looking I still have super pastels, mojave females, axanthics, het axanthics, het clown, genetic stripe hets, normals, het albinos and more. Just let me know what you are in the market for and maybe we have what you need. Have a great Thanksgiving and drive safe.

This past Saturday was a Super Saturday or a Family Fun day for us. We had a great time, in fact so much fun I have to show you some pictures. We started by taking the children to the airport for some free airplane rides. Three of our four got to go up for a short flight. It was their first time to experience flying and as luck would have it they loved it. Now they want to go again. Maybe the next time Stan makes is way out here in his plane I will have to trade him some snakes for some plane rides for the kids. Any ways they thought looking down and seeing the town how it looks from above was really cool.

Then from there it was off to the Monster trucks. We have never made it to the Monster show before. Grave Digger was there and is this guy insane or what? Check out this shot, he came in at who knows what speed turned the wheel and slid in the spot you see him in here in this photo. I do not know how he got that truck in that small spot but it was cool to watch. Must be that quad steering or something. Then his first heat he stood the truck straight up and nearly lost it. This picture shows it going up but the camera was not fast enough to catch him on the next bounce but we thought it was all over. He recovered but it was close. As you can guess he won every round. One of the rigged shows where he was the star. In fact he did not win the last race but they said he did. I think the other guy probably got this but kicked after we all left. You are not supposed to win the star attraction. Any ways one more thing. The free style motorcycles were cool as well. Check these guys out, they make it look so easy. I am afraid I am going to see my son Scott out on the tractor making ramps soon in the back yard. You should have seen his face light up watching these guys get air. It was really a good time. If you have not been to one of those shows you should go. Just to smell the nitro methane made it worth it to me.

Yesterday we had a pre eggs shed. You know what that means. The first clutch of 2004 will be hatching in mid February. Looks like the incubator will not be getting a rest this year. This will actually be nice. It is usually a drag to shut it down as that is where most of the excitement takes place. Once it goes off it seems like it takes forever before more snakes hatch. So be watching in February for that first clutch. That is all for now. Have a great day.

Here’s the latest here at The Snake Keeper. Well with the snakes anyways, I hear there is a lot of excitement going on out in the BP world. Talk about the walls that have ears they seem to have mouths as well. But enough of that onto the snakes.

Coffee Ball update, sad news for those hoping that this would turn out to be genetic. Either we have had the worse odds in the world or it is not genetic. Two clutches het to het yielded no coffee balls and one clutch het son back to mother 8 eggs and no coffee balls. The nice thing about it is we did use a pastel from the beginning to do this project. So we do have super pastels and pastels in the mix so it was not a total loss. The het son was a pastel so out of the eight eggs from the mother we got 6 pastels that are real nice. Out of the het clutches which was the het son pastel to other pastels “het for coffee” we produced some super pastels and pastels. So although we did not get the coffee we wanted we did get some great snakes. Some of these will be for sale in the near future.

This is just a great example how breeders spend years developing a project. This is what makes these investment animals. I think we have 4 years into this project and did not come up with the results as hoped. Think about it. We are not just talking one snake here. We are talking about holding back a couple clutches every year. Feeding, housing etc. So it takes time and money to hold these back and work the project. Hats off to all the breeders that take the time to develop new morphs.

The weather is ugly out and cold and raining but the snakes are feeling the need to breed. So we have them together and things are looking good. Had to have some males combat some yesterday. You ever hear males combat in Freedom Breeder housing? BAM, BAM, and SPRING all kinds of noises come out of there. We hope maybe we gave a few a wake up call to get with the program. I will have to go out later and see if it did any good or not later this morning. That’s it I am done.

WOW last week it was 90 degrees out and we had fires burning everywhere in So. Cal. and today it is cold and raining. Even with the rain there is still a fire burning in the mountains. Tony B sent me this link of the fires. Fire in Simi Valley Thanks Tony.

If you did not hear we had 750,000 acres burned here and over 3000 homes burned to the ground. But with Winter here now in full force the fires are behind us but not for those who lost everything. We went out today and collected things to send the the Red Cross to deliver the the people put out by the fires. If you ahve the means to help in any way you really should. It is really great to see people pull together to help those in need.


Next is the Available Stock has been updated this evening. Got a new Super Pastel list and it is awesome looking. I just can not say enough about those SUPERS! Also I got a picture of one of the Banded balls listed as well. Not sure on the genetics on these yet. Have to give it another year to know more. Well go check out the for sale pages and see what new things we have listed. Trying to get up as much as we can to make room for the coming year. The first clutch is already in the hanger waiting to be laid. Yes, the first clutch to hatch in 2004 is already on the way. Time to go more intersting things coming soon.