The Snake Keeper Blog

Well our stripe line finally pulled it off this past week. We only had three eggs of five make it to the end of incubation from a male genetic stripe that we brought in as a baby from Africa several years ago bred to a Bob Clark line het genetic stripe female. The results are three male genetic stripes.

Genetic stripe

Can you hear the celebrating from your place? You should as we were having a party. To only have three eggs make it and then get all stripes is perfect. It is a bonus that they are all nice stripes as well. Two perfect stripes and one with a few breaks and all with that rich nice color you do not find on them all. We will have to take new pics after they shed but this gives you an idea of how nice they the stripe can look.

I did add a few things to the available stock pages today. Some nice High Contrast albino males and some male het ivories. I am sure the het ivories will get a lot of attention soon as every one figures out

I have pics of them available to look at. They are really cool looking in person. They really should be one of the best balls you can buy in 2004 for future projects.

The Ivory

One of the things they have going for them is that yellow stripe down the back that is one the Ivory, the super form. If it is possible to change that color it will be cool.

We do have some more cool stuff to hatch out over the next couple weeks so we will post pics of them as they come out.

Well these past few days sure have been full of stress. Wednesday I come home and my son Scott says to me hey Dad you should go check out the faucet out in the back behind the rodent buildings. Hmmn I saw him out standing next to it the other day I thought. Well okay I will go check it out. So I get out there and I see the makings of a pond. Now here is the problem, it is 95 degrees out side and this is the water supply to the rodent buildings. So I must shut down the water to the coolers and drinking water for them. Well if you know anything about heat and rodent you know they do not mix well. So we worked fast and got it fixed. It was a 2 inch main line that went into a tee for the faucet and the reduced down to 1.5 inch for the run to the rodent building. This pipe is three feet under ground so we did some digging.

So we think after an hour we are good and we turn the water back on and it all looks good. So we take off to Home Depot for some other things and run to Costco and then come home. We Scott goes in the kitchen and says there is no water. Opps that is not good. So I jump in the car and get out back to see the making of a lake. Must have just broken when we got home. A 2 inch line wide open will pour out a ton of water. So it was time to do it again. This time I found a way to back feed the rodent building from the snake building and this would allow us more time to fix the line. That was interesting running hoses 250 feet to give the rodents water.

Any ways we finally got it all repaired and covered up and it is all working good now. So then I look at the incubator and notice that needs a little work. So to make a long story short we had a problem with the plug adapter for the auto dialer and the display. So with two trips to Lowes and a few phone calls to Jeff at Helix Controls we are all back in good shape again. That was a bit of a scare having incubator problems. Luckily I keep a complete spare system on hand and I used it while repairing the other system. Helix has always taken good care of us and Jeff sure helped out last night. It was 7:45 pm and he answered his phone to help out. Thanks Jeff.

Well that is enough for today long day of too much stress. Of course that does not address the going on’s in the ball python world. I guess we will leave that for another time.

Today brought us another couple clutches. It is nice to finally be getting a couple clutches a day. I have offered a few things on the available page for sale as make offer. If you are looking for anything marked like that send us an offer over. We have several ball pythons left over from the 2003 season that are just do fantastic that are all eating rats and ready to go.

Well the heat has really turned on here this week. So much for spring it is summer here.
Kids just want to be in the pool all day long. That will bring the breeding to a halt before too much longer. It was nice having the cooler temps as the males were still working over time and enjoying life.

That is about all for now. At least for this entry. Oh yeah it is tax day again for those of you who do quarterly taxes. Guess I better get that going before the mail man comes. Hey if you are looking at any of the snakes on the page for sale now would be a good time to make an offer. Uncle Sam may appreciate it. LOL Think I need to move to a state with no state taxes. Hmmm that leaves Nevada- perfect for tax reasons but not too much more out there that I know of at least. Florida well what would all the breeders there think if I moved in to the area. I might actually find some cool snakes at the importers. Well that only leaves Texas and it may be a BIG state but well I will let you figure that one out. I better go now before I really get going.

Now this is a great day at the Snake Keeper. We have Het Ivories hatching. We also got a clutch of spiders and HYPO MOJAVES! Yes the Extreme Hypo produced again this year and she was bred to the Mojave Het Hypo. So we should get some more hypo mojaves and we hope to get an Extreme Hypo as well. We really want to see one of those. That would be great. Any ways one male het ivory is already out of the egg. Should have some more out by this evening. If you are looking to get one let me know. The ivory is just an exceptional snake. It has really changed over the last year. Still has that cool yellow stripe down the back although not as pronounced as it was in the beginning.

I wanted to share some pics with you that I though you might like. We had the opportunity to sit on the side of the road and see the motorcade for President Reagan come through Thousand Oaks, CA on the way to his Library.

CHP clearing the way.

The library is only a few miles from where we used to live. So we decided to head down there and check it out. It was really cool. We saw a lot of people you really never get to see. There were thousands of people along the route.

The Presidents hearst.

I think we saw people at their best. Everyone was really nice and people were giving out flags and signs. Kids were waring their scout uniforms people were all dressed in the Red, White & Blue.

Nancy Regan is in the car behind the hearst.

You would have thought it was the Forth of July. But it was really better. To honor the President on his last drive was an experience we will never forget.

After the missing man fly by.

Happy day here at the Snake Keeper. We just hatched out a Bumble Bee. Is this girl beautiful? She is really nice. Have to wait for that first shed to get the good pictures. But we are real happy for what we have here. Hatching right now on the ball cam are albinos. Then if they do not come out too fast we will have het ivories but they may be all done before we can capture them.

Bumble Bee female.

I am fairly sure the albinos are all spoken for already. If you are looking for the het ivories though looks like I have them now. Just have to wait for them to get out of the eggs so we can see what we have to sell. I am not planning on selling any females but I will have a couple males to release this season.

Still no word on the Mojave to Mojave breeding. At this point it does not look like we are going to do early this year. Maybe in late summer we will get a clutch. We will be producing Hypo Mojaves though. They will be for sale. Should get the eggs soon.

As an update on the fund raiser for the school. My golf group took first place. We were lucky to have a good player with us to make it happen. According to him I did really well for my first time golfing. I had so much fun I went out and picked up some clubs. I may try learning this game a bit more. Thanks to you who helped.


Well that is all for now.

Check out the ballcam and see what all the buzz is about.