The Snake Keeper Blog

Well here it is the unofficial begining of SUMMER!!!!! Well it started off good for us with a litter of boas.

CA Anerytheristics litter

Now you are probably going what he means a clutch of eggs. No it is true we had a litter of boas this morning. Type 2 to Type 2 Anerytheristics, 101 days POS 11 babies and no slugs. So Colette is walking around with this big smile on her face this afternoon. She has been playing with this project for a couple years now and this is the result.

Had to show this tail shot.

Last night we were busy in the incubator adding more shelving. We had a little space when you come in the door where we added four more feet of space.

Just coming out of the sack.

That will allow 16 more clutches that we really need the space for right now. We also had to order more glass tops. We had just had 40 made about a month ago and now we just added 30 more. We should have a good amount hatching in June so maybe we can start rotating them in and out and not have to find any more space.

The back yard is almost done. I will get some more pics up after the weekend. Grass is coming in on Tuesday so that will make for some nice pictures. Have a great holiday and be safe.

Sunday, the day of rest. Well not for us this morning. We were blest with FIVE clutches of eggs today. Now that was cool to get five we have had several four clutch days but never a five. So not too much rest this morning for Colette. Yesterday we were egg less which was good as we had so much to do. What a great take as well.

Hypo Mojave laying eggs.

Two clutches of Hypo Mojave to Hypo Mojave 14 eggs total. That right there would have been enough.:) Do you know what is going to hatch from that……….Super Hypo Mojave’s (aka white with snake blue eyes, plus it will be hypo) Hypo Mojave’s & Extreme Hypos. Now you may be asking what is a hypo white snake going to look like. Well I do not know but we will see in 60 days. It will be cool to have one to breed to other crosses though.

As for the other clutches we got Mojave het hypo to Mojave, Pastel Het Ivory to pastel & Piebald to Possible het Piebald. So a very good day at 34 good eggs and one slug. I wonder what a super pastel het ivory will look like. The incubator is full now and we are expecting three more clutches tomorrow.

Found this little legless lizard out in the yard today. Had to take a picture before we let him go.

So I have to go get some extra shelving out of the garage tonight and get it set up to accommodate the overflow until we get some more hatched out. I just may have to fire up the storage room which was built as an incubator as well. It is larger and was designed to be the incubator in the first place. So now I guess its day has come. So to take a line from a great movie…….”If you build it they will come” well we built the incubators and now the eggs are coming, it is AWESOME!!!!!!!

This a planter being built. Wait till you see the tree for it.

The back yard is coming along nice. They have been at work now for five days. I think when they get here tomorrow though they will be re doing a few things. Most of the water lines are all in and about ½ of the brick & stone work is done. It is a huge job. I have more sprinkler valves I think than everyone else combined in the neighborhood. Colette and I went to the nursery over 400 acres and picked out some great trees. We are into palms around the pool so we had to pick out 14 of them. Then we just could not resist. I love the Canary Island palms. They are just huge trees and look so cool so we sprung for two of them. I am just waiting to hear what the cost on those is going to be. I am sure my landscaper is going to tell me soon.

kids play area off the pool.

Considering they are in a five foot box and it will take a crane to lift them into place it will be a few dollars I am sure. So he tells me today he wants to be laying sod by Friday. Well I hope so that would make a great holiday on Monday.

Not too much else going on right now, only two more weeks of school left for the kids so that will be nice. That will give us a little extra help here for a few months. They like to help with everything but we make their studies a priority while they are in school. Any ways time to move on now just had to share some excitement.

Things are continuing to go well here this season. We sure hope to hatch out some nice new morphs this year. Did you see the Super Spot nose? Wow, that is really nice. Should be a snake for everyone to have in the coming years. Tracy has worked the project for a long time and now the pay off.

New yard going in..

It will be cool to see it again once it sheds and all. Any ways thought I would mention that congratulate VPI for that one. I wonder if it will make their new book. STOP THE PRESSES!!!!!!!!! I have a new snake for the book Dave. Shoot next week the press will get started back up again and then they will be another phone call STOP……………well you get the idea. We should see a lot of new morphs this season from allot of the breeders. Should be a fun season.

Well we finally get started on the landscaping of our back yard. It has been a long time. But it is here. Two years ago we tore it all up and put in a nice pool. Last year we added the new snake room but we did not add any landscaping. We knew it would be expensive to put in what we wanted to we decided to wait. So here we are coming up on summer and it will be ready for the BBQ party season. It is really heating up outside too. Looking like 99 on Sunday. Usually I wait till I get to the beach to get sunburned. This year Colette and I both are sporting some RED hues on the old white skin already. Hey at least I do not have to worry about getting burned at the beach this year now.

So they started on the back yard on Monday. Ten guys show up with water trucks, backhoes, skip loaders & trenchers. You name it it was here doing the job.

more yard photos

It was amazing to see how much a group of guys can do in one day. These are pics from the first day. Most of everything else has been underground work you really can not notice in pictures. Some more brick work is being done right now. By Friday I should be able to show some more pics. It has been fun. I am just waiting for the first swimming party after it is all done. That will be nice.

Any ways that is about all for now. Still waiting for the eggs to get started. Looks like about June things will really get going on the hatching front. Had four more clutches this morning. Those sure make good morning no matter how bad a night’s rest you got. Keep it up Colette you are doing great!

These past few days have been good to use on the egg front. I took a few pics this morning to show what we got today. Today there are three clutches being laid as I took these photos.

Genetic Stripe eggs!

The first is from our Genetic stripe male to a het genetic stripe female. Those will be good to have as everyone wants a stripe ball right now. I know we have talked about this before but there is more going on in this stripe line than just a stripe. They are actually hypo to an extent. The pastels that we produced from a cross with the genetic stripe look better than supers. Just amazing! I will have to get pics of them one of these days for you to check out. But I am just thinking of other crosses to do with them that will just be awesome. I think there are a lot of miles ahead for the stripe project.

Next on the list of eggs is the black stripe! I still want to change the name of that snake. I just have not come up with something that I like good enough yet, but none the less we have a clutch of eggs for the trait today.

Black Stripe eggs!

I sure hope it proves out as people really want this one. It looks so much like a boa stripe everyone loves it. If you have not seen it you will need to go to the morphs pages and check it out. What a surprise it will be if it proves out first time around. A triple stripe ball python.

Next on the list is the albino. Not just any albino eggs but Albino spider eggs. At first I did not care for the albino spider. But then as they got older they grew on me.

Albino Spiders!

I love the yellow snake. We just would like to see the white stay white. So we are hoping that through selective breeding we can accomplish it. So we will see. Wow these next few months are going to be exciting.

Things are about as busy as they get around here right now. Kids are winding down the school year so all the projects are due right now. Completed two science fair projects this week. That and getting several clutches of eggs every day now plus eggs are hatching makes for busy long days. We start at about 4:30AM right now and go till about 9:30 or so at night. Check this out

Incubator filling up!

we thought we built a big enough incubator but guess we were wrong. When ever people come over they say how big it is but it is not going to be big enough to hold all of this years eggs. In years past we had always received eggs fairly spread out over the year but this season seems we will have all our eggs in the space of a few months. So that has really made the incubator room a little cramped. Luckily when we built this new building we incorporated two incubators. One we have been using as a storage room. But looks like I may have to hook up the controls on it and fire it up. So it will be a little work but it is a good problem to have.

Getting three more clutches this morning so I took a pic of this girl.

Egg number nine!

She is just about finished in this shot. That is egg number nine and she has one to go. Getting that close to get a nice picture had her a little excited. Oh yeah I know what you are asking what are the eggs going to be? Cinnamons! With any luck we will have some good odds here and there this season and have some nice morphs available.

Well I already told you about the first clutch hatching. We have the pair of het albinos available plus the pastel het albino female. So if you are looking for a pastel het albino female let me know. It is not promised out to any one just yet. She will be on the available page soon as she sheds out. Well that is the update for this morning.

What a day it was today. We received FIVE clutches this morning. That is a record here for a one day take. Also had the first clutch hatch today as well. We they are not out yet but that have slit the eggs and all. We were hopping for a pastel albino but we only had three eggs that made it and we did not even get an albino. Two het albinos and a pastel het albino. But that is okay that just means were got the bad odds over with for the season with the first clutch. Had to put together three more baby racks today that we received the other day. Still waiting for a few more but I have a little time before I will need them. Of course the best thing is to hopefully get all the offspring eating quickly so they can be delivered. If that goes well we should be able to keep a good rotation going. Any ways that is all for today. Looking for maybe four clutches tomorrow. If you are looking for het albinos or a pastel het albino send us an email. I do not know that these are promised out to any one yet. Heck for all I know Colette is going to want the pastel het albino well if it is a female I am sure she will be keeping it but if it is a male it will be available.

Well the weather warmed up and summer is upon us here in California. I am ready to head back to the beach. There is so much going on right now. We did get back in our house now that the remodel is done. That was a bear living in the motor home for three weeks. But the house is done now and it is nice. So now we are considering moving. Actually we have done a lot to prepare for a move we just have to build a new rodent facility and a new reptile facility. That takes time and money. So that brings me to snakes for sale. I need to add some more to the list and I will over the next week. I added a few this morning. When we move we will be crossing the desert during the heat of the summer. I would like to reduce the amount of snakes I have to make this trek. So if we have something for sale on the site or if you know we have something you want send me an email with your reasonable offer and we will see what we can do. I plan on moving out a good number of these 2005 offspring to make the move much easier. I will also be selling some sub adult and adult females as well. I was also just informed some adult males will be going too. We have a lot that is not listed. Maybe I can get a list together over this next week. Moving the adults will be a large task. Not looking forward to traveling when it is over 100 outside. But that is the way it will turn out if all goes as we would like it to. Have to go now kids have games today.