The Snake Keeper Blog

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.

Egg production is coming along here real strong right now. This morning was no exception. Six from one female and a dozen from another.

12 perfect eggs

Wow! Seeing 12 eggs from one clutch makes the six eggs look like a small clutch. Any ways that brings the total egg production up to 143 so far this season. Not bad for the end of April.

Most of the projects are coming along nicely this season. Next week the hatching cycle begins starting on the 5th. That is where the real fun begins. I love getting eggs but it is even better watching them hatch. Waiting for that first clutch of the season to pip is the longest wait. I had some one email me the other day saying the next 60 days were going to kill him waiting for his Mojave eggs to hatch. It is true it seems like a long time. But after you get past the first clutch then they just keep coming.

We are just excited that this season we will have a good number of morphs for the major shows. Usually we really do not have too many before Summers end but this year is the exception.

The BallCam is back on line and we will be featuring clutches hatching as often as we can. We may even try to show a few snake laying eggs as well. Right now the camera is just showing the room so you can test it now to see if it is working for you. It is not set level but you will see if you have a good feed or not.
Well that about wraps it up for now.

The season is really off to a great start here now. I may have more to write about as things progress. It would seem that we are going to have an early season this year which is real nice as so many times we never have anything to bring to the Daytona show. This year though it actually looks like we will have some nice animals out to bring for sale. Now if the weather just cooperates enough so we can get them there we will have it made. We are really looking forward to what this season will bring us. I do not want to give away too much but we should see some new crosses that will really be nice.

Daylight savings time is here and I could not be happier. That is the signal for the cold weather to leave and bring on the warm weather. It also means eggs are on the way. I just updated part of the for sale page and took some new pics for some of the snakes that were not in the shed right now. Seems every time I go to take pics some for them are in the shed. We are also working on getting the BallCam up and running. Had some IP address changes this past year and now all that has to be re-configured.

So that is about all for now. I want to take a few pics and show you some things soon but that will have to wait for a week or so. I hope to be posting a potential offspring list soon. If you know you want something let us know and we will get you on the list.

The forums are off line right now. The software that runs them had been hacked and taken over. It was not a good thing. So we pulled them off so we could find a fix for the problem. We should have them back up this week if all goes well. If not we may have to find a new software for the forums.
Do you know what Monday is???? The first day of spring! I can not wait for the weather to warm up. Winter is way too long even in California. Any ways lots going on right now maybe I will write more about it later.

Here we are the last day of the month. March is knocking at the door. Amazing how fast this year is moving along already. Tax day is just around the corner and I for one am not looking forward to it. If you are in business for yourself you understand how this is one of the worst days of the year. Any ways enough of the sad stuff.

Well have you checked out the available section lately? Well we added a new feature. We can now list a snake and keep it up at the top of the page as a featured snake. This is cool as I can put a couple there every day if I like. So if you want to see if any thing is new or now you may have to look below featured animals. I may also have deal there often so keep a watch on it.

Well have to get out of the house now and get some work done. Should be an exciting day with what I have to do. I am working on the house doing some re-modeling. You know just little jobs. Like re texturing the ceiling, new kitchen cabinets etc. So today is a little demolition day. I will have to write a little about it tomorrow.