Discipline.

Apparently I need to learn a little bit about discipline. I said I would post every Sunday, but being in nursing school keeps me very, very busy! However, with school coming to a close and a lot of new changes happening in my world, I figured I would have a lot of fun stuff to blog about.

My females have STILL not ovulated. Both are still locking and bowl wrapping and one is laying inverted. I would like to hope she'll ovy soon!

Hopefully this week I'll be doing an outdoor photoshoot with ALL my reptiles (even the ones who don't like to sit still) so I'll be writing up a post with pictures!

The biggest news today is that I've decided to sell my spider female. She's 726g as of today and I've got her listed for about $325+shipping. I'm open to all offers/trades for female pinstripe, female mojave, female enchi, female pastel combos, or all male combos. Feel free to comment on this blog or e-mail me at bhreptilesinfo@gmail.com for more information/pictures. Here's a video of her that I took outside about a week ago!

Also, I managed to get a tail wagging video of my big normal girl. I had her with both my lesser male and the pewter male I have on breeding loan. The pewter is still really small so I was attempting to induce a little competition to get him going. You'll see him in the video and you'll see my lesser's head towards the end. Enjoy!

If you guys have any suggestions for what to blog about next, feel free to comment below and I'll make a post about it. I can also make a video if you want something specific!

April Fools!

I know I've been horrible about writing blog entries lately, but school is keeping me very, very busy!

However, as the semester is coming to a close, I find myself opening Tabitha's tub at least three times a day looking for her ovulation! She's been paired since October, eating like a monster, and showing some signs of building. However, I want her to ovulate! I've got the incubator running and an egg tub ready to go but I need her to give me some eggs before I can use any of those things!

In other news, Charlotte is slamming food. If you've been following my blogs, you'll remember that Charlotte was my "mouser" turned monster. She eats anything and everything as long as it moves (she's not a huge fan of F/T). She ate a small rat about four days ago and decided she was still hungry and ate another. No, this is not common practice for me! I found a new rodent supplier (goodbye $4 smalls!) so I stocked up o n 5 smalls to feed to my collection. I had two mediums already in my leftover tank. So, I fed those to my breeding girls who chowed down. Then I fed three of the five to the others. Only Charlotte ate. With 4 leftover rats in my small tank, they terrorized it! Wanting to get rid of my extras, I offered my building females more. Tabitha refused (good sign?) and Bella didn't hesitate. Wanting to get rid of more, I offered to Charlotte who attacked in no time! So that's 2 down...2 to go.

Not much else happening. I'm still considering selling Charlotte as well as most of my corn collection. I think I want to focus on my ball pythons. However, I can't seem to lock away the desire to hatch out a corn clutch or two. It might just turn out that I keep one breeding pair.

Another thing that's itchy is my desire for a pair of boas and hognoses. DARN IT. I NEED A REPTILE ROOM. My bedroom just isn't big enough for all the thins I want to keep! Maybe after nursing school. I can wait a year, can't I?

To Sell or Not to Sell?

I've been doing a lot of thinking recently. I love my spider girl, Charlotte, but I've come to realize that there are better spiders out there (at least are more of what I personally love in spiders). Because I want to breed high quality spiders, should I sell my 600g girl to pay for a younger, better spinner (because most people know I secretly love pinstripes)?

Or...Do I keep her in my rack because I've put in a good bit of time and money to get her up to those 600g (she was roughly 70 when I got her)? I mean, she's not a terrible spider. I just happen to prefer mine to be more"yellow", have a more broken, reduced pattern, high white sides and no striping on the neck. This is a tough one for me!

I also have a couple of corn snakes I'm considering letting go. I have a 140g snow motley female and a 70g Anery Motley het Amel male that I'm considering selling as a pair. I have sentimental value with the snow motley because she was the first corn snake to survive in my care (no, I'm not a horrible snake owner...the others died for reasons out of my control). I've had her for a year and a half and I've raised her since she was a 15g hatchling. The male I bought specifically for her so I could produce some anery motleys and snow motleys.

I know that corn snakes won't earn me any money and I have a bloodred/hypo lavender breeding pair that I'm more interested in from a project standpoint. So, should I sell the pair or keep them? Decisions, decisions, decisions.

Does anyone else ever struggle with decisions like these?

Syncing.

I don't know if anyone elses' ball pythons do this, but mine seem to sync their shed cycles together. Last month, my three sub adults all shed within a couple of days of each other. Now, two have just gone "clear" as of today and one shed overnight. Strange? I also had a corn snake shed last night as well. I don't notice the syncing so much with them. However, they pretty much shed like clockwork so I can predict when to look for sheds. It's hard to tell if some of them are in blue because of their color. My snow motley and my hypo lavender can be tricky.

It's pretty convenient because it saves on the food bill that week. I try not to feed them in shed. I will usually offer food in the beginning stages of blue, but never after that. The one who just shed ate her meal like a champ on Tuesday, the other two refused. So, as soon as they leave me some pretty skin, they will have the opportunity to eat food that's been sitting in my closet all week.

The one I'm really waiting to shed is my big girl Tabitha.

She's been locking and building lately. She was bred to a black pastel since October 1st and has been locking consistently with my lesser male since then. She's glowing (in that picture...for a before check out my other blog posts - she's in them!) and looking a little bit lumpy. I hoping to catch a pre-ov shed form her soon. She shed February 4th and before that on January 1. I'm always opening her tub to check for blue or eggs (in case I missed her ovy!).

Have a good evening, readers!

My Greatest Achievement to Date!

I've had a Miami Phase Corn Snake since middle of September. I got her from BHB Reptiles (Brian is an amazing guy to work with). Well, to be technical, my buddy Rob had her thrown into his order and I just picked her up from his apartment.

Anyway.

I couldn't get her to eat frozen. She would snub her nose at all things frozen/thawed. I tried every trick known to man. So, I decided to just let her eat live since she's a great eater.

Today I realized that she was big enough to bump up to hopper mice because she's now 51g. Because the pet store I get my feeders from has varying sizes of hoppers, I figured I would try one more time for her to eat frozen to save me $4 and the headache of trying to find a small enough hopper for her. To my surprise, she ate it! I am super stoked.

Here's a picture of my sweet girl, Callie. She was half her size in this picture. I really need some updated ones of her.

So now I'll be able to fed her frozen like the rest of my corn snakes. My only live eaters are my ball pythons simply because my freezer is not big enough to stock up on frozen small and medium rats in addition to the mice. Maybe one day I'll get me a deep freezer.

ALSO!

I have a building female normal ball python who has been off of feed for 5 weeks. I know this is pretty average, but I was getting worried. She hadn't lost any weight, so I didn't really stress over it. Last week, she ate a medium rat. Figuring it was a fluke, I offered her a medium rat tonight and it barely hit the tub before she was on it.

I guess it's been a pretty good week for feedings!

Have a great week everyone!

Breeding Frustrations

I find it terribly amusing that just when I was getting excited over my lesser male locking up with my normal female and the pastel I have on breeder loan, he suddenly becomes disinterested! I've seen no locks recently.

Both females were off feed. One had palpable follicles, the other had none. One is showing obvious signs of building, the other is not.

Thursday, I just happened to get one of the girls (of course, the one who's got no follicles and showing no building behavior) to eat a small rat.

The male continues to eat and grow. He just seems to have stalled out. With this being my first season, I'm very eager to get babies from these two! Oh well. I guess this will teach me some much needed patience.

Wish me luck, my loyal readers.

Love is in the Air

I want to take a moment to apologies to my few, but faithful, readers for my lack of posting. I'm going to try to be better at this. Hopefully, I'll be able to post at least weekly. It'll probably end up being every Sunday, so mark your calenders!

A lot has happened since I last blogged. For Christmas, my mother got me a new hypo lavender PH motley corn snake for my bloodred het hypo/motley/lavender female named Anuna. Here she is:

I do not have a picture of the male, who I've named Argos. I just haven't pulled out the camera lately to take some pictures of him. He's almost doubled his weight in a little over a month. When I got him, he weighed in at around 12g and now he's 22g so he's coming along fine!

Just after new years, I purchased a 2000g female normal named Tabitha. She has been paired with a black pastel since October, so here's to hoping for some babies! Here's Tabitha:

And now for the best part about this update: I'm breeding! Yes, you heard correctly! Tabitha has been seen locked up with my male, Jax. Here's a wonderful picture of the two of them. Keep in mind  that what the picture is focused on are their tails. See how they are crisscrossed? That means they are "getting lucky."

It took me several tries to get them to lock up. I was worried she wasn't interested in breeding anymore. However, a storm front blew through so I figured I would try them. It took Jax a good 15 or so hours, but he finally seduced the unseduceable!

In addition to being paired with the lovely Tabitha, Jax is currently locked up with a pastel female named Bella. Now, I don't own Bella. She belongs to a friend of mine. We're doing a breeding loan so say a little prayer that we get babies from them! The first picture was taken last week and the second was taken this morning.

As for what I want out of the pairings, for the Jax x Bella pairing, I'm hoping for some pastel lessers and some lessers and some pastels. I'd REALLY love a pastel lesser female and a pastel female. The guy who owns Bella and I are going to split the clutch so I won't really know what I get until after eggs hatch. As for the Jax x Tabitha pairing, I'm hoping for some lessers and black pastels (I'm also okay with just black pastels). I'll probably hold back a black pastel if I get one I like. The rest of the babies will be sold and the money put into another male and maybe another single gene female. The following are some morphs I would REALLY like to add to my collection: enchi, cinnamon, mojave, pinstripe, albino, and pied.

Have a nice day everyone!