We have been doing some construction lately. First thing we did was to build some more racks for our breeder males. We use 28 qt. Sterilites for the males, and have been using expanded PVC to build the racks. We had one built already, and needed to add 2 more, to get the rest of our breeders out of the ARS hatchling racks. While I was taking pics of the new racks, I also took an updated pic of the adult room with all of the racks in place now. We still need 3 more CB-70 racks, and those are in line after our current construction project (to be mentioned in a bit). After I put the new male racks in place, I decided to take a pic of all of the males that were getting moved. So, what a great opportunity for a Tub ‘O Balls photo. In the shot are 18 breeder males (see if you can pick them all). So of them are Het for other traits, so I know you can’t get them all right. We also finally received our Tiger male in, and I put up a pic of him as well.
Lastly, I included a pic of our latest construction project. A new walk-in incubator. It is just starting, but I will post up pics as we progress on the build out. This is being built in the old adult Ball room, which is now the hatchling and yearling building. It will be 7.5′ x 4.5′. We should be able to hold a bunch of eggs in there. Speaking of eggs, we started breeding (slowly) this past week, and got a lock from the only male we introduced (Sugar x Pastel). We have some more males in tonight, and maybe somemore pics next week. Enough of my yaking, here are the pics.

The new breeder male racks:

The new adult Ball room starting to fill up:

Tub O’ Balls(remember 18 males, can you see them all?):

New Tiger male (Enchi x Desert):

The start of the new incubator(walk-in style):

It’s been over a month since I posted. My apologies. My day job has been hectic, and with moving animals into the new room, doing the Tinley Park show and taking care of all of the hatchlings, I don’t know how I even kept up.

We had a great time at Chicago, and were able to sell some snakes, and we even did a trade for 2 new animals. We were able to pick up an 08 Desert female and an 09 Tiger male (Enchi Desert). We are waiting for the Tiger to get shipped, and as soon as we get him, I’ll post pics of them both. Hopefully we will be able to do that next week. I have also been busy trying to update the available section of the website, so go check that out if you are looking for your next addition.

On a production note, I am very excited to have received our very first litter of Kenyan Sand Boas. I apologize for the pic, but I pulled these from mom right before walking out the door to drive to Chicago. This was a result of breeding our Super Flame male toa Flame female. These guys have some really vibrant colors, and I can’t wait to see some of them grow. We ended up with 4.4, so I can’t complain about the ratios. They are pictured below. Also pictured below them are our first ever Clown Ball Pythons. I have been in need of a few female Clowns, and I got my wish with 2 of them. This was from breeding our Clown male (direct descendant of the Circus Ball) to a Het Clown female that was fathered by a BHB Reduced patterned Clown male. As you can see, we were able to produce one very reduced girl. She won’t be going anywhere. The entire clutch consisted of 1.2 Clowns and 0.2 Hets (we got very lucky with Clown Hets this year, having produced 2.10 of them). Enjoy the pics, and stop by next week, as I plan to get back to updating this every week again.

The highlight of the week has been the completion (almost)of our new adult snake room. I say almost, because it is missing the sink. I haven’t been able tofind the sink I saw a while back, soI will look for another week or two, and then I will look to the internet if I have to. Pics are below. I will put some updated pics up after it fills up more. It really takes a while tomove racks from one building toanother. I definitely don’t envy people that actually have to move a collection over a distance with a vehicle.

Now for the horrible hatching week. Probably our most anticipated clucth of the year hatched yesterday. Clutch #42 was from breeding our Pinstripe Het. VPI Axanthic to a VPI Axanthic girl. She gave us 1 slug, 1 infertile egg and 9 good eggs. Man I was excited, how could I miss this. Well, we got 6 Pin Het Axanthics, 2 Het Axanthics and 1 Axanthic. Hey, we have hatched some good stuff, and still have some interesting stuff in the bator, so I figured I would hit the Axanthic Pin in one of the other clutches (we have 2 more shots from Het Axanthic girls). Clutch #43 was from a Pastel Poss. Het. G-Stripe bred to his Pastel daughter. Well, he didn’t prove out, or maybe it was her, but we didn’t get any Super Pastels either. Nor did we get any Normals. 8 Pastels crawled out of the eggs. Man, it can’t get any worse can it. Well, I cut my Sable to Spider clutch. 1 Sable, 2 Normals, 1 Spider, and the last egg was a fully formed dead Sable Spider. Gee Whiz. Last kick in the pants was our Cinny Het Hypo bred to his Cinny Sister. We hoped she would be Het Hypo. Well, No Cinny Hypos, No Hypos, and guess what, no Super Cinnys either. 2 Cinnys and 3 Normals. Hopefully our luck will turn around.

On a brighter note, though, we do have at least 1 Stinger Bee in the egg, and possibly 2, along with a very reduced Enchi.

Lastly, I took a pic of some of the holbacks from this year. We waited until some of these shed before taking the pic, so taht is the reason for the delay in updates for some of these animals. Pictured clockwise from the top left are a Genetic Stripe female, a Mystic Potion female, a Sable Pinstripe female, a Pastel Spotnose male and in the center, a Pewter Het Pied male.

Enjoy the pics, and thanks for reading,

This week has been fairly exciting. We tried last year for Pastel Sppotnoses, but the one clutch we got, failed to hit the cross. This year we got another small clutch, but we got lucky and hatched out a male Pastel Spotnose. He just shed this week, and I am thrilled. I’ll get another pic of him soon.

Also last year, we tried to produce a Sable Pinstripe. The Pin female decided not to lay last year. This year, we bred the same 2 animals together, and out of a five egg clutch, we were fortunate enough to produce a female Sable Pinstripe. It appears to look very similar to a Chocolate Pinstripe, but has some very subtle differences. I have long felt that Sables and Chocolates were as similar to one another as Mojaves and Lessers or Cinnys and Black Pastels. I was hoping for a Male Sable Pin, so that I could attempt to make a Camo Ball a bit faster, but I guess that project will have to wait a bit longer. I guess this will allow me to make another Sable cross male to breed to the Sable Pin female. I haven’t figured it out yet, but maybe a Sable Spider, Sable Pastel or Sable Enchi. We’ll see what happens. For now, you just have to enjoy the pics.

We have had an exciting week. We finally hit on the Mystic Potion, after missing on our first clutch. We also just today hatched out our first Pastel Spotnose. We tried to make these last year and missed, but were fortunate enough to get a male this year. We have some Spotnose girls growing up, so maybe we can make a Pastel Powerball in the near future. We also hatched out 3.2 Double Het VPI Axanthic Pieds. They look normal, but I know what they can do,and therefore, it was exciting for me. Lastly, we have 2 clutches that will be hatching soon that we are excited about. First up is a Sable Pinstripe waiting in the egg. I can’t wait to see it out. Stay tuned in to see it when it emerges. We also have 3 Pewter Het. Pieds and 2 Pastel Het Pieds in the eggs from breeding our Pied male to a Sterling female. The Pewters look amazing. On to the pics for the week.

Have a good week, and check back soon.

Daytona was alot of fun this year, and I can even blame the event for not posting in a while. I helped a buddy work his table in Daytona this year, so I did have work to do, but I managed to get around a bit. There were some cool things there, and I managed to pick up a new project. I have wanted to get into Blood Pythons for a while, and this is the year that we will be doing it. We picked up a Red Stripe Het. Albino Blood female from Keith McPeek, and we talked to Tracy Barker about our next Blood purchase. So, hopefully in a month or so, we can make the other additions. Below is the female we got from Keith.

We alsoxwere able to add another long awaited purchase this year. My long term goal with our Nicaraguan Boa project is to make a T+ Albino Motley. We have a Het T+ male and produced some Poss Hets this year. Thereforethe only thin missing was a Motly male. Below is our new Motley Nicaraguan from Exotics by Nature.

Lastly, we were finally hatched out our first Corn Snakes ever. This is mostly just a fun project for us, but it is always exciting to see snakes hatch. This was a breeding between out Hypo Lavender male to a Candy Cane female. These babies are tripple Hets, and look normal, but it was still exciting. We ended up with 3.5 babies. Below is a pic of the pippers and the first 2 babies out of the egg.

I do have one last picture (I promise, the last one). This is the first of a couple picsof Ball Python holbacks (the next picture contains snakes that haven’t hatched yet). Pictured are a Hypo Mojave female, a Pastel Yellow Belly female, a Pastel Ivory and a Mojave Spider Het. Hypo male. Enjoy the pic, and have a great week.

I know it hasn’t been a week, but I had some snakes shed that I was excited about, so I thought I would take a pic. In the pic are our first Pieds ever. We bought our pair of Hets in 2004, and have since added a Pied male. This happens to be her first clutch, and consequently our first ever Pieds to hatch. Included in the pic is our second ever Hypo Cinny. I love these guys, and this one looks better than the one we hatched last year. Enjoy the pic

We also happened to get another first. We had four clutches laid in one day on Monday. That was a first for us. They also happen to be great clutches, with potential to hatch, Sable Spiders, Enchi Spiders, BumbleBees and Sterlings. We should have some great fun cutting in about 52 days.

Lastly, we got our 50th clutch today. This happens tobe another first. We have never had 50 clutches before, so another landmark has been reached. This also happens to be one of our most anticipated clutches of the year. Our Cinny Het. Hypo bred his sister and she laid 5 eggs. If she proves out, we could hatch a Super Cinny Hypo. Wish us luck.

We were on vacation all last week, and got home this past Saturday. Plenty happened while we were gone, and he we are to document it. The first thing to happen while we were gone was our first ever Pieds hatched. We started our Pied project in 2004, and finally hatched 2 males. They are in shed right now, so once they get some clean skin, we’ll get some pics. Our second ever Hypo Cinnamon hatched while we were away as well. I was hoping for a female, but we got a male instead. That’s ok, he is beautiful just the same. Same as the Pieds, I’ll get pics once he sheds.

The next excitement that occured while we were gone was some eggs being laid. Our first shot at Axanthic Pinstripes was laid. We got 9 eggs from our Pin Het Axanthic to an Axanthic girl. Man I hope I get some luck here. We also got a clutch of eggs from a Pastel Poss. Het. Genetic Stripe bred to one of his Pastel daughters. We got 8 eggs from this female. I sure hope we can prove her out and get some Pastel G-Stripes or even a Super Pastel G-Stripe, but I have never hatched a Super Pastel, so those would be just fine as well.

Lastly for the week, while we were away, our Pastel Mystic and Mystic shed. I thought that since this project is fairly new, I would get some good comparison shots so that everyone could see what this gene looks like compared to other animals. The first picture shows a Pastel Yellow Belly on the left, a Pastel Mystic on the right, and a Pastel in the rear.

This picture shows a Normal on the left, a Mystic on the right and a Mojave in the rear.

Thanks for reading, and check back next week, for some other fun stuff.

For 2 years now I have been waiting for my Mystic male to breed. He finally decided to turn on this year. We have 5 clutches in the incubator and 2 more coming from him. This first clutch was a bit of a surprise. This Pastel female always lays early in the season. She ended up laying eggs, and I never saw the Mystic breed with her. Last year she bred the Cinnamon, and produced 3 Cinnamons and 3 Pastels but no Pewters or Normals. So, I was curiousto see if she would produce any Cinnamons or Pewters thisyear. Our Mystic never turned on, and I never saw a copulation by himuntil this clutch was already on the ground. Well, the Mystic got it doner. We ended up with a male Pastel Mystic, a male Mystic and 2.1 Normals. Her is a pic of the Pastel Mystic and the Mystic.
We still have two shots at Mystic Potions, and two more shots at new Mystic crosses. Stay tuned to see what those might be.

Another week come and gone. We made an adjustment to our incubator temps. We had been incubating at 88 degrees this year, and still cutting our eggs at day 50-52. Well the eggs aren’t hatching until day 62 or so, and I think the babies were being exposed too long, and it was causing problems. We increased the temps back to 89 degrees, and we will see how that works. We did cut our clutch from Mystic to Pastel, and it looks like it will be exciting. That is all I will say for now. Check back early next week, and we should have some pics up.

Lastly, we got another one of our most exciting clutches this morning. I opened tubs this morning to find our Sterling female sitting on eggs. She bred our Pied male, so this clutch only has two outcomes. Pastel Het Pieds or Pewter Het Pieds. Here’s to a pile of Pewters. I was also surprised by the fact that she was sitting on 7 eggs. I palpated her numerous times throughout the season and only ever felt 5 follicles. The strange thing is out of 7 eggs, we still only have five, as 2 of them are infertile. They are still in the incubator, but I bet they’ll be dead in a week or two. Enjoy the pic below.