I admit it. I have tried and tried and tried, and have not been very successful other than cataloging it on the blog and on the website the basic data for my animals.
Feedings, sheds, weights...
I write them down, I put them in programs, and then I stop. And remember again... And stop again.
I always have data for the last month for most animals, but beyond that (other than hatching dates), I just don't keep good records.
Why?
Because I have a reasonable amount of animals to take care of, and most of the time, I have milestone information that helps decide whether or not this animal will breed, move up in a bigger tub, etc... But nothing weekly.
I haven't had the time for it.
So when my friend Anonymous asks me what the pre-lay weight of the Spider was... I have no idea.
The answer is.. Big.
My guesstimate would be around 2000+ grams.
The official answer would be "I have no idea."
Now of course, now that I have been asked, I did weigh her today for her post egg laying weight.
1272 grams.
And no, I don't weigh eggs... I'm not sure what the point of that is, really. It's cool data to collect, but I worry about moving the eggs around too much and stuff like that.
Paranoid much?
With eggs, yeah.
So there you go.
Not enough information. Even I am dissatisfied with my own answer, but I can't justify spending 3+ hours weighing and recording snakes every week.
This is just me talking here, and of course should you have the time to do it, I say GO FOR IT and that I'm also kinda jealous that you have time for that kind of thing.
I would love to say that I could provide all the information including sheds and feeds and poops and water changes and hissings and etc... But no. I can't.
I go in, I do it, I clean up, and I move on to the next thing.
I need to get better at it, and again, I have all intentions of doing so, but if wishes were fishes or something like that... I dunno.
In June we can reconvene and see what I can do to hash things out.
But the power of the blog, and part of the reason why I do it is to keep my own public records of things over the years. I do have records of the largest clutch I have was twelve eggs from a normal back before I was doing the blog. It was an awesome clutch of largeness, but not so much in terms of odds. It was something along the lines of three Pastels... Yeah, not too hot.
But there you go.
I hope to be able to beat the twelve egg record at some point soon. That would be pretty sweet...
How bout you guys?
Largest clutches?
Ways you keep records?
What records you keep and what is important to you?
BTW: I do keep baby hatchling records up to a point.. Just for arguments sake, as I know some people like that kind of information. But if I have it for 6-8 months before it is sold, I guarantee there will be gaps of information.
So there you have it.
Have a great day, my friends!
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3 comments:
Just for the record on records I raise Himalayan Rabbits Heather. I have a program where to keep all their records and pedigrees and such...but like you I can tell ya. It's hard to keep up with them and I only have a small herd. Life takes priority....as long as birthdates and who is who is kept straight...it's all good right?
Usually, I'm like that: start doing something regularly and then slowly taper off. But thankfully, I've kept up with the BP info and stuff. Not that it's super-important for most people; I'm using it for research, trying to find trends and such. It's kinda fun for me. I keep records on pretty much anything I can: weights; sheds; poops; dates of ovulation, pre-lay shed, laying, hatching; clutch weight, number of eggs, average egg weight; who eats what and when; any health issues; etc. Soon, I plan on also keeping track of incubation temperatures with respect to incubation time and shipping temperatures along a snake's route.
If you ever want to weigh eggs without moving them any more than you normally do, simply weigh the lay box before and after you put the eggs in and subtract the two. Voila!
I try to weigh all the snakes once a month, but someone else suggested only weighing after they shed/poop so one gets a better idea of their "empty" weight. It's also easier on the keeper since they don't shed/poop very often and they don't poop all at once, so one only has to weigh a couple here and there instead of all at once.
As for largest clutch.... I haven't been doing this for long, so it's currently eight, though my biggest female is sure to break that record this year.
I don't keep tons of records either. Feeding is the only record I keep each week. I may weigh all of them 2-3 times a year. I figure if they eat each week then they should be gaining weight. I keep more weight records for the first few months of babies just to make sure. I know if they eat they poop so I don't keep records for that.
At breeding time I'll weigh the female of course to make sure she's up for it.
When dealing with 40+ snakes it's enough work just to keep track of feeding. I suppose I would keep a more detailed record of a certain animal if I suspected a problem but that hasn't been the case so far. If a person wants to keep track of every single thing on a daily or weekly basis, more power to them and it sure can't hurt. I feel one can go overboard with the record keeping though.
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