Wierd Weather and breedings

Pastel Super Mojave x Lemonblast

So of course, the weird weather here in Southern California has led to some very concerning breeding conditions, but I have been watching accordingly, and have captured a few breedings in the last few days.

Also, the problem with the weather is that the humidity has been very low, and lots of dry sheds have resulted. This paired with the fact that I don't like to harass my animals while during the breeding season as much as I would normally has basically shown itself in the stuck shed on the pictures for today.

Please forgive me.

Above, we have a new breeding and a new female to the loop. The Lemonblast female is a recent acquisition that just came out of quarantine. She has now been paired up with the Pastel Super Mojave, hopefully to make some stellar Super Pastel Mojave Pinstripes. Fingers crossed for this pairing...

Vanilla het Hypo x Pastel

And here we have the Vanilla het Hypo male with a Pastel. Nothing super fancy, but I'd love to have a few Vanilla Pastels to work with in the future. Here's to a bunch of combos in this clutch! He is a stud of a breeder, so hopefully there will be some good Vanilla stuff in this upcoming season for sure.

Spider het TSK Axanthic x Pastel het TSK Axanthic

Last but not least, we have my favorite pairing of the blog. I have been shooting for Axanthic Killerbees ever since I saw them from NERD back in 2006. This is my big chance to make some Axanthic Bumblebees, which I could then pair up with the Pastel Axanthic that I produced last season. Fingers crossed for something AMAZING out of this pairing, since this is my only shot this season at it.

So there you go, my friends. I hope that this gives you a glimpse into the possibilities here at Heather's Herps in 2012. I am getting excited, and although I expect this to be a late season for us due to the weather, it should still be an awesome one!

Have a great day, my friends!

The Yet to be Proven Breeder Club

As I mentioned before, I have several males in the "Yet to be Proven Breeder Male club" (which we will shorten to the YPBMC) , as we all do after breeding for so long. All of these males I have produced over the years, and I have to say that I am glad to have them, albeit a bit apprehensive of their functionality in this seasons go-rounds.

Below, we have my Lemonblast Het Albino male that I produced last year from my Lemonblast to my Albino. My goal was not to make Lemonblast het Albino males, but that is what the outcome ended up being. I produced 2.0, and kept back this male to play around with to create some Albino Pins and Albino Spinners.

You notice how I didn't say Albino Lemonblasts and Albino Spinnerblasts? Yes, I don't really care all that much for the fact that Pastel is a factor with this male. It's a plus, of course, but in Albino form, Pastels have a bit left to be desired. Be that as it may, I love him and he's fun to look at. He is a shy one, and has been residing with my Spider het Albino female... under her water dish.

Fingers crossed with this guy.

And here we have another male I produced last year...

This is my Pewterbee male, one of the nicest ones I've seen around, if I do say so myself. I love his colors, and although I don't find the Cinnamon Spider to be appealing in the least (although may change my mind when I hatch out a few), I want to put him in with a few other females to see what luck may have with this guy.

He is currently in with one of my proven breeder Pastel females, and although I've seen cuddling, I have not seen ACTION.

Come on, little man. You can do it!

And this isn't it, my friends. There are SEVERAL other males in the YPBMC, one of which we already are familiar with, since I complained about him last year. 

My friend, Homey.. But we shall discuss him and a few others tomorrow.

Have a great breedingful day, my friends. And send some good breeding mojo my way too. Maybe I will have spoken too soon on some of these guys...

I have a MINION!!!!

Joel and I went out on our last day of "Summer Break" together and went to Knotts Berry Farm.
And there, I played Clinko (A knockoff of Plinko, the game where you put a disk down a studded board and need to land in a specific box at the bottom) and won the most awesomest prize a snake breeder could ask for.

I won...

A Minion.

I have named him Ba-Boi.

If you are not sure what this refers to, the movie Despicable Me is a great time.

I can't say that I am an Evil Genius by any means, but I enjoy knowing I have a Minion of my very own.

So when I got home, I put him to work.

He checked on some of the breeder females...

Then he helped clean up the floor.

I was very pleased with his work. I may have to have him meet with Marty Cohen next time and both of them can do some work together... Maybe I will have a Gin and Tonic and watch them work. That sounds amazing....

Anyway, Ba-Boi found a female on eggs.

So I jumped into action.

This gal is one of my Het Red Axanthic females, and I bred her to my Lemonblast as was suggested by a friend. The combination has only been done by Corey Woods, and it is FANTASTIC.

So here we go!

Clutch 31: Lemonblast to Het Red Axanthic. Seven lovely eggs.

I can't wait to see what hatches out of these eggs.

Alright. I'm off for now. Have a great day, my friends!

Clutches 18, 19, and 20

 Before I begin:

HAPPY BIRTHDAY, JOEL!

Okay.. I'm done.

Oh boy! Well, I got back in late Sunday night, so I didn't really do much but prep some shipments and get myself a bit of rest.

So on Monday, I went thru to check on everyone, and lo and behold, MORE CLUTCHES had been laid. Some of these I wasn't even prepared for (meaning I didn't expect them to lay). 

Lets begin with Clutch #18.

This is my Pastel female bred to my Lemonblast male. I have yet to produce anything Killerblast, so this clutch will be fun to see what pops out!

Six eggs! They look great, and I can't wait to see what they hold. Here's to some Killerblasts.

For those of you who follow the blog over the years, do you remember the devastation of my last Queenbee clutch?

Lesser Pastel to Spider..

Last year, all the eggs went bad. 

This year, that better not happen...

Different Spider female, more hope for the future.

I have six chances to finally produce my Queenbee. 

Fingers crossed again for these.

And Clutch 20..

This clutch is the one that I didn't expect at ALL.

Take one look at this gal.

She is TINY.

She is a Pastel 50% possible het TSK Axanthic female I got in trade a few years back, and although I knew she was old enough, she was less than 1200 grams this season. She was not supposed to be bred, but apparently I put the TSK Axanthic male in with her once or twice.

So imagine my surprise when I see these eggs in this tub! 

She is even more tiny, clocking in at 703 grams after laying. 

And the eggs have more than likely been in the tub for a bit, since I didn't have her on egg watch while I was gone. But I wrote down the date I found the eggs as the lay date on these guys. We will see!

The eggs look great, albeit smaller than usual.

Now that they are here, I just hope that she proves!

Fingers crossed on this one too, as this will be (if she proves) a part of my Killerbee Axanthic project.

So there you go, my friends. YAY for being in the twenties for clutch count, but I need things to start hatching soon, or else I'm going to be running out of incubator space. 

Have a great day!

I Heart My Readers

Pastel Het Red

There are days where I wonder how many people out there read this  and actually absorb what I say... 

There are days where I wonder why I am even typing up anything, when I have nothing really important to say (so I throw in a few pictures to break up the monotony).

But I have been doing this every week day for the past three years now, and I feel like I can't let you guys down.

And I have been trying my damndest.

Ups or downs, things being what they are and things being what they aren't, I come here every day and type up something for you all.

And I hope you enjoy it.

And of course, sometimes there are things that I say that make people go out of their way and help me out, by e-mail, comment or what have you.

Yesterday was one of those days.

You remember when I was so proud of myself for finding the colored China Markers? I think it was last week or so... 

Chris R, you are absolutely fantastic for sending me a bajillion black China Markers in the mail. 

Now I will never ever ever ever ever ever ever run out. 

Ever.

And I thank you from the bottom of my heart for that. 

You didn't need to do that, but I appreciate it very much that you read my blog, and went out of your way for me. 

Now, this is just one instance, and I know you all out there are also super awesome as well.

So this season, I am going to make the blog more interesting. 

I am planning on doing a few contests/interactive things and giving away a few animals in the process.

So lets all hope/wish/pray for eggs soon, so that these babies can be hatched to be involved in these games!!!

Lemonblast

Have a fantastic day, my friends.

You especially, Chris R. :)

Hey Boys!

 I went a bit overboard with what I was planning to do last night.  I had originally intended to check on the girls... but what I ended up doing was playing with my boys.

It helped, in a way, cause I know what males I can use this season in the mix. Let me introduce you to a few of them today.

This guy is Mobee. The Mojave Spider. I am really excited about using this guy, since he is a newer addition, and I have GREAT plans for him. At least a few Pastels and maybe my Pinstripe? I'm not sure.

This guy is also a newer addition to the group, and I only have one female that I know for sure he is going to. This guy is my Hypo possible het Pied. And who is his girlfriend? 

Well, my Pied possible het Hypo.

Can't wait to see them both prove out!

And Carmine, a resident male here. He is going to be making more Caramels, and hopefully some females this year... And some double het Caramel Glows!

My not so amazing Lemonblast male... He is a great breeder, but not too much to look at compared to some other Lemonblasts I have. I am not quite sure what I'm going to do with him this season... He has great potential, I'm just not sure what. Maybe a Mojave or two? And a Pastel? Yeah, I'm not sure.

This guy right here is my stud Pied male. He has been with me forever. He will be with a few leftover possible hets that I have sitting around, and I'm not sure what else I want to put in with him. I love love love some Black Pastel Pieds, so maybe that will be a good place to start. The great thing about Pieds is that anything combined with them is usually pretty awesome!

So of course, there are a few more boys to be introduced, but right now, these guys should be enough stud-muffin eye candy... 

Have a great day, my friends!

Pics and Musings (Clutch #36)

So over the last few days, I have been swamped with things to help me get more organized. I am trying my darndest to get back into the right groove to know which way is up, but I've not had enough time to get my head on straight.

This gal echoes my sentiments exactly... Plus her head coloration and pattern are awesome.

Gotta love Super Pastels.

Anyway, with everything going on, I'm sure you guys noticed that I have been slacking on the clutch records and what has hatched and when.

I am actually getting a website revamp, and I am getting a page that will be dedicated to that exactly.

Hoooray!!!

As of right now, the available page, which I am fully aware was horrible for anyone without a super fast computer, is now new! New program, more info, more cool stuff. HOORAY!

Take a look and let me know what you think. I haven't updated any of the animals into it yet, but hopefully I will be able to do so over the next few days.

Plus, everyone is extra chubby right now because of feeding, so I am going to wait for a few days for pictures so that the bulges go away.

And here is a picture of my holdback Black Pastel het Hypo. Random, yes, but I uploaded it, so I wanted to post her up.

The second to last clutch of the season has hatched out as of yesterday, and they look great! I didn't get my Lemonblast het Albino female, but I did get:

2.0 Lemonblast het Albinos
1.1 Pinstripe het Albinos
0.1 Het Albinos

So the last clutch is due to hatch in two weeks, and I can't wait to see what pips out. This will be a Sterling to Het Red... Pewter het Reds are awesome!

Have a great day, my friends.

Musings and Lemons that Blast

So most of the clutch is out, and they are looking great! One more pastel is in the egg, but I think it may be a still born. It's not responding well to being poked..

Here are the sex odds:

2.0 Lemonblasts (of course...)
1.3 Pastels
0.2 Pinstripes
1.0 Normals

The top left Lemonblast is GORGEOUS, and I am really proud of him. If I didn't have one already, he would be the holdback.

So lots of cool things hatching out...

Things are also shedding out, and I did update my available page with what has shed and is eating.

I am getting ready for the show season, and things are coming on really fast!

There is a lot to do to prepare for a show, and a lot to plan for.

Also, being at shows lets you see and think about what you as a collector and breeder want to do with your animals, and maybe get more.

This seems to be my biggest problem when I go into a show. The WANT.

The WANT is a dangerous thing, and it is perpetuated by being shown animals that you cannot have or can have only by selling a kidney or something bodily.

It is a bittersweet time, wherein I realize that there is so much more to be done, and so many more animals out there.

I have to admit that when I came back from the show last weekend, I had a moment of sadness. There are people out there that have 100x the collection I have, produce killer animals, and just have better luck this year than me.

Yes, there is always next year, for sure. I intend to be here for life... BUT, it doesn't help when you see people have animals on tables that you hoped to hatch out just one, in quantity.

So, here we are, at the crossroads. Daytona is this weekend,  and we will see what crazy things have been hatched out, what crazy people have done what, and hopefully I can share it all with you from friends that were there.

Chin up, my friends. It's a great ride, a rollercoaster of sorts.. We are on the downswing, but things will come up!

Have a fantastic weekend, my friends.

More hatchings continued..

Lemonblasts are pipping, my friends.

I have to say, I was expecting better odds, but this will have to do.

Once they cut the egg and do not leave a hole, I tear it open for them. Those are not my own cuts, they are the snakes... with my help.

Here is one of the Pins in the clutch...

And this is a discolored Pin...

This Pastel decided to take a peek out the window that I had opened for it.

How cute!

So from what I could see, I have:

5 Pastels
2 Pinstripes
2 Lemonblasts
1 Normal

I'm curious how the sex odds will look when they come out.

Tomorrow will be an update on the hatches, as well as an overview on a few of the questions that have been posed to me.

Have a fantastic day, my friends!

Happy Fourth of July

The Fourth of July for us was a big to do.

Two more clutches were on the ground Sunday morning, one of which I was waiting for, and the other I am waiting to see what happens.

Lets touch on the "waiting to see what happens" clutch.

This is a female I bought several years ago that is supposedly 100% het Caramel Albino. Problem is, I never got the paperwork on her, and she was sold to me because she was a poor feeder. If she does prove out, it would be fantastic, but I'm hesitant to call her a 100% het until I see what comes out of the egg.

She was bred to a Visual Caramel male, so even though she only gave me 4 eggs (yes, she was a small one, and is more than 3 years old), she should be a make or break het this season.

I found her originally with three and one more to lay, so this is right after she was done.

And then, there was the one I was waiting for.

I love Spinners, and I love Spinner Blasts. I have no Lemon Blast or Spinner females, so this clutch will be very important for the collection.

Lemon Blast male to Spider female.

She was a good Momma, and a first time mother as well.

This is one of my more exciting clutches for seeing what pops out. I can't wait, cause I LOVE Spinners, and Spinner Blasts just sweetens the pot.

KABOOOM!

What a fantastic Fourth of July!

Now to see these little gems hatch in two months.

Have a fantastic week, my friends.

Happy Belated Fathers Day

Happy Belated Father's Day to all you proud poppas out there.

I say the same to some of my males here, as it was a busy weekend this weekend in terms of clutches.

Here is a clutch I caught on Saturday night. This normal female was bred to the Lemon Blast mostly, but I think she was also with the Sterling and the Pastel Lesser. Thus, the question mark...

But this so far has been my largest clutch. 10 nice eggs! ALRIGHT!

And then, I checked a few more females that night to make sure they were on the up and up.

I opened the tub to see this...

Yes... That looks as painful in the photo as it did in person.

So I left her alone, and went to check the incubator.

Hey...

What's this?

They are a week early! I'm not sure why this is the case, but most of my babies come out about a week early. I have my incubator at 90 degrees Fahrenheit, but... here they are!

So again, I let them be, and go to bed.

Fast forward to Sunday.

I go back to check on Miss Dog Tongue, as I call her, as she was purchased from a Pet Store without her fork. She has no fork...

I shall try to get a photo eventually of this phenomenon, but I digress..

The first eggs that she laid was this two egg combined slug. I saw her kick it out, and it was very weird. That actually was what she was laying while I was taking pictures.

So I'm bummed, cause if this slug is there, what about the rest?

Well... It wasn't horrible. But it wasn't awesome either.

8 good eggs, from what I believe is the Sterling. We shall see.

So I clean her up, set her up, and realize she has one more left in her. CRAP.

I leave her to her business, and a few hours later come back to see another slug.

So final count for Dog Tongue (which I realize now I spelled wrong on the card), was 8 eggs, 4 slugs (or 5 slugs if you count the two melded together individually).

Not my best clutch... but it could have been worse.

And in my rush to get these counted and done, I forgot to take pictures (AGAIN) of the momma on eggs, but here is the other clutch of the day on Sunday.

Hopefully this gal should prove out to be Het Ghost. I need some POG females.

Five good big eggs.

Can't complain!

So three more clutches on the ground, plus one hatching.

Oh right!! Gotta go check on those babies...

By Sunday evening, they were all out.

Final count: Pastel x Pied clutch

0.4 Pastels Het Pied
1.1 Het Pieds

I have to be honest, I was kinda hoping for a Male or two that were Pastel Het Pied. I know people prefer to have them than the females, but... I guess for my own benefit, I lucked out!

So goes the world, I guess. 

So the season is a GO GO GO so far, and we are now officially in 2010 and have 2010 babies!

HOORAY!

And YAY for my proud snake poppas. Good job, buddies.

Have a fantastic day, my friends.

Pairings of recent note

Well, I have been missing the actual locks of a lot of my animals this season. Why? I have no idea...

Maybe I'm not actually getting locks, which would make me very sad, so lets just say I'm missing them!

But here are a few I did catch!

This is my male Lemon Blast to a female Spider. He's having a good ole' time in there, getting the job done.

And the Sterling attempting a Black Pastel female. He has managed before, and he shall do so again, but apparently I am going to be missing it again...

And the Axanthics together (not locked, but oh so cute, in bad lighting that makes them look awful)... Hopefully I can prove the female to be Het for Albino as well this year!

I have to say, I'm sad to be missing these locks that are happening, as that always gets me hyped up for the action ahead. Since I haven't been seeing it as much as I would normally, I feel like the season may not be all I hoped it would be.

BUT... lets not fret, my friends. The eggs are not yet laid, the season is not yet over, and we have plenty of time.

Let us think positively and hope that there are plenty more locks to be seen and photographed and enjoyed in the near future.


Have a fantastic day, my friends!