Holdbacks that aren't

I am a difficult person when it comes to making decisions about Ball Pythons... and by that I mean that I tend to flip flop, and regret decisions after they are made.

This is most prevalent in my holdbacks...

I hold back more than I need just to satisfy my own personal justification that this animal or that animal is amazing and awesome and could do wonders to my collection.

The problem with that is that there is a limit to what I can hold back, and to what I can handle in terms of numbers.

I do this by myself for the most part, and I have established that my animal limit is around 300 animals or so.

Every year, however, that number increases due to new generations of snakelings, and I am somewhat overwhelmed by the sheer amount of awesomeness (and work) that increased numbers entail.

And by awesomeness, I mean things to hold back as well...

So add another 25-50 awesome animals to the already full numbers that I have, and things get a bit complicated.

Take the Male TSK Snow I hatched out this year. He is not up on the available page because I am on the fence about selling him. Why??? Cause I don't have a Male Snow.

BUT.... I am still working towards my goal of making the Spider Snow, and this Snow I just hatched will help, but I still have a breeder Axanthic het Albino male as well. Snowman won't be able to help in the breeding sector for at least another year...

So is it really worth it to keep him as well as the Axanthic? Would you keep the Axanthic, or just keep the Snow and wait the project out for a year while you are growing him up?

These are the things that go thru my head as I stare at animals that are in the baby rack.

Is it worth it to me to hold back this animal and let it grow for several years, or should I just allow someone the luxury of having it in their collection?

Sometimes, like the Snow example, it is complicated.

Females are a bit easier, as you can never have enough female things, but then again, there is a limit.

So I will go thru my holdbacks and re-evaluate one more time, especially considering the NARBC Anahiem show is this weekend. What I finally decide to let go from my clutches will be on the table, and later on the website.

Here's to being able to let go...


Have a great day, my friends.

Clutch #1 hatched!

So this clutch hatched on the 23rd of May, and I am very excited about this one!

This comes right after the very sad loss of my breeder Male TSK Snow... He died earlier that month.

This was the Spider het TSK Axanthic possible het Albino to my Albino het TSK Axanthic female.

I have officially proved out my Spider male to be double het for Snow!

This is exciting again, due to the loss of my Visual male. I am not completely out of the Snow game.

Four eggs went bad in this clutch.

So the count for this one was: 1.0 TSK Snow, 1.0 Spider het Albino ph TSK Axanthic, and a 0.1 Het Albino ph TSK Axanthic.

He's pretty sweet looking, and I was really hoping he was a Spider Snow, but not this time..

The brothers together. 

It's hard to get the official pattern visual on this guy, but I think it's pretty obvious in this shot and this one without flash.

So no Spider Snow, but I have high hopes to be able to do this pairing again.

So will I be keeping this little man? I don't think so... I'll just shoot for the Spider Snow again next season.

Ahhh double recessive co-dom projects.

Fingers crossed!

Have a great day, my friends!

It has Begun

Yes, I have been slacking.

But on the pre-couple-o-monthiversary of my wedding, I found two clutches of eggs to celebrate the day with!

The first one I found was this gal, a virgin Pastel that I have had for several years. She never bred for me until this year, and I'm kind of disappointed in the results.

She is being a very good mother, of course. So much so that when she was gravid, I didn't really want to bother her, so left her to her own devices in terms of shedding.. Eeewww.

Anyway, she got a good bath after I took her off of the eggs, but much to my dismay, here were the results.

She was bred to a Pastel Butter Spider.

Three good eggs, three slugs. Could be better, could have been worse.

I will take it.

And then I found this gal...

This is my Albino het TSK Axanthic female. I gave her a year off last year, and I'm very glad I did! She gave me three eggs last time I bred her. 

And this time?

SEVEN!

She was bred to the Spider het TSK Axanthic ph Albino, so I really hope that he proves to be Het Albino this year.

Last year was a crap shoot.

This year, we will find out for real.


So with that, I bid you a good season if it has started for you already.

We shall be back tomorrow to discuss!

Have a great day, my friends!

Sanity Check

I have no idea what the heck is going on.

I bred my Spider het TSK Axanthic ph Albino to my Albino, thinking there would be some Albinos in the clutch. He didn't prove out with the other Albino clutch, but it was much smaller, so there was a chance he could be a Het still.

NOW we have the clutch hatched, with two Albinos in it (one dead in the egg), three eggs went bad, and this thing.

Here it is again with its sibling.

Note that there were no Spiders, and that the Albino is not a known het for Axanthic.

I have no idea what is going on.

On top of everything, these guys have small heads. Not off by a ton, but they are stubby...

So I am stuck scratching my head, trying to figure out if its something that I did during the season, or if my Albino female is a het Axanthic, and if this is a random Snow from an Albino? Or if this is just a very light faded Albino...

Yeah, I need a sanity check.

Off to send some pictures to friends.

What do you guys think?

Have a great day, my friends!

~New Males~

Well, there were a few males I have picked up over the last couple months, and this guy finally decided to shed out and be presentable for photos.

This is my new TSK Snow male.

Yes, I know that he looks like a faded Albino, but he is a Snow. Apparently Snows tend to get lighter as they age.

This guy is a year old, and he is going to get better with age.. Like Wine!

I can't wait to use him!

I know he isn't the nicest All White snake in the world, but I honestly think for a double recessive, he is pretty kick ass.

How can you be upset at an Albino Axanthic, right?

And you can't expect something like that to be solid white.

You know what he reminds me of?

Jelly Belly Popcorn Jellybeans.

They are super gross tasting, but the colors are very similar. 

Maybe I will call him Jellybelly.

Maybe....

I have a few more males to share, but time will have to allow for it.

Until then, I gotta update the available page, the collection page, and a whole bunch of other stuff.

Wooosahhhh.

Have a great day, my friends!

Brrrrr... It better be Snowing

It has been a long time since I have been working on the TSK Snow project. This will be my third year trying to hit it. I debated even breeding this gal again, since she has been such a spotty eater, but I did.

And she gave me four more chances at Snows this year.

Four BIG chances, so I hope maybe even twins? But I doubt it.

I have to say, I'm glad these eggs are on the ground, and I'm glad this gal gave me another chance at Snows, but she looked HORRIBLE after egg laying. So of course, I cleaned her up, cleaned her tub, and decided she needed another tub to live in. So now she is in the Trouble Makers Rack.

The Trouble Makers Rack are the snakes that I need to keep a bit more of a closer eye on, and she is absolutely one of those. Lets hope she recovers quickly from this season... I have a date for her next year if she can handle it with my Spider het TSK Axanthic poss het Albino male.

Anyway...

Here we are with the four eggs, looking hugemongous like they are.

So fingers and toes crossed for my TSK Snows this year. Some double visual recessives in the collection would work out fantastically, if I do say so myself.

And since I've struck out twice so far on Snows, it would be so so so nice to actually get one in these eggs this year.

Please.

PLEASE!!!

So there you go, my friends.

Hope, wish, and pray with me on these clutches... The odds gods need to be nice to me this year.

Have a great day, my friends!

Back to it

 Yes, I am back to it, and so are the snakes and my picture taking skills. Here are a few of the pairings I have been doing over the last week, and a few pictures I managed to take. 

Here is Spotty McGillicutty, my darling bumblebee male with one of my big Pastel females. He's trying, but she's not having it yet.

 

And of course, my Lucky man (Mister Silver Bullet) is actually doing his buisness as well, with a Pastel female. He has been a stud so far this season, and I am trying to decide what else I want to put him with. Of course, with breeding comes the urinating before hand..  Usually the female expresses some urates and urine when first introduced to a male. It's rather odd, but more than anything, its frustrating, as I had cleaned this tub about 15 minutes before this pairing was done.

 

And again, my attempts at Snows. Come on, I really need one!! And the female was not really interested. Oh well. We have more time...

And last but not least, the Spider het Axanthic male with my Axanthic female. Here's to Axanthic Spiders!

So that's enough with the pairings for now. I will be touching on a few morph questions that have been piling up, as well as twin updates!

Have a fantastic day, my friends!

Show Pics

Alright.

I apologize for my slacking yesterday. There was just too much to do and not enough time, and I didn't get to the blog before I about passed out.

So here we go.

Tri-Stripe! Still holding that $20k price tag, my friends... Lets see what happens with it in the next few years, eh?

My TSK Snow... Not really, but that should have been in an egg somewhere in my incubator, dangit.

A Lavender Albino and the True Ghost. That thing is amazing... I will have to begin projects on it ASAP.

Super cool bug dealies.. They were real (but dead)!

My beloved Mojave Pied... One of these days, my pretties, one of these days.

My friend Jeff Luman was at the show, and took out the Spinnerfly that he produced this year. It is HOT!

And a Pastel Jigsaw...

And a bunch of Ghost awesomeness.

And I just had to take pictures of this guy cause he was watching me...

Next door was the Aquarium and Pond expo, as well as the Pet Expo. We went thru them all, but didn't take many pictures, other than this happy guy, and the only other snakes we found at the other place.

Yes, this is a rattlesnake. It was actually being displayed by my friend Karen Singleton, who actually trained my Regal back in the day. She teaches Rattlesnake avoidance to dogs with these critters, apparently. I had no idea! It was pretty cool, I have to say.

So there you are, my friends. A clutch of Het Genetic Stripes popped out last night as well, so another female disproven as of today.


Oh well. 3.3 G-Stripe hets, my friends...

And the Pastel Yellowbelly clutch came out on Saturday.

1.0 Pastel Yellowbelly, 1.0 Yellowbelly, 0.2 Pastels, 0.1 Normal

Yes indeedy.

And already the POG x Black Pastel Clutch is pipping. I'm not expecting anything to pop out until at least Wednesday.

And just for your own knowledge, should you choose to call me, my phone is currently on the fritz. I cannot see incoming calls, make outgoing calls, I basically can't see the screen. Hopefully that will be remedied today or tomorrow.

Have a fantastic day, my friends.

No Snow in California again

Well...

I did it.

I cut the eggs.

And unfortunately for me, I did not see anything white.

I only saw Grey and Black.

Which is fine, really, I am glad to have some more Axanthics, but as you well know, I was hoping for a Snow.

Which just goes to show you that it doesn't always work out the way you want.

But hey, this is just the beginning of the season for me, so we are trudging along and doing fine!

Speaking of the beginning of the season, here are the first post shed shots of the Pastel het Pieds.

All four girls...

All have fantastic het Pied markers, and all are subtle ringers as well.

Gotta love it.

 And the Het Pied siblings... this is the pair of them.

They look comfortable in their balls.

And more Het Pieds from the Pied to poss het Clutch. She didn't prove, but there are 2.2 Het Pieds to show for it.

Can't complain about that, eh?

And here we are at Clutch 24, with both Big Apple Herp incubators almost full... (One is full, the other has one tub space left. I need to plug in the extra one)

And again, it's Pieds. I love Pieds. Apparently, that also a lot of my recessive work is Pieds this year. Hmph.

Here is a first time Momma, old enough, but small. She is an unproven 100% het Pied female.
I decided to give her a go a few rounds with the Pied. Apparently, a few rounds is all he needed.

Only three eggs, and she was only 1200 grams or so before laying, so I can't be too upset about it. And I'm not! I'm surprised and glad she laid at all!

So there we are. Clutch 24, my friends.... Lets hope for some Pieds in them there three eggs.

And on we go, forward to the next clutch hatching, or the next clutch laid.

It's gunna be a fun ride!

Have a fantastic day, my friends.

BABIES!!!

Well, the babies are still coming, and only clutch one is completely out and ready to show, but I took pictures of the second clutch, the Het Pied clutch, just for the hell of it.

Here is the Pastel het Pied clutch, with only one Het Pied actually shed out. I was hoping for a few more to have shed yet, but to no avail.

I can't wait to show them to you all, as they have KILLER markers for Pied, and that will actually be, once they have shed out, a topic I will go into detail about.

Since everything I have out that is '10 is Het Pied, I thought that may be an appropriate topic of conversation.

One more of the Hets is out of the egg, but its umbilical cord is sticking out a bit, so I'm leaving it in the incubator until it absorbs it.

Yes, this is fine to do, as long as the snake gets air.

The last one in the egg hasn't even pipped yet, but I know its alive as of right now. I poked at it, and it moved. Can't wait to see you, little buddy!

So again, waiting on this weekend, where I am guessing and hoping that the TSK Snow clutch will have hatched by then. I need to see some white heads. Really... That is a project that although I didn't intentionally get into, I want to complete now.

What do you mean, Heather?

Well, here's the story...

Back in the day, I bought a female Albino from this guy. He was selling off everything, and he had mentioned to me that he got it directly from TSK, and that it was possible het for TSK Axanthic. I was like, Oh, that's nice...

And went on my merry way.

THEN, an opportunity arose for me to get a female Axanthic, and this guy, although a different person, also got his from TSK. And apparently, she was also possible het for Albino. Her percentage was lower (I think its supposedly 33%?) but I was interested, and picked her up as well.

Then the time came for me to find a male. I didn't want to buy a visual Snow (because the cost was staggering), so I hunted down a TSK Axanthic het Albino male from, you guessed it, TSK.

So I completed my trio, and thusly, completed my Snow project.

Last year, the Albino proved to be Het Axanthic, but she never recovered her weight back for this year.

This year, its the Axanthic's turn.

Lets see if we can get our luck on the right path.

Fingers crossed.

Have a fantastic day, my friends.

Eggs on Saturday

Well, that Axanthic I had been watching closely decided to share with me a few white treasures on Saturday morning, much to my delight.

I have to say, I am rather excited about this clutch. I am hoping that there are at least Albinos in this clutch, but we will see what happens.

If she doesn't prove out, at least the babies in this clutch will ALL be TSK Axanthics poss het Albino. So I get to try again!

She was ridiculously skinny when I pulled her from her eggs, but she was pleasant enough. She only hissed a few times, no striking, and no problems getting the eggs. I got her within a few hours of her laying, so I could pull the eggs apart.

So Clutch #3 of 2010 is on the ground, and I am very pleased!

Its interesting that everything I have on the ground so far is recessive stuff:

Clutch #1: Pastel to Pied
Clutch #2: Poss Het Pied to Pied
Clutch #3: TSK Axanthic poss het Albino to TSK Axanthic het Albino

I realize that I also put the male last and the female first. I need to get myself straight on that one.

From now on, for sure.

Have a fantastic day, my friends!