MORE! and LOL

More eggs! I've had this girl for YEARS. Since I started in the industry, really... I got her from a kid who wasn't feeding her correctly, and when I picked her up, she tried to eat my hand. She was thusly named "Bitey" after that, but since then has morphed into "Winda", which is Swahili for Hunt, which is still appropriate.

She has always been a wierd looking female, and I have always wanted to prove her out to be more than Normal, but so far she just throws AWESOME light babies.

And this year hopefully is no exception. She was bred to a few males, and we will see what ends up happening with these babies. Nine good eggs! Yeah!!!

I love it!

And it doesn't hurt that they were laid on Joel's Birthday.

Happy Birthday, Beebs!

And then of course, there is the random photograph that I had to take just cause it was so funny looking!

This Mojave Spider Male caught his rat by the tail and wrapped him up. Usually they look typical curling around by the side... This guy was so excited, he became a Snowman!

Yes, I realize that this is probably only funny to a handful of you, but I did have to rush to get the camera while feeding for this shot.

I'm pretty proud of it.

He did eat it all down like a good boy.

Anyway, I'm off to go frolic.

Have a great day, my friends!

Clutches of the Past Month

I'm going to go thru these pretty quickly, as there are a ton, and I still have to upload them onto the main page as well. 

This female is a first time breeder...

My Pied poss Het Hypo female finally laid me some eggs, and although there are only three, I will take them.

She was bred to the Hypo het Pied male.

Fingers crossed on hitting the odds. 

This female was also a new breeder, and unfortunately for me, she didn't see the need to incubate three of the five eggs that she laid.

Pewter female to Pastel Super Mojave, five eggs, two of them already bad.

This female has been a consistent breeder for me over the years, and she, being a Het Pied, was bred to my Pastel Pied. 

This female Mojave always lays under her hide. She is one of the only critters I have that has a hide, and she manages to lay her eggs under there every year for the past two years. I have to check her doubly, and this time I caught her with her eggs within a reasonable amount of time.

Fingers crossed for some Potions this year.

I have no idea what the deal is with the roll outs, but this sucked too.. First time breeder Cinnamon female, 7 eggs, four outside her clutches. So far they are still okay, but... We shall see.

Usually when they are out of the coils, they are not good.

Yeah, I didn't take pictures of this female on eggs... I had just gotten back from my wedding, and I just wanted to put the eggs away.

My friend Tim took care of the critters while I was on a post wedding excursion, and these are the clutches that popped up.

 

There are six eggs in there.

 And then I got back, and there were MORE!

Black Pastel female I produced back in the day....

And this was the last clutch so far...

Two ginormous eggs... Lets hope for Twins.

So there you go. I'm off to go update the website.

Soon, I will have pictures of the newly hatched babies and junk.

YAY!

Clutches and Boo...

So I've been taking more of a hiatus, since I am counting down to the wedding and it's getting ridiculously close. There will probably be many more hiatuses in the next few weeks, but in June, I'll be back, BABAY!

I went into the snake room to feed and clean on Friday night, and found several clutches.

Here is the first one. This female is a first time breeder for me, and the first Hypo I have had lay eggs!

Yes, I've been behind in my Ghost-ness, and I still am.

But this female was bred to the Enchi Butter het Hypo, so I'm really hoping to jump into Hypo awesomeness with this clutch.

Should be good, although she did give me a slug. Sadness... 

This sight was exciting, although I am pretty sad about the egg count. She was a big girl, around 2500 grams before she laid..

She gave me four good eggs and a slug.

Oh well.

Better luck next time, eh?

But she was bred to Mystery males, so this clutch of four will answer several issues, including what exactly she is! Should be a fun one.. 

And on Sunday, I caught this girl on eggs. I didn't even expect her to go, and of course, with that in mind, I took her off her clutch. 

ONE EGG.  FOUR SLUGS

Ouch.

Again, oh well.

First time breeder, first time laying eggs for me. 

This is a boo-boo clutch, but hopefully something awesome will pop out of the one legit egg.

All in all, not too shabby, but still could be better. Slugs galore, so far. This is kinda painful.

Anyway, have a great week, my friends!

Clutch #6

This female has been with me for a few years now, and I am so glad to see this clutch. This female I got as a Pastel possible het Pied back in the day, and she is finally ready to prove herself this season.

So what, pray tell, did I breed her to?

Well, the Mojave Pied, of course. 

Fingers crossed that she proves, but of course, even if she doesn't, I get some sweet Pastave het Pieds out of it...

Five eggs, not too shabby for a first time breeder. I hope that she manages better in the next few seasons, but she will get some time off to grow anyway, so it's all good.

So here's to more eggs very soon! I don't expect any in the next few days, but things are rocking and rolling, so maybe early next week?

Yes indeed.

Have a great day, my friends!

Clutch #4 for 2012

This is my favorite Spider female that I own, and I produced her a few years back in an effort to make the Tarantula (aka the Blurry Spider)

I like to think I made it, but the Blurry did not end up specifically genetic, so I let it go. She is the mother to my Bumblebee Fires this past season, however, and they were ABSOLUTELY FANTASTIC.

This year, I popped her in with the Firefly once, but the Butter Enchi het Hypo got her for most of the time.

I would LOVE to see some Butter Enchi Spiders.
 

Fingers crossed for some good odds on that one, since hitting on it will be a feat, but it can and will be done. Eight chances, eight ways to be astounded.

This female is part of my cream of the crop program, and I can't wait to see what else she throws.

There is a boob egg in there, but it is viable. This egg more than likely will mold at the boob area, and I will catalog that for you all to see.

Here's to more eggs!

Have a great day, my friends!

Candling

I know that some times I mention words that some people may not be familiar with.

Candling is taking a flashlight to an egg and illuminating the insides to tell if there are viable veins.

I like to use LED lights to keep it bright, and when there are questions, turning off the light does help. 

If the egg is all yellow, or if there is only weak veins, it may be a slug.

Usually when the eggs are like that, but fully formed, I incubate it anyway.

It usually does go bad, but when in doubt, go ahead and incubate. No harm in doing so at all.

In this egg, you can see the growth ring of the veins right after it has been laid. I would surmise at least six hours or more out of the cloaca. Usually by 24 hours, it is completely formed and there is nothing left to determine between where it began and where it ended. 

Here we have an angle where you can't see the line... But you can see strong veins.

These are all photos of good eggs.

I hope you can use them in your own candling endeavors.

Happy Candling!

Almost done!

This is one of the last females to lay for 2011, and I have to say, I'm glad to see it! She was one of those females I wasn't sure was going to go at all, until I saw her ovulate several months after everyone else.

I have one or two more females that are going to lay, and that should be it for this season. Basically... This season is going to end during the beginning of the next one. WHEW!

It hasn't been like that for me in a long time, if at all. I am surprised at this, but honestly.. I'm not really concerned. As long as these gals are ready and healthy and give me eggs when they are ready, who am I to complain, eh?

Anyway, this girl was mainly bred to the Enchi, so I am expecting Pastel Enchis in the next few months. She was bred to the Sterling waaaayyy early in the season, but considering he was not involved for at least 4-5 months before the eggs, I can't imagine him being the father. But... here we are, waiting to find out.

She gave me eight beautiful little eggs, so I can't wait to see some good stuff from this clutch. Also, the last few clutches did hatch, and there are some fun things to share!

This clutch hatched out on Saturday, early, of course. This was the Pastel Super Mojave to Genetic Stripe clutch. One egg went bad, and the end count was:

1.0 Pastel Mojave het Genetic Stripe, 1.2 Mojave het Genetic Stripe

I will take it! I am really excited to make some Pastel Mojave Stripes!

This girl came out of the Caramel to Hypo clutch, the only one... The other eggs went bad. But look! She is a Hypo!!! I have no idea why, and the Caramel male was not traced back to being a het, but this is a Hypo.. I don't know what's going on.

She may be a Hypo Het Caramel, but it'll be a few years before we find out. HOORAY for fun Het stuff!

And the next clutch due to hatch is my most exciting clutch of the season. In a few days, we get to find out who was the father of the Special female clutch. Four eggs are still viable, and I can't wait to see what is going to pop out...

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!

Clutch 17 with PICTURES!

So of course, like I said, I was out of town over the past few days... But I have pictures from my friend that helped me while I was gone, so I REALLY DO HAVE PROOF!

This is clutch #17, one of the three Poss het Ghost Poss het Albino that I have been trying to prove out over the past few years. This gal here has been proven het ghost, with obvious reasons. I had a friend ask me if she was a Pastel... No sir, she is not, but she is pretty damned bright and cool looking!

So I decided to breed her to the Albino to see if she was het Albino as well... But I backed her up with the POG, so we will see.

Here is a great picture of the four eggs that she laid, but she also laid a really small slug. So, 4 eggs, 1 slug in this one...

And on we go!