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!

Things are happening

It is always refreshing to see that your hard work and planning does pan out, especially when breeding season comes about.

Pairings have been happening, but not so many locks as of yet.

But I have to say, I don't check every five minutes, so I may be missing things.

Here are two that I did catch yesterday.

Above is my Pastel het Pied with a Het Pied. I would LOVE to hatch out a few more Pastel Pieds, including some females. I'd like to bulk up my Pastel Pied group...

We shall see how that goes. The Pastel Het Pied has a date with a few other Het Pied females at this point, so we shall see... COME ON, ODDS!

And below, my beloved Albino male, the first recessive visual I owned, attempting a breeding with one of his Het girlfriends. I never get tired of hatching out Albinos, and my guy throws some awesome babies, so I can't complain!

Hopefully things will start picking up here, although this weekend we had summer temperatures, the likes of 85 degrees during the day. I hope my boys don't think it's time for a summer vacation... It needs to be winter again here soon.

Oh well.

Until tomorrow, my friends, have a fantastic day!!

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.

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.

Pieds and Pastel het Pieds and Waiting

I am waiting for more eggs, and I have to say that now that some are down, I am pretty stoked to see some more. 

The incubator actually has something in it, people! 

Huzzahhh!

But now that there are eggs, there is a waiting period in between.

We are still waiting on the Poss Het Pied female to lay and prove herself out to be a het.

Here's to more Pieds!

Which goes to show you how much of a stud my Pied male is. His name is Kip, if you didn't know. 

Joel is a huge Napoleon Dynamite fan, so we have Kip and LaFawnduh. LaFawnduh is a het pied female we acquired a few years back. 

They be lovers and junk. 

And of course, we are waiting on those Pastel het Pieds. Maybe I'll luck out and get Pastel Pieds out if it? Yeah, right....

I got the Pastel from a hobbiest breeder, so I have to say that the chances are pretty slim to none. 

But one can hope, right?

Right.

Have a fantastic day, my friends. I anticipate eggs for tomorrows blog. COME ON POSS HET GAL!

IT'S ON LIKE DONKEY KONG!!!

The season here at Heather's Herps has begun!!!

The first clutch of the season is down, from a Pastel female to my Pied male. 

So here come a bunch of Pastels and Normal het Pieds.

Six of them, to be exact... 

I am so excited to see them, and I have to say, this is almost exactly as it began my last season, with my first clutch landing on 4/25/09. 

So, I guess I'm on the right track, eh?

HOORAY FOR EGGS, and lets see some more soon!

Have an absolutely fabulous fantastic egg filled day, my friends!!!