Why don't I do this for a living?

Last night, I spent some time with some family from out of town.

One of my cousins asked me a question.

He said "Heather, you seem really into the snakes.. Why don't you do this full time?"

Well....

Let me outline what I do.

I am a Chemist by trade, I work in a laboratory. I make chemical compounds. I work a full 40 hours a week, and then I come home and work another 238741078 on snakes.

Why do I do that?

Lets begin by saying, as much as I love the snakes, the constancy of snake breeding and marketing is difficult to grasp.

What do you mean, Heather?

Well, baby season is upon us, and I have many babies to sell.. But what happens when I sell out? Nothing left to sell for the rest of the year, which tends to happen around December (depending on the amount of babies hatched out that year). So hatching begins in July until December. What about those other months of the year? I am feeding, housing, cleaning, and health checking all of my animals, which tends to get expensive over the course of the year.

So for what it is worth, a sum of cash to last thruout the year is not enough for me to be comfortable with. I prefer consistancy.

Granted, there are pluses to only breeding snakes, ie. having a lot more free time and not so much stress, but then again, if you can't sell that one snake to buy food for a week, that's when you know you aren't where you should be, which is why I have never done so.

Snakes are a fantastic stress reliever, but also a source of stress. Its an odd conundrum of sorts, as doing shows, shipping animals, and dealing with customers isn't particularly a snake issue, but comes with the territory. THAT, my friends, is what is more difficult. This is not to say that my customers are not the most amazing people in the world, but as we all know, people in general can be a pain in the ass.

So, basically, I don't want to do this for a living. It would be cool, but I think I am good where I am at. I don't have a facility persay (a huge warehouse with tons of racks). I have a room in my home, where I go in and dissapear for hours on end. I would love to be able to expand a bit more, but for me and what I do, without any additional help, I am at the cusp of maximum capacity. I have over 200 snakes, and that alone takes a lot of work to keep up.

I wake up, go to work, come home, clean some snakes, make some phone calls, answer some e-mails, take some pictures, clean more snakes, ship a package, make dinner, answer some e-mails, do the blog, and go to bed.

That is my day to day. Feeding days are more complicated, of course, but there you go.

So I hope that helps you all out there understand what I do, and maybe help yourselves in what you plan to do or are doing already.

You CAN make it a full time thing, there is no doubt about it. If that is your dream, dream big and make it happen!

Have a great day, my friends.

Facility and new snakes

Well, I had an e-mail wayyy too long ago about photos of my Snake Room again.

It's been a while since I did it, so here we go!

I have shoved as many racks as I can into this room, as I have been warned repeatedly that I only get this room to work in. It's not that big, people, so I am trying to make everything work.

I use Vision, Animal Plastics, Boaphile, Jason's Jungle, and rack makers unknown. I have primarily Vision racks, due to the fact that they are local. 

I use Sanichips, and they get EVERYWHERE!

Yes, I use a labeler as well. I find it easier to find the animals with a bright white label.

I use Helix and Herpstat, but I prefer Herpstat.

If you have specific questions regarding my setup, feel free to ask! I will absolutely answer them.

So onward we go, my friends.

I am having a wierd hatching schedule for some of my animals, as there have been a few days inbetween pipping of this clutch and the lack of pippage from the other eggs.

But here is a guy that came out last night. I have three animals out, and four more eggs in the incubator not ready yet.

Welcome to the world, Spinnerblast male.

He came out after his Pinstripe sister and Spinner sister.

Here he is next to the Spinner, with the Pin hiding underneath the paper in the corner.

As much as I LOVE triple co-dom males, it seems like I am getting overrun with them!

What to keep, what to sell, what to DO????

I dunno. We shall see. He is ridiculous though.. I am very glad to have him. I LOVE Spinners and Spinnerblasts.

I'm glad this clutch actually made it to hatch, unlike my Queenbee clutch. You can't win them all.

And, for those of you who were wondering, yes, the Silver Bullets did shed out, or at least one did. This is my holdback gal. Not sure what I'm going to call her, but I like her!

She has blotches already, similar to Lucky, but he didn't have them as soon. She is going to be interesting to watch grow up.

Maybe her name should be Splotchy.

Have a fantastic day, my friends.