pines are here

[akane]

I reserved a pair of northern pines and pair of kankakee bulls this past spring but we changed the deal to a yearling female bull since I have a male and I'm close enough to drive so he doesn't have to ship the already 4' snake. My only pic so far she took off the moment she was out of the pillow case and saw a nice big slab of slate (garden store gave me some broken pieces for $2). The little male pine was out. He seems to find the limestone rock interesting. They were still all in a rack together previously so substrate and hides are new as of last night.

http://i.imgur.com/ZhcI9QF.jpg

http://i.imgur.com/3R2EFa9.jpg

http://i.imgur.com/gyM7llK.jpg

http://i.imgur.com/gPHW1gi.jpg

[Scubadiver59]

Good idea about hitting up either garden centers or stone sellers to see if they have broken pieces they'll part with for pennies on the dollar.

I'll have to look into that later this week/weekend.

Thanks!

[akane]

They didn't even remember what the collection of pallet of pieces among their stone blocks and panels was lol The guy is finally like this is too much work for whatever it is worth and ran the 2 biggest pieces we grabbed as 2' panels of the cheapest thing in the computer. So it came out $2 and $3. The other I grabbed is more square still but some corners broken off.

[Scubadiver59]

I have a few questions: what do you know about shipping restrictions for Black Pines across state lines? Aren't captive borne exempt from that? Does the Lacey Act figure into why this one seller (TN) says he can't ship out of state?

[EL Ziggy]

Very nice Pits AK. I really dig the Bulls and have seen some beautiful Northern Pine adults. I hope you'll keep us updated with pics as they grow ;) . What's the red marking on the one critter?

[akane]

He marked the females red behind the head and the males red on the tails and left the hatchlings together as they were shipped and picked up.

Black pines are endangered and require a federal permit to ship out of state that is hard to get. A few have but you have to be buying them for purposes that help the species basically rather than a single pet and it requires giving a lot of info. Most don't seem to get one. Some states, like IL, also have an extra in state permit on them to sell at all but I think that's rare. I only ran into it because it's the next state over (my northern pines and most of my bulls were picked up near Chicago) and someone consistently sells them. I believe you can legally buy and drive them across state lines without any permits besides the IL exception on sales. The state permit is probably easier to get given the state is known to just like to find ways to make extra money but they are a bit outside my price range just to have an endangered version of black snake and not worth dealing with the legal issues again if selling offspring.

[akane]

The male pine is curious but rather cautious and found gerbil fuzzies that are about twice the size of mouse fuzzies intimidating. He ate a small mouse and was done. I left the gerbils in there anyway with the mouse fuzzy when I switched the female to the bin. I came back to find she skipped the mouse and nearly had both gerbils down. The male went right back in his hide but I slid the lumpy female back in and she was everywhere including up the divider track before I had the lid secure. Then she had to threaten me and tail rattle against the side when I carefully removed her from the lip to set her back in. The enclosure I have them in has slots for 4 dividers and I only have it in half for slightly over 2' long sections.

[whistlepig]

Beautiful snakes. Congrats!

[akane]

Well they decided rat pinkies and gerbil fuzzies aren't edible today. The female is just pissed. She came out of her cage fine but didn't eat and when I tried wiggling a rodent I got bit. She hasn't calmed down since even when I left her with the lights off. I gave her another hide, left her a gerbil I froze from the ones she ate fresh killed last time, and left the smallest rat pinky with the male but they still get lost where to find things in their 24x17" enclosures. That's why I was feeding them in a shoebox bin when I don't normally remove from the enclosure.

How long can they go without food at about 4weeks old? Mice are the worst for my rodent allergies so I don't keep them around and will have to buy prepackaged from the pet store if they insist. Not really worth a higher quality order and there are pretty much no local rodent supplies that are reliable. I got tired of the promises of supplies only to then get told they fed it all to their own snakes or sold them to everyone else. Working on switching to more predictable colony breeding african soft furred rats instead of gerbils since I can handle the lower urine output of such species. Freaking pest mice are trying to get inside as cool weather comes though and brought rat mites with them again so I have to wipe those out first.

[EL Ziggy]

I surprised your pits are being stubborn A. They're usually very reliable feeders. I'm a firm believer that the hunger always wins in the end. Keep offering food every 7-10 days and they'll get with the program. Keep us posted.

[akane]

I was told even adult northern pines eat weekly but of course you have everything between extra careful growers and power feeders for opinions. One person I talked to was bragging they can get pits breeding the first year consistently and instead I'm thinking their future advice just went mostly on ignore.

The female finally ate gerbil again after calming down overnight with it. The male has only eaten that one small mouse fuzzy. I also had them at the higher end for temps and lowered the hot end 3f so maybe the female will be less temperamental, less energy into escaping, and not bury into the dirt all the time between.

[Andy_G]

Anyone trying to breed these animals during their first year of life is not worth listening to.

If kept too hot, pits will not eat. Perhaps that may have something to do with it.

[akane]

The room is 68-70F with not the most expensively insulated sides so I didn't want too much drop on the cool side. They were on heat tape in a mostly empty rack of their siblings 1 week ago and don't seem to have this top heat, openings to shelter that blocks the top heat, and temperature gradient thing fully figured out yet so I think they were doing the opposite I was worried about and getting stuck on the hot end exposed to the che instead of outside the heat spread. Now I have it at maximum 80-81F.

It's hard to adjust towards building bioactive/natural setups when most info online and larger breeders is for paper lined or thin sterile substrate over bottom heat racks/bins or well insulated display cages in partially heated rooms. The pit group is a bit more knowledgeable in that area since more people like to setup enclosures that look like the outdoors they have seen the snakes come from, some really break the "rules" with multilevel enclosures holding pairs to up to 4 individuals, over some of the more exotic and tropical species concentrated groups/individuals I talk to but most research I find in searches instead of talking to people is still based on bottom heat rack and commercial display cages. Not many have written up species specific setup pages unless they are difficult to keep otherwise. I found someone breeding blue racers and have been learning the most by watching the racer keeping arguments that repeatedly occur between those defending how they can make a setup with everything required to keep the racers content and those saying they live constantly under stress for life.

[akane]

Well the male ate 2 rat pinkies and the female ate another 1and they are content in their hides with less escape attempts. The male was wandering today and the female yesterday while being proper hissy, tail rattling pits when disturbed so they seem to be doing fine now.

[EL Ziggy]

Congrats on the successful feedings AK. They calm down pretty quickly especially once they get a few meals in them. My male was pretty defensive for the first month or so. He would hiss, strike, and rattle his tail a bit but after I stuffed his belly with a few rats we were good to go. I do miss hearing that hiss though. It's pretty cool and a little intimidating. :)

[akane]

The male kind of backs away like he will bite if he really has to but he'd rather not and when picked up he'll mildly look for an attempt to carefully leave. That female doesn't care if she's a few ounces big and can't draw blood yet. I do think I had to break a little blister on the skin of my thumb from her tiny teeth yesterday. If she's only sitting content in her hide she usually can be picked up for a minute without any fuss and then put back but it only takes her 5-10mins to find something she needs to be defensive about. Then she won't give an inch and sit on my flat palm going nowhere while threatening my thumb. Bold will probably make a nice, confident snake to watch and handle when she grows up a little. Even if she has to make herself known occasionally.

The new female kankakee on the other hand is the most chill pit I have ever seen. She'll flee sometimes when she doesn't want handled but the one threat from her since I picked her up out of the bin at the breeder's and have had her in the enclosure was some noise at the cat helping unpack snakes while she was in a pillow case still. Since seeing cat lay next to her heat lamps she completely goes about her own business as if it isn't there. No one and nothing bothers her and she simply eats everything you give her with no fuss. My only issue with her is she went through my drainage system and I've got material 3' out from the ledge she's excavating under so it has to be redone before full bioactive setup. I have an equivalent size proven digger in one cage and considerably more mass and strength in the other that found it not worth it when they ran out of soil but it turns out my base setup for bioactive is still not bulldozer proof.