our discussion from "head shots"

infernalis · 12-12-10, 10:54 PM

I moved this as I feel it was derailing the head shots thread...

Quote:

Originally Posted by Ch^4

I'm guessing you have multiple snakes shed each week Wayne? (Same with Kim, Freebody, Shaun, and some of the others with 20+ snakes....I'm assuming.)

"Someone" sheds nearly every day here.

TylerWortman · 12-12-10, 11:43 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by infernalis

Why does the right eye look bigger?

infernalis · 12-12-10, 11:46 PM

Genetic flaw.

I will not be breeding those snows, They came from a guy who bred siblings together.

That snake has one "bug eye" and one normal eye. His brother was born without a tail also.

It's a pity too, they are so pearly white...

That's also one of the reasons I got so excited that I produced a snow from "scratch" by breeding a het anery with an albino.

She only delivered one healthy snow, assorted anery, albino and hets.. But only one solitary snow.

That one looks perfect in every way.

Ch^4 · 12-13-10, 12:24 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by infernalis

"Someone" sheds nearly every day here.

That's crazy! And very exciting.

Quote:

Originally Posted by infernalis

Genetic flaw.

I will not be breeding those snows, They came from a guy who bred siblings together.

That snake has one "bug eye" and one normal eye. His brother was born without a tail also.

It's a pity too, they are so pearly white...

That's also one of the reasons I got so excited that I produced a snow from "scratch" by breeding a het anery with an albino.

She only delivered one healthy snow, assorted anery, albino and hets.. But only one solitary snow.

That one looks perfect in every way.

That's too bad (referring to the actions the breeder you received them from took), he's a nice looking little guy....As you said, just waiting to ambush his next victim, your hand! I love his brother Stubs though!

infernalis · 12-13-10, 01:36 AM

Stubs is a lot more mellow. He only bites if I smell like mice or fish. (That's just asking to get tagged)

My breeder friend was extremely kind, I bought 2 snakes, he shipped me 4.

He gave me stubs for free, and a het albino with the purchase of 2 snows.

I messed up though, I was working with about 400 or so babies from another breeder at the time, and when I shipped the snakes back to the second breeder I accidentally packed one of my snows in HIS shipment of snakes.

It worked out, I wound up keeping a different snow, never even noticed the screw up until they matured and one looked a bit different.

That particular species there is 2 strains of snows.

The "Nebraska Snow" and the "Iowa snow" I was supposed to have 3 Iowa but instead wound up with 2 Iowa and one Nebraska.

The Nebraska snows have a chalky white stripe down their back, The Iowa do not.

Ch^4 · 12-13-10, 01:49 AM

^^ Sounds like a win-win. You ended up with both types of snow and Stubs!

I cannot even fathom 400 babies!!! I'd love to see 400 babies though...

infernalis · 12-13-10, 02:06 AM

Seeing them is one thing, feeding them is another.

We had to break them into groups and do 100 at a time rotated every 4 days.

After 2 months of that, I was happy to see them leave

I have pics, I'll dig some out.

Ch^4 · 12-13-10, 02:22 AM

^^ That is certainly a commendable undertaking.

Even taking care of your normal stock, which if I recall is around 70+ snakes, is undeniably admirable.

I'd love to see pictures....and a lot can be learned from someone like you.

Lankyrob · 12-13-10, 06:11 AM

Thats awesome wayne - i can just about manage to feed seven snakes in one day! any more and i would need to have two feeding days each week. We have definitely hit our maximum number for now in terms of snakes - may look at getting another lizard at some point tho - feeding them is so much easier for me (the wife does it!!!)

infernalis · 12-13-10, 10:34 AM

It seemed awesome at first to be honest, I agreed to help out and wound up swamped with a monumental and heartbreaking task.. Learned a lot about the breeding business.

This picture I took the day shipment number one arrived, 10 deli cups each with many snakes inside..

Fed Ex delivered three boxes within a week each with this many or more deli cups inside!

about a dozen to twenty of the snakes died for various reasons, some were just little runts that would not thrive no matter what I did, some had unfortunate accidents like suicide escape attempts.

It's on thing to lose a snake of your own, but when a morph that belongs to someone else dies in my care, I take it a bit harder than losing one of mine.

I moved this as I feel it was derailing the head shots thread...

Ch^4 · 12-13-10, 12:21 PM

^^ That does sound like a heart-wrenching task.

In the last picture, is the little guy caught between the lid and the container? If so, was it improper packing, because I doubt that little guy was strong enough to pry open the lid.

infernalis · 12-13-10, 02:00 PM

That one was here almost the whole two months, it had already been putting on some size.

I had them all housed in poly tote boxes each one with the business card taped to the lid so the bloodlines would not get mixed up. (hets all look alike, so if you mix them it's over)

That snake was trying to escape the tote, got its head wedged in the seam and then twisted it's own neck trying to free itself.

the escapee in the top picture (illustrated by the arrow) squeezed through one of the air holes in the cup.

It all started when I answered an ad for "non feeding snakes" sent me 17 ("junk" hets to him) for nothing more than the shipping fee. The day they arrived, I called him on the phone and said "I thought you told me they would not eat", he replied with "what do you mean" and I said they all just ate for me. I was then immediately asked if I would take on a couple thousand dollars worth of snakes, get them eating and return them.

In exchange for my efforts, I got to cherry pick a few snakes for myself.. Suddenly I found myself in the "snake whispering" business.

The following breeding season was when the huge numbers started.

Will0W783 · 12-13-10, 03:01 PM

Wow, Wayne, I cannot imagine that many mouths to feed, but what a wonderful thing to do for the little guys!

infernalis · 12-13-10, 03:33 PM

Glad you brought that up Kim, Dorothy has tried to talk me out of doing this, But I can't just let a whole bunch of baby snakes die of starvation, especially since I know how to prevent it.

It's a real win/win for everybody including those babies.

I get some great snakes I could otherwise never afford, my friend gets to sell more snakes, and a whole bunch of "stubborn starters" get a shot at life.

Will0W783 · 12-13-10, 07:45 PM

The fact that some babies don't eat, and some die no matter what you do is something I am wondering how I will handle when I start to breed them. I get broken up pretty badly when one of my adults gets sick or dies, so I imagine it will be hard to deal with little babies dying. I guess you just have to try not to get attached to the little ones when they first hatch? They're so adorable when they're babies.