Snakes and Sh!t

I know I’m about three weeks behind schedule, but the new birthing rack for the rats is finally done. The final parts I’ve been waiting on for the watering system came in this week and I finished coding the HTML for the How To page today.

Check out the new plans here:

http://www.arbreptiles.com/cages/rat_rack2/birthing_rack.shtml

Clay :: Jan.13.2008 :: The Collection :: No Comments »

Apparently the parts I’ve been waiting on to finish the watering system on the new rat rack have been out of stock.
I got an email today saying that they had finally shipped them.

They should be here in a few days, so hopefully by next weekend the new rack will be in use.
I’ll have the plans posted as soon as I can get the page coded.

Clay :: Jan.05.2008 :: The Collection :: No Comments »

The male spider is a breeding machine. He’s mated with 5 girls so far, so hopefully I’ll get at least a few clutches from him this season.

The male albino has decided he’s ready this year and has been breeding with two het girls.  I struck out with the albino gene this season, so with him as the breeder male hopefully I’ll have better lick this year.

The pastel male has bred a female or two, but he’s not nearly as enthusiastic as the spider male. It’s hard to beat a spider for either feeding or breeding interest though.

The het clowns have copulated a couple of times. I’m crossing my fingers that I’ll get another clutch from them this season.

The womas are of course breeding heavy, but they’ve skunked me in the past, so I’ve learned not to count those eggs until I have babies roaming the incubator.

The bredli are being a little stubborn. I’ve seen some mild interest from the male, but no copulation as of yet. I’m going to tweak their temperatures a little more and see if I can’t get something started with them.

I’m beginning to think the Savus are going to need another year before they’re ready. I thought, judging by their size, that they were ready to breed, but I’ve seen no interest from them at all so far.

I’ll make regular updates here on the blog when anything of interest happens. Until then it’s just the waiting game as usual, keep them breeding and wait on ovulation.

Clay :: Jan.04.2008 :: The Collection :: No Comments »

 Here’s a new pic of the little clown girl I held back this season I thought I’d share.

She’s coming along nicely if I do say so myself. I hope to produce some more like her this year.
Her parents have copulated a couple of times so far, but in the past I’ve found that I have a smaller degree of success getting a given female to reproduce two consecutive seasons, especially when she’s a young female.
We’ll see what happens though.

Click the thumbnail for a larger pic.

I’m proud of this girl, and am very glad I was able to start with good genes and was able to produce her to add to my breeding colony.  Her grandfather was also a very nice reduced patterned male, and that was the main factor in my deciding to start my clown project with his offspring.
Despite the claims of some, you can see the benefit of starting a project with good stock. Clowns are indeed variable, but not to the point some  (mainly the ones producing the lowest quality) would like you to believe.

I’m not saying that to promote my animals. There are many breeders producing high quality clowns. There’s a good number producing low quality animals too that look more like blackback normals than clowns too.
I’d like to see this gene refined and improved on, and to that end I’d like to see people interested in the clowns make the effort to acquire high quality founding stock, regardless of who they buy it from. With careful breeding, aimed at improving the look as opposed to just producing more to sell, I’m anxious to see what will be produced in years to come.

Clay :: Jan.04.2008 :: The Collection :: No Comments »

I know some of you are waiting on the new rat rack plans to get posted.
I wanted to give you an update. I’m still waiting on a few of the components for the watering system to arrive. I will post the plans as soon as they are completed.
There’s no need to email me asking about them, the plans will be published as soon as I get the page written. The rack is built, I’m only waiting on the last parts for the watering system.

I did intend to have the plans completed before Christmas, but I just wasn’t able to.

Clay :: Dec.30.2007 :: Reptile Related, The Collection :: No Comments »

Well, a warm spell is interrupting my cycling schedule. I had the motorcycle out today and at the moment it’s 75 degrees in the brumation room. I’m sure it will pass though, but a bad season several years ago due to a warm winter always makes me nervous when it’s spring in December.

I got the new design rat rack assembled today. I think it’s going to be a very usable design, and the build was much easier too getting away from the hangers for the boxes.
I placed my order for the supplies to set up the auto watering system so hopefully I’ll be ready to get this rack into service by early next week. I’ll try to have the plans published within a couple of days after that.
I believe this will be a popular design for this size tub. It has 24 slots and is very easy to build. I ran into a snag or two working out the measurements, but once I got those details worked out, building another one will go very quickly.

Clay :: Dec.11.2007 :: The Collection :: No Comments »

We’re picking up steam with the python breeding. The albino male has mated with two het girls, the spider has bred with three, and the lemon pastel has been with one as well.
The het clown male has been in shed, so that pair haven’t been put together just yet.

The bredli and the savu pythons have been together, but no breeding activity has been noticed. I’ll be tweaking their environmental conditions and see if I can get something started with them.

The womas have been copulating, but they do that at the drop of a hat, time will tell if I’ll have success with them this season.

The new style rat rack for preggo moms is ready for final assembly. I still need to order the supplies for the auto watering system, but I intend to have the plans published before Christmas.

I finally got the colubrids into brumation. It’s a month later than I normally cool them, but our local temperatures haven’t been consistently cool enough to keep the cool room at brumation temps.
I hope to have a brand new rack built and waiting on them by the time they are warmed up.

I’ll post some breeding pics along the way and keep you posted on how things are going as the season progresses.

Clay :: Dec.08.2007 :: The Collection :: No Comments »

Well, cage building has been suspended for a few days due to my work schedule. I’m working double shifts until Thanksgiving.
I do however get to enjoy a nice four day weekend starting Thursday though, and plan to do some building then if the weather cooperates.

I’ve been working on plans to redesign the rat barn to maximize my production potential should I decide to significantly expand the breeding colonies. This should result in two new rodent rack designs, one to hold the large Van Ness cat litter pans and a variation of the cement tub breeding rack design that is already posted. I’m thinking of a design that will support the tubs from the bottom as opposed to having them suspended on tracks.
I also plan to replace an old melamine rack this winter while I have the colubrids in brumation. This will be a large rack for the 32 quart tubs.
Something needs to be done with  some new shoebox racks too. I have never liked the hatchling rack design I have posted on the site and am wanting to replace those plans with something better.

I think I’ll pair up a few snakes this weekend too. My albino male ball is off feed completely, so I’m hoping he’s developing an interest in breeding this season. So far only one female has started refusing food, all the others are ravenous as they often are just prior to the breeding season.

Clay :: Nov.20.2007 :: The Collection :: No Comments »

I decided to put off starting the breeding season this year. I normally start pairing up the ball pythons in October sometime, and getting to the other pythons later on. I decided to wait until late November at least before I start introductions with the balls and see how that works.

For whatever reason I often see a 50% success rate in female becoming gravid, so I’m going to switch things up a little.
I went through and weighed my potential breeders a few days ago. Looks like I’ll have three more girls I hatched in 2004 that will be ready to join the stable this year.
The het clown female that produced the two awesome clowns for me this year is heavier now than before she was bred last year, so I’m hoping she’ll produce again.

One of my het albino females took this year off, and the other is a big 1900+ grams, so if my albino male decides to cooperate maybe I won’t miss the gene this year.

The spider male is of course ready to go, I think eat and breed is all the spiders are concerned with. He’s over 1100 grams now.  My lemon pastel male has crossed 1000 so maybe he’ll decide he’s ready this year too.
Unfortunately my female pastel isn’t going to be up to size to breed it doesn’t look like, so I might not see bumblebees this year after all.

I’ll be trying the bredli for the first time this season and I’ll be pairing the womas again as well. My woma technique still isn’t worked out completely and I’ve had mixed success in the past. I’m going to work on them again and see if I can get both females to reproduce for me.

We always have much more potential in a given season than we have results though, and I think most breeders understand that all too well. We’ll see in a few months how our plans work out, and as usual we have hopes of a very good season ahead.

Clay :: Nov.13.2007 :: Reptile Related, The Collection :: No Comments »

It’s been a few months since there’s been a new cage design published on the site. Due to the format of my cage plans in that they are not drawings, but photos of the actual build, I can only add plans as I build cages and it’s just not that often that I come up with a new design.

This cage however is a big departure from what I have normally built. It’s going to be the most labor intensive cage I’ve built to date, but I think it’ll be worth it.
I’m looking forward to getting it in use and publishing the build on it. Being an experimental design though, I’m also just hoping that it’s usable once it’s built haha.
Not many people know the specifics of this cage yet, but just for a sneak preview, it’s being built to house large boa constrictors and will be 5 feet wide. My aim is to create a more stimulating environment for the snakes and maximize the opportunity for exercise while not taking up a lot of real estate in the room.

Actual assembly was ready to start yesterday, but I had to quit for the day.  My wife works nights too and I couldn’t fire up the air compressor without waking her up ;).
I’m hoping to get to work on it a bit in the morning before I have to go to bed. I’m still not expecting to have it finished until probably December.

This is the first time I’ve  started construction on a cage without having the entire plan in my head. I hadn’t decided on the type of doors, but right now I’m leaning toward hinged.
I still haven’t fully decided on the heating method either. I wanted to experiment with radiant heat panels, but I’m not sure that is going to happen in time, so I might have to fall back to the flexwatt on this one.

We’ll see how it turns out in the end, but I’m looking forward to seeing what everyone thinks of this project.

Clay :: Nov.11.2007 :: Reptile Related, The Collection :: No Comments »

I rode down to Columbia last Saturday for the show. I haven’t been much of a show goer for the last few years, I think it was spring of 2006 since I’d been to one.

It was a good trip, the show was moderately good, not a lot there that interested me. I mainly went to see the eyelash vipers that David Kornerly was bringing. He had some outstanding specimens, and I enjoyed talking with him a few minutes.

I did pick up another addition to my lepidus group, a Davis Mountains locality male. Click the thumbnail below for a bigger pic of him.

It was worth the trip, since I hadn’t been to a show in so long, and better than the average Raleigh show these days.

Clay :: Nov.08.2007 :: Reptile Related, The Collection :: 1 Comment »