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Bloodred 100% het Amel Anery Stripe

Cornsnakes are relatively easy to care for and most will live into their teens or twenties as long as you provide a few basic items.
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Also arriving today were three beautiful Lavender het Pewter Stripe babies, hatched by John Finsterwald, Colorado Corns. From a Pewter het Lavender sire and a Lavender Stripe dam, these gorgeous hatchlings hold the possibilities of some amazing offspring in 2013. With luck, the F2 generation could include 27/64 Lavenders, 9/64 Bloodreds, 9/64 Charcoal Lavenders, 3/64 Lavender Pewters, 9/64 Lavender Stripes, 3/64 Lavblood Stripes, 3/64 Charcoal Lavender Stripes and maybe, just maybe, 1/64 Charcoal Lavblood Stripe. Can you imagine??

Pictured above is Jacinto, the male. He’s a bit fiesty! That’s okay- he makes a good photo subject that way. The females are Iris, the speedy one, on the left, and Violet, the sweet one, on the right. One thing these kids have in common is excellent banding! So the non-stripe F2’s in the project should be gorgeous in their own right. The babies are testing out the hatchling rack for me, since it is still a couple weeks till my own eggs hatch. It’s quite a change from the usual 10 gallon set-ups I like for babies, but seems to be comfortable and safe for them.

Fred, the Rosy Bloodred, has returned to Florida! I am so happy! I just love this snake. Fred is here on breeding loan from John Finsterwald, Colorado Corns. Also in the box was Annabelle, a 2008 Hypo Bloodred het Snow Stripe, on breeding loan for 2011. Annabelle will be paired up with Pepper, my 2007 Avalanche Stripe.

Both are gorgeous Rich Hume stock. I’m hoping for some amazing hatchlings, including Bloodreds, Fires, Granites and Avalanches, in saddles and stripes. Annabelle is blue right now, but you can be sure I will do a nice photoshoot with her after she sheds. She is just an outstanding example of Bloodred.

(Scarlett- the female) I’ve been after a pair of these since I first learned of them in 2008, and I am pleased to announce the arrival of a pair of pure locality Boot Key Rosy Ratsnakes! These youngsters were hatched by Graham Criglow of Strange Cargo Exotics and the entire clutch was sold out of egg to Byron De Stouet, who raised them up to the gorgeous young snakes they are today.

These Rosy Ratsnakes are very different from mainland cornsnakes. They are thin, strong and wirey; obviously a snake that spends much of its time in trees. Another difference is the belly which is a translucent orange with no checkers. The Boot Keys are nearly twice the length of cornsnakes of the same weight. They appear to mature at a small size, too; Scarlett is ovulating now. Of course they are too young to breed! We’ll see how much they grow by 2011, at the earliest. (More Scarlett, below)

I had prepared bins for them in the isolation rack, but after seeing them weigh in at 67 and 77 grams, I feared that they would be small enough to escape. Luckily, placing a piece of cardboard under each bin tightened things up enough to keep the new kids where they belonged. Phoenix (below) is the male, and he is nearly identical to Scarlett. Luckily, they have slightly different head markings, and I am sure that after spending more time with them after the settling in period they will become easier to tell apart. Needless to say, I am very excited to welcome these rare beauties into the SnickerSnakes collection. Thank you, Byron!

The girls have all laid, shed, and are recovering their girlish figures. I’m extremely sad to report that my most-anticipated clutch of Lily and Fred was infertile. Well, out of 26 eggs there are two maybes, but I am not holding out any hope. We’ll try again next season. Buzztail, however, delivered what look to be 16 fertile eggs. The expected hatch date is mid-July. And then Cherry delivered a mixed clutch of 12 definite slugs and 8 maybes. I think she was just bred too late in her cycle. I am going to rebreed her because based on last year’s performance Cherry is going to double clutch. I am very thankful that all the girls came through their first breeding season in good health with no retained eggs. Really, that is the most important thing.

In other news, I have set up two more adult racks. These racks are Animal Plastics Economy Plastic Racks, 66 quart. Although you won’t find this rack on the AP website, you can contact Alie and she will be happy to give you the details. The bins are available from Target. (Given Sterilite’s history of discontinuing bins, I always order my bins before I order a rack, to make sure I will still get the correct bins). I love the extra space of 66 quart bins, and the openness of the Economy Plastic racks. My Wall of Snakes runs from my kitchen all the way through the living room! I love it! Three “teenager” snakes have moved up to the adult rack; 2008’s The Dingo and Mango, and 2009 Zora. The Dingo, especially, is enjoying his new living area and is out all the time now! And when Zora moved, she took her hammock with her. Mango was blue during the move and never came out of his cardboard tube. I can only imagine his surprise when he emerged to shed and found himself in an entirely different place! The kids all took many of their old possessions with them when they moved so they should have some sense of familiarity in their new homes.

I’ve also managed to get every last cornsnake registered with the American Cornsnake Registry while on vacation last week. You can look me up there under my breeder number, #513, my name, Nanci LeVake, or my house initials, SNICKERSNAKES. It’s so fun to look at the snakes that have extensive pedigrees such as Cherry, El Wray, Zora, Jasper, Cali and Jasmine. I’ve always had cage cards attached to the vivs so the occupant could be identified, but I thought it would be nice to place each snake’s ACR registration in a plastic airbill envelope and attach that to the side of the viv. I’m really happy with how they look!

The cool thing about registering the snakes is I was forced to take photos of all of them! Here are some of the best! First, Lava Bloodred Yggdrasil and a blue Hypo Lavender Stripe Razzle.

Opal Stripe Mango and Amel het Opal Bloodred Azaria. (Isn’t she a little fatty? She’s ovulating and filled with ova, although she’s a 2008. She’d better reabsorb them!!)

Lavender Stripe Calli (who will be ready to breed next year, with Mango!) and Lavender Bloodred Draco. Draco just keeps getting lighter and prettier with every shed!

Mating is over and the three hopefully-gravid mommy snakes have all gone blue in preparation for egg-laying. In three weeks or less I will know who is gravid, who is not, who will lay fertile eggs and how many. Cherry, the Milksnake-Phase Miami, was the first to go blue. (For any new snake people, “going blue” is the colloquial term for ecdysis, the process of moulting the old skin. A layer of fluid forms between the old skin and the new, causing the snake to take on an opaque milky or blue appearance, especially on the belly scales and the eyes). Cherry and El Wray only mated three times before she went blue, but that should be plenty, as long as I caught her with enough time for the eggs to be fertilized. I removed Cherry’s big water bowl and replaced it with a smaller bowl. This is done to discourage egg-laying in the water bowl, which will drown the eggs. I also removed one of her hides and replaced it with a lay box filled with moist sphagnum moss. I don’t expect her to lay until seven days or so after her pre-lay shed, but snakes don’t always follow the rules, so I wanted to be prepared with an inviting place to lay the eggs in case she decided to lay early. The next snake to go blue was Lily, Lavender Bloodred, who is apparently very heavily gravid. Lily is snuggled down under her favorite piece of cork bark, awaiting her pre-lay shed. Both Cherry and Lily were blue on the last feeding day, and so were not fed. They won’t be offered a meal until after they lay, because the digestive process will interfere with the last stages before egg-laying. After laying the girls will be offered small meals, but will soon go blue again with only time for a meal or two before entering the post-lay shed period. On feeding day, Buzztail, Bloodred, looked rather dark in color. I offered her a mouse anyway, which she ate greedily. Still, she wasn’t her usual ravenous self, and I suspected she would be blue within days, and she is. Buzztail has burrowed deep into her fluffy aspen bedding to prepare for her pre-lay shed. So now we wait. Nervously. Impatiently. Apprehensively! I’ve been using this time to check and double check the incubator temps. I am aiming for a temp around 80F. The incubator both heats and cools, which is important here where my house temp could reach the mid-80s. (Fortunately, the new AC unit has been keeping the house at the temp I set, even on days where the outside temp gets up into the 90s, which is a huge relief to me!) I’ve installed thermometers of two different makes inside the incubator, which are reading the same. One even transmits the incubator temp and humidity to a small “weather station” I keep on my nightstand! Soon I will prepare the egg containers, filling them with a layer of HatchRite. The incubator is small, and I will be able to get three containers into it, but no more. However, with the temperature inside the house finally under control and steady, coincidentally at the perfect egg incubating temperature, if I need to incubate a clutch in room air I am sure it will be fine. And that’s the news from here!