I’m pleased to kick off the next round of weekly Living Gems forum posts. For this first entry, we are profiling Picasso, one of our three adult breeder males.
Picasso’s age is unknown, but estimated at about seven years. He originally came to us in July 2011 from a breeder who was exiting the Brazilian business, and was estimated at six to eight years of age at that point. Due to his smaller size (1221 grams), I went with the lower end of that range. We picked his name due to his unusual color palette, an intriguing mix of rarer tones.
Here is Picasso as of July 2011, exploring his quarantine drawer just after we received him:
Note he looks a bit thin in this picture, as you can see the ridge of his spine.
In the following months, Picasso added over 200 grams. As a reward for his excellent progress, was introduced to his new girlfriend, Malachite, in March 2012. While the results of that fling are unknown, he apparently did his job quickly, and then spent the next few months hiding behind the water bowl at the back of her viv. We separated them in June when it was clear all activity was done, and he began to lose much of the weight he had gained (he has since recovered most of it).
Here is Picasso as of September 2012, after recovering from his short but passionate fling.
Outside
Inside
Picasso now weighs 1349 grams -- still a bit thin, but well on the road to a healthy size. We will be watching his weight carefully over the remainder of the year, and his progress will determine whether we breed him again in 2013 for either a full or short season, of let him take a year off.
Thank you for reading,
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