Frustration: Hi-end From Low-end

[ZFelicien]

It's frustrating trying to get Hi-end from Low-end (hets.) Some Breeders misrepresent their animals, I've had a bad experience so I'm sticking to hi-end I'll make the sacrifice and just pay for the hi-ends. How about u?

After cutting all the some of odds and most of the "Low-ends" out of my collection, my collection is currently as follows. I still have a few low-end but i can't let um go.

2.2 Brooksi (1.0 lavender het, 0.1 2x het Hybino, 0.1 2x het. snow, 1.0 light phase normal)

1.1 cali kings (`03 0.1 aberrant, `98 1.0 albino)

1.1 hypo Hondurans (1.0 [uni-colored, lavender bands, ruby red eyes no tipping], 0.1 tangerine hypo lil tipping)

1.1 Nelson's (1.0 het. albino and bullseye, 0.1 bullseye het. albino)

1.1 Jungle corns (Both Albino)

0.1 Blotched King

0.1 Apricot Peublan

0.1 Jurassic Milk (het. albino)

0.1 Tangerine Honduran (MIA)

Lots more to come (all Hi-end after this)

 

[Sasheena]

The big problem with "high end" for me is that I can't really put too much money into the snakes to begin with. For me if I can support the snakes on $20/month I can afford them, and maybe spend a couple hundred in any given year on them aside from the cost of feeding them and housing them. So I stick with the "low end" and maybe I'll get some snakes that are "higher end" later on.

This is what I have at the moment....

2.6 california kings (high white, chocolate & lemon, newport, banded, banana, albino, etc)

0.2 blotched (goini/apalachicola) (if only I had a male for these!)

1.1 Jurassics poss. het albino (the albino babies I might get from these could be "high end")

1.1 hypo florida x eastern (have no idea of the $$ value I could fetch with these)

1.2 florida (definately low end, but beautiful snakes nonetheless)

0.0.1 splendida

3.5 corns (striped, anery striped, snow motley, anery, creamsicle, rootbeer)

0.0.3 ball pythons

1.1 arizona mountain kingsnakes (can't sell their babies, so these are definately low end)

but then I'm not in it for the money.

 

[ZFelicien]

I Understand

I've wanted an albino Nelson's Milk for a long while, i finally got one a week ago. i got rid of all my cali's except my male albino, and now I'm trying to sell one of my Brooksi males but no luck with him. i just spent $200 at rodentpro on feeders. the enclosure i house most of my snakes in cost about $250 to build, but it's worth it, it can house eleven snakes. i want some Honduran morph sooo badly, but cash is low (what else is new)!
~ZF

 

[Sasheena]

Well see, I'm lucky because the cost of feeding my snakes (other than TIME for myself) is almost zero. After all is said and done I probably spend an average of 10 cents per feeder animal. This is mostly because I sell enough extra mice and rats that they pretty much (but not quite) pay for their own food and bedding. So I spend 4 hours a week on changing rat and mouse cages, and that's what it costs to have the snakes. I figure it ends up being less than $20/month to have this hobby. To me, that is worth it. (Of course, I'm not figuring in electricity costs to heat and air condition the mouse house either)

Right now my dream is to have a male Goini for my two females. A Reverse Stripe Cal King female would be nice. Beyond that I pretty much am aware of my limitations as to space for snakes.... I've reached them. In another ten years when the kids are all grown up, I might convert one bedroom in our house into a snake room, but in the meantime, I must remain at the level I'm at.

 

[ZFelicien]

Well, I'm a student so I'm still at Home. All my snakes are confined to my room, so far I have adequate housing for 17 snakes, but I'll still trying to slim down my collection it was some where in the 20's a few months ago, that snake room idea has been in my head for a long while, I'll definitely have one of those exclusively for my snakes. I've tried breeding my own mice but I can't pull it off, too much time, and the smell is a killer why don't you place a wanted ad for a male Goini ... males are easier to. Or intergrade on female with one of your brooks, that's what I planed on doing if my male isn't sold by next breeding season.
~ZF

 

[Sasheena]

I have posted a wanted advertisement on a local herp board. Trying to find someone who wants to do a trade.... my trade items themselves are fairly sparse..... 1 snake rack (15 hatchling, 4 juvie, 2 adults)... or a 1.1 Anery corns not quite big enough to breed this coming year, or 0.0.2 LTC (1 year) Ball Pythons sold to me as female... but alas, nobody seems to have a male Goini to trade, and I would have to choose between a major overhaul on my mouse house or a male goini if I was just buying one... so can't afford to buy one as I NEED the overhaul.

Will need to see what I can see!

in '06, if I have to, I might end up crossing either my floridana male, or my florida/eastern integrade into the goini... but the female is truly monstrous, and I would be very concerned that she would kill and eat a too-small mate with one single slurp! She's HUMONGOUS.... truly the biggest colubrid i have.

 

[ZFelicien]

Can i see her?

Can i see a pic of your Goini female, i've got a female she's 3feet long and she's only an `03, she's 3times the size of my `03 female cali king.

When you say "major overhaul on my mouse house " what do you mean?

If pix are too large 2 post please send um to [email protected]

~ZF

 

[Sasheena]

Here are a couple of pics... I don't remember exactly which photo name goes to which photo, so I'll post several pictures and hopefully get some good ones in there.

Let's see.. the four pictures I uploaded, if I remember correctly from the photo titles... there's one of several of Pandora's first clutch (in '03, she is an '01). Also another picture of Yertyl, the one baby from her first clutch that I kept. Another picture of Pandora in my hair, just before she laid her first clutch (I wasn't sure she was gravid, she always crawled into my hair when I cleaned her cage, and hubby snapped this pic). The fourth picture is one of my latest shots of her.

As far as the overhaul on the "mouse house" ....

Hubby and I moved into this house (our first house) and with it came a 12 x 8 foot shed. When we first got here hubby was determined to NEVER have mice live in the house again... so he bought insulation and siding, removed the existing shelves, cut a hole in the wall to install an air conditioner, insulated the walls and ceilings, and put up some siding stuff to help with the insulation and the look of the place. He installed a flourescent light. Then we moved my racks from the old house into the "mouse house". At that time we had 1 mouse rack with 20 bins, and 1 mouse rack with 6 small and 6 large bins. Both were already pretty decrepit and the move to the new location discombobulated them ... it was obvious they were on their "last foot". Since then I got into raising rats also and since the 6 large/6 small bin was literally falling apart, I moved that out to make way for my various rat cages (wire cages). My wooden rack with the twenty mouse cages is now falling apart.... only 15 of the slots still hold the cages, and not securely enough so the mice are chewing their way through one bin a week (if not more) which is quite costly. The wood rack MUST GO.

I have a friend who is EXTREMELY good with making things. I've presented him with the problem and he is very excited to tackle it. His plan is to make one wall of the "mouse house" hold all of my rats and mice. He is going to create entire "shelves" that pull out, giving access to food and water and to see the critters without actually opening the bin, and the bins will pull out also. There will be a food hopper (which I don't have right now) to minimize the waste of food. I should be able to have 36 - 42 mouse cages in almost the same floor space (1 extra square foot required) as my current 20 cages. In another small space I will be able to put 10 to 12 rat cages.... and this will all occupy only one half of my mouse building! I'll still have room for my large rat "weiner bin" and my mouse "weiner bin" plus snake racks on the other half of the building and still room for mouse, rat, and snake supplies. The first overhaul of the mouse house will be the creation of the mouse racks. Later in the summer I hope to be able to afford the rat racks, and finally in a year or so, I should be able to save enough for the creation of the snake racks. By the time I am done I should have enough room to house perhaps 30 adult snakes, 42 mouse breeding groups, and 12 rat breeding groups. breeding, incubation, and hatchlings will still take place in the main house.

It's all a dream of course. Except for the new mouse racks... those should take place in the next week or two.

 

[ZFelicien]

Nice clutch!

Very nice hatchlings! Where's your male Goini? did he die? was he on breeder's loan, did he get out? i thought my female would be too small to breed this year but she just about the size your snake was when she was gravid (the hair pic). she's just about the size of my male, although i'm trying to sell him to purchase a hypo male, he's a nice snake thou. lots of yellow!

 

[Sasheena]

My male died. I got him in trade in the spring of '03.... bred him to my girl once that spring. The second time I put him to her, he regurgitated! But she still had 8 beautiful eggs and one slug. This last spring I put him with her four times and they bred quite enthusiastically. Then she started blowing bubbles and sneezing up strings of snot and I was panicked... I thought I would lose her. I turned up her heat and prayed she would be fine. Much too soon to be her pre-lay shed, she shed.... started to seem better... never laid any eggs though! After another shed she seemed 100% recuperated (eating small weaned rats) so I thought I would put her to the male one more time.... I went to get him from his cage (he'd refused the last meal so I thought he might be ready to shed).... only to find him dead. It was a great loss. He was my very favorite snake. Very beautiful and very personable. (well, okay, so he would bite me and try to swallow my hand every time I held him, but he was still my fave)

SO, now I have no male for the ladies. (Pandora's daughter might be up to breeding size this spring). Wishing I could get a breeding loan or something. Anything to see another clutch of those beautiful babies! I haven't given up hope. In the spring I will probably have saved up enough money for a male. Once the renovation of the mouse house is complete I'll start saving for a male.

 

[ZFelicien]

Sorry!

I'm sorry if I opened up old wounds, since I'm been in the snake hobby I've lost six snakes (hatchling-guvenile), and I still think somehow I could have avoided most if not all of them.

The 1st was my gray banded hatchling: s/he wouldn't eat so I had to force feed one day s/he died rite after the feed, I assume from stress, if I were a bit more educated, I would have known to try scenting with an Anole.

The 2nd was my 1st Mexican black: just died out of the clear blue, I figure the food was contaminated.

The 3rd a very nice banana cali female: from day one she wouldn't take f/t food so I force-fed her, for some dumb reason I never thought to try live or to give her some mouse tails, cool her down then try again in the spring.

the 4th my het. albino nelson's male when i got him he has a clef on his upper jaw but he did eat, he was a bit more mellow when compared to other milks i own, but i thought nothing of it. it turned out he had a bacterial infection, he grew a huge lump in his abdominal area and just died eventually i felt better when he died cuz he seemed to be in alot of pain.

the 5th was a female cali king i bought for someone else she ate every thing and was growing great, then she started regurgitating every time i fed her, she had a weird green thing around her abdominal area when i took her to the vet he told me she'd die regardless, so i took her back home and she had a meal b4 she died but i found her dead 2-3 days after her "last meal"

the last death i suffered was of my beloved het, albino nelson's female, i improperly used the supplement "Parazap" i thought i head to give it to them directly but i had to pump their food with the stuff, i gave it to all my snakes the same way till she just died on me.

well i took all of um hard but I've learn form them as well, eps. from the 1st milk that died on me ... he wasn't normal from day one and i noticed but didn't think anything of it ... never again!

~ZF

 

[Sasheena]

Don't worry about opening up old wounds. I have learned to live with the life and death of my critters. Let me see if I can recall a few of my losses....

The Ball Pythons..... Hubby decided he wanted some Ball Pythons. Oh My. So he had me order 10 WC Ball Pythons. Big Mistake. We got all ten in, and set them up, and then went on a short vacation. When we returned the house STANK. Four out of six of them were dead, and one more died the day we returned. It was pretty awful. The remaining animals did fine, ate, were cleared of their parasites, and I eventually sold all but two of them. (which I'm still trying to sell, a year after I received them).

The baby corns... This year was awful.... 38 corn eggs made it to hatching, I kept 8 the rest were euthanized (deformities) and of the 8, only three ate, the rest were 'wrong' and were also euthanized. That made 33 euthanizations this year alone!

Adult corns.... of the three corns that laid eggs, one never recuperated from laying eggs for whatever reason.

Black Ratsnakes... I bought some last fall, and one of them just twisted up into a spiral and expired one day.... couldn't figure that one out! Very bizarre.

Jurassic Milks... I bought some and the breeder decided to send me a bonus... some of his non-feeders and a couple others that weren't really "high end"... alas, every one of those, plus the ones I'd originally bought, save for one of the non-feeders, died. I did get one non-feeder to eat (stuck a mouse tail in his face and he latched on), but the rest died. (the breeder since then replaced the ones I'd purchased with some very beautiful critters, so I have nothing bad to say about him, it was just one of those things).

Spilotes.... I made one purchase from one person...bought two cal kings, a CB spilotes, and a non-feeder Jungle Carpet Python... the cal kings were small but have flourished, the JCP ate from the first morsel and never refused a meal since then, and the spilotes was deformed.... had mites and two notches in it's upper lip.... she died a couple months after I got her. The breeder replaced her with a royal diadem ratsnake, but alas, he was deformed too... had a large split in his belly scales, and you could see his innards. He didn't make it either, and I never bothered to try to get further recompense.

So I've had my losses.

 

[ZFelicien]

well, Sasheena, hope we can continue a discussion on other matters i think this discussion is exhausted ... it was nice talking to you thou. and i hope we can do some business this upcoming season. hopefully all goes well with my female Goini and my male Brooksi.... I meant to ask whether the female you held back retained her color. my hatchlings (if all goes well) should be very yellow or eventually turn very yellow.
all my pix of my Goini r too big to post... if you send me your email add. i can send you some pix of my beauty!
talk to you soon!
~ZF

P.S. nice to see a woman with the same love for snake as we guys do. That's hard to find ur "hubby" is a luck guy!


And how exactly do I get a cool pic as my post icon like the one u got with the girl on the horse?

 

[Sasheena]

It's been very nice talking to you too. I've enjoyed your posts on other sites as well.

Here's a couple of recent pictures of my holdback girl... she wasn't the reddest in the clutch... the most red girl, twice as red as the rest, never ate, never shed, was found dead about two weeks after hatching. (?).. there was also one that was very buckskin colored. One was very dark, almost completely patternless, I sold him to a gentleman in tennessee... would love to see an updated photo.

Yertyl, my holdback, has retained some red.

by the way, you can click the option to send me an email and I'll respond back.

For my "avatar" I took an old computer painting I did, miniaturized it, and then in the USER CP option near the upper left corner you can choose to set up your avatar.

 

[Karen Hulvey]

Sasheena:
I know this thread is old but I had to respond. You said of the 8 corns you kept only 3 ate and rest died. I found a way to get those corns that won't eat to eat. I read it right here on Fauna but I can't find the thread so I can't give the person credit who really figured out how to do it. Sorry about that.

Last year my boss at the place I work hatched 120 corns, kings, milks. We had about 15 corns that refused food. We tried everything, live pinky, braining live pinky, f/t pinky, pink dwarf hamster (worked well on Jalisco milks), live pink scented with anole, f/t pink scented with anole all the way up to giving them a small anole. More and more snakes ate with each thing we tried. But still some would not eat. A couple of them ended up dying because they never ate. We were down to 5 nonfeeding corns and figured they were going to die too and then I read something online that seemed so silly it just might work. Wash f/t pinks and offer them to the snakes. I went to work the very next day and tried it. All 5 ATE!

I use a frozen pinky. I thaw it under hot running water and while I'm doing that I wash it with soap and water, any old soap will work, just make sure you get all the soap off. After pink is completely thawed and warm, offer it to the nonfeeders.

We had 5 left that had never ate. They were born in August and it was just last month, January, when I discovered this trick. All 5 snakes ate immediately and are still eating twice a week on the washed f/t pinks. I'm simply amazed at how "easy" it is.

I know 5 snakes eating this way doesn't mean every nonfeeder will but it sure does make you wonder. Man we tried everything and they would simply ignore the food.

This year my boss will probably hatch around 200 corns, kings & milks and you bet I'm going to be washing a lot of pinky mice. With every mouse rack cleaning, we are freezing a bunch of pink mice so we will be prepared when hatching starts. I can't wait.

The person who originally figured out this said he/she was feeding f/t to his/her snakes and noticed a urine smell on his/her fingers. That's why she decided to wash the pinks, to take away the smell of urine.



This is for ZF:
This is how to keep the smell down in your mouse colony. First thing, don't use cedar shavings. In your pic of mice it looks like you're using cedar. If it's not cedar, sorry I'm wrong. Use pine or aspen shavings. Use imitation vanilla (not real) extract at 8 drops to a 12 or 16 ounce bottle of water. Then use baking soda mixed in with your shavings. You won't believe how much this will cut down the stink.

I was visiting a friend who has snakes and breeds mice and rats in his basement. He wanted me to see his rat set up. I wasn't too keen to smell that because he has a LOT of rats and I know he uses shredded newspaper for bedding. Yuck. I went in his basement and there was hardly any smell at all. I was flabergasted. Some of those tubs were in need of cleaning and he said today was cleaning day. It wasn't bad at all. In fact my mice stank worse than his 100 or so rats and 200 or so mice did and I have 1/3 of what he has. He told me about the vanilla and baking soda regimen. He read it online on an ATB website. (I can't find that site either.)

 

[ZFelicien]

Thanx for the info...

i just don't get the vanilla extract thing... do i put it in their drinking water?

as far as my bedding choice i use both pine and cedar... is that still bad? the ceder i use to they can have nesting material.... i've never tried the baking soda thing, but i have tried cat litter (line the bottom with it then place the bedding on top the cat litter).

Any ways.. let me know about the vanilla thing...

Thanx again.

~ZF

 

[Karen Hulvey]

Yes, just put 8 drops of imitation vanilla extract in their water bottle. It DOES NOT work if you have an automatic watering system. I learned that the hard way. It tends to gum up the small tubing really bad. Use only on water bottles.

I wouldn't use cedar shavings at all. Here are a couple of sites with reasons why. These sites state not to use both cedar and pine but I've never had a problem with pine used on mice, rats, hamsters and guinea pigs. I use aspen or cypress mulch on my snakes.

Maybe you've never had a problem with cedar. Who knows what's best. I do know that many of my different reptile books state that cedar is toxic to reptiles and not to even keep the rodents you're going to feed your reptiles on cedar.

http://www.veterinarypartner.com/Content.plx?P=A&A=1475&S=4&SourceID=56

http://members.aol.com/bunrabtoo/cedar.html