Big Borg Reptiles
New member
While not technically new to the Fauna forums, I decided to stop looking over my girlfriend's shoulder and finally create my own account 
.
My name is Nick Burgener and I'm originally from WI. After living in the miserably cold winters and nothing but cows and corn in the summer, I decided I needed a change and headed west. I've been living in Reno, NV for about 5 or 6 years now, and while I don't think Reno is the nicest place in the world, I like it a heck of a lot more than I did the midwest.
I am currently enrolled in the University of Nevada here, and unless something goes terribly wrong I'll be graduating with a double BS in chemistry and physics after next spring. The professors that I have gotten to know in my time here have all encouraged me to continue to graduate school as a Ph.D candidate, so that is my likely plan in Fall of 2015.
I have been working for the past year or so as an undergraduate researcher in a lab on campus dealing with silicon surface binding energies. By placing an argon treated silicon plate in a UHV (ultra-high vacuum) and injecting small amounts of a known, pure compound, we are able to compute the binding energies of different segments of that compound based on the temperature at which they are ejected. Through this, we hope to propose a mechanism for the binding that is taking place, and are hoping to provide evidence of a beta-hydride elimination mechanism proposed by many researchers in recent publications.
I had never dealt with snakes in any way until I met my partner Victoria. She has been in love with them since high school, but has not been able to own her own until the past few years. The first time that I went to her house she asked if I wanted to see her snakes, to which I replied "no, they smell". Apparently she didn't hear me (or more likely, ignored me), because two seconds later I had a YB ball python named Vito hanging around my neck. About 30 seconds later, I decided that I did like snakes.
Victoria had been researching and looking at snakes for years, and so she knew of all the different morphs and general pricing. She started showing me some of the neater ones (the highway especially piqued my interest), and after a while I realized that I really wanted to get involved in them as well. I specifically wanted to get into axanthics, which thankfully I have been able to do recently. The axanthic pinstripe was the one that really caught my eye, and it instantly became my goal to make one.
Since this point, we have patiently waited to find quality animals and are currently at 25 ball pythons. We have built our own racks of which I personally am very proud...for how much people charge for them it was surprising how easy they were to make, and we were able to build them in a way that works perfectly for our future and current plans. We also had a surprise clutch (5 eggs with one possible slug) from a het pied a month ago, so that was a very exciting/stressful experience. We're still waiting to see what comes out and keeping our fingers crossed for a couple pieds
We also found that some of our new snakes were literally scared of f/t rats (how they would survive in the wild, no one knows), and so we decided that we should start a rat rack as well. We worked on building a six tub rack, with one being used for a breeding colony and the other 5 for pregnant moms or smalls that have just been weaned. I was really nervous about it at first, but they make it sound a lot more complicated online than it actually is. I've been having a lot of success with the rack, and I love playing with the new babies when they start crawling around.
We've already done business with quite a few people on this site and have had nothing but positive transactions thus far. I'm sure we'll be doing a lot more business here as well, and I look forward to meeting and dealing with more of you
.My name is Nick Burgener and I'm originally from WI. After living in the miserably cold winters and nothing but cows and corn in the summer, I decided I needed a change and headed west. I've been living in Reno, NV for about 5 or 6 years now, and while I don't think Reno is the nicest place in the world, I like it a heck of a lot more than I did the midwest.
I am currently enrolled in the University of Nevada here, and unless something goes terribly wrong I'll be graduating with a double BS in chemistry and physics after next spring. The professors that I have gotten to know in my time here have all encouraged me to continue to graduate school as a Ph.D candidate, so that is my likely plan in Fall of 2015.
I have been working for the past year or so as an undergraduate researcher in a lab on campus dealing with silicon surface binding energies. By placing an argon treated silicon plate in a UHV (ultra-high vacuum) and injecting small amounts of a known, pure compound, we are able to compute the binding energies of different segments of that compound based on the temperature at which they are ejected. Through this, we hope to propose a mechanism for the binding that is taking place, and are hoping to provide evidence of a beta-hydride elimination mechanism proposed by many researchers in recent publications.
I had never dealt with snakes in any way until I met my partner Victoria. She has been in love with them since high school, but has not been able to own her own until the past few years. The first time that I went to her house she asked if I wanted to see her snakes, to which I replied "no, they smell". Apparently she didn't hear me (or more likely, ignored me), because two seconds later I had a YB ball python named Vito hanging around my neck. About 30 seconds later, I decided that I did like snakes.
Victoria had been researching and looking at snakes for years, and so she knew of all the different morphs and general pricing. She started showing me some of the neater ones (the highway especially piqued my interest), and after a while I realized that I really wanted to get involved in them as well. I specifically wanted to get into axanthics, which thankfully I have been able to do recently. The axanthic pinstripe was the one that really caught my eye, and it instantly became my goal to make one.
Since this point, we have patiently waited to find quality animals and are currently at 25 ball pythons. We have built our own racks of which I personally am very proud...for how much people charge for them it was surprising how easy they were to make, and we were able to build them in a way that works perfectly for our future and current plans. We also had a surprise clutch (5 eggs with one possible slug) from a het pied a month ago, so that was a very exciting/stressful experience. We're still waiting to see what comes out and keeping our fingers crossed for a couple pieds
We also found that some of our new snakes were literally scared of f/t rats (how they would survive in the wild, no one knows), and so we decided that we should start a rat rack as well. We worked on building a six tub rack, with one being used for a breeding colony and the other 5 for pregnant moms or smalls that have just been weaned. I was really nervous about it at first, but they make it sound a lot more complicated online than it actually is. I've been having a lot of success with the rack, and I love playing with the new babies when they start crawling around
.We've already done business with quite a few people on this site and have had nothing but positive transactions thus far. I'm sure we'll be doing a lot more business here as well, and I look forward to meeting and dealing with more of you
