News from the Vault...
10/6/10: PASTEL HET DESERT GHOSTS!--Last clutch of the season, and it was totally worth the wait. We got five pastel 100% het desert ghosts and four 100% desert ghosts, mostly female. We'll probably hold back a pair, but if you're looking to make super pastel desert ghosts, pastel desert ghosts, or just DGs, take a look at our available page in a few weeks.
9/17/10: LESSER PASTEL, LESSER, & NORMALS!--We miss the lesser pastel we produced last year, but at least she's "in the family" (Tim @ Ballroom Pythons). So, we're holding back the one we produced this year. Our pastel female only laid four eggs, but a lesser, a lesser pastel, and two normals pipped out all around 80 g, so it was a good, healthy clutch.
8/15/10: A CLOWN!..and lots of hets--We bred our male clown to our second het clown female, and of eight eggs we hatched one female clown and seven het clowns! How'd that happen? (scratching head) I guess these less than remarkable odds evened out the incredible clutch we got on 8/06/10. The odds gods giveth and the odds gods taketh away. However, we will be loaded with het clown pairs for those of you who want to get in on the clown project with limited fundage in this economy.
8/15/10: PASTEL HET CLOWNS!--Our male clown sired a clutch via our female pastel, and we got three pastel het clowns and four hets. We may keep a female, but I think that leaves a pair of pastel het clowns that should be ready to go in three weeks.
8/09/10: PEWTERS 'N BEES!--Our pewter x bumblebee clutch hatched yesterday, and we got a pewterbee, a killerbee, three pewters, and the coveted 1 in 16 shot...the normal. The killerbee is pretty killer as far as we're concerned, but a good clutch overall and loads of good fun waiting to see what would pip. Here's a picture of our first two pippers.
8/08/10: Pastel x Desert Ghost--We bred our four-year-old female pastel and our male desert ghost (Bell line) and got nine nice healthy eggs. We seriously don't know where she hid them all. Look at the size of those eggs! She was reluctant to give 'em up, but with the help of our son's baseball jersey we got her calm and got her eggs into a nice warm incubator.
8/06/10: CLOWNS!--We bred our male clown (Dan Sutherland) to our het clown female (Justin Kobylka), and of seven eggs we hatched six clowns and one het clown. Justin's girl knows what she's doing. Now all of you can start singing "I wish that I had Justin's girl..." Well, you know where to find them: www.jkobylkareptiles.com Or, you can just get a homozygous clown from us--in about three weeks.
7/31/10: MYSTIC POTIONS!--Clutch result: three mojaves, two normals, one mystic, and two mystic potions. So genetically speaking, we broke even on the mystic potion odds. The male is almost nearly all lavender with hardly a noticible pattern. The female (below) has a great irridescent sheen and a more pronounced pattern.
7/18/10: Lemon Pastel x Lemon Pastel or Lesser--We initially decided to try duplicating the unusual lemon x lemon clutch that we hatched last year but switched goals mid-season and introduced our lesser male to our lemon pastel female. Today she laid four huge eggs which is the norm for her, so in September we'll find out which genes made it.
7/18/10: Het Clown x Clown--We were really proud of our OTHER first timer het clown girl this morning. She was very protective over her eight eggs as any good mom would be, but now she can get some rest and have a long overdue meal. Thanks, Justin and Dan.
7/15/10: GOT GARGOYLES--Now that the mischievous pixie has vacated the vault, we've hired a voodoo priestess to cast a spell of protection. Our cinny female and het red male pairing gave us eight eggs and FIVE of them were gargoyles. I'm too excited to calculate those odds, but...there it is.
7/11/10: Pastel x Clown--Seven is the magic number so far this year for our male clown. This is the second seven egg clutch he has sired. This pastel girl went nearly a month late, but we've got a lot of late clutches expected this season.
6/9/10: Pewter x Bumblebee--Only six eggs...but six chances at eleven different morphs including sterling bees, pewter bees, sterlings, killer bees, cinny spiders, pewters, bumble bees, super pastels...OK, I'll quit before I start sounding like Pvt. "Bubba" Blue from Forrest Gump describing everything you can do with shrimp.
6/5/10: Het Clown x Clown--We were really proud of our first timer het clown girl this morning. We accidentally interrupted her during laying, but came back to find her coiled around seven healthy eggs. There will be a lot more where that came from as our clown male was quite the Romeo this year. Thanks Justin Kobylka and Dan Southerland for providing us with excellent animals. We'll let you know in two months what pips out.
5/30/10: Mojave x Mystic--OMG!!! Eight possible mystic potions are sitting in our incubator right now! And, there's a dim lavender hue streaming out from the vault.... Our glowing mojave girl dropped eight healthy white eggs in the wee hours of the morning, and ever since then, I can't get "Purple Rain" to stop playing in my head. Damn you, artist formerly known as Prince! But, thank you Anthony McCain, and thank you Dan Wolfe for the mystic. He's gotten more tail than Peter North this season.
5/27/10: LESSER PLATINUMS!--Three lessers, six normals, all between 63 and 68 grams--not the ideal odds on genetics, but our lessers look every bit as awesome as they did last year. Thanks Ralph for proving out for what we think is the most versatile codom on the market.
5/19/10: Cinnamon x Het Red Axanthic--Perhaps the pixie that has been thwarting our het red project has fimally decided to vacate the vault. Our cinny female gave us eight perfect eggs this morning, and we're expecting some cinnamon het red axanthics sometime around mid-July. Looking for cinny het reds? Check back on our available page in August.
3/26/10: Normal x Lesser Platinum--FIRST CLUTCH OF THE SEASON! We're excited. Our bright normal import dropped nine huge, healthy, white eggs today. If her lesser offspring hatch out looking anything like last year's, it'll be like Jules opening the briefcase in Pulp Fiction. We've got a good season ahead with a lot of new and unusual projects. Check back for more announcements!
2009 Vault News
11/4/09: YEAH, LESSER BEE!!--We waited all season for a lesser bee, and tonight we came home to a welcome sight. From our lesser male to our reduced pattern spider female from KA, we got pips: one normal, one spider, one lesser, and one lesser bee, and he is beautiful as you can see. We'll post a picture of the sibs after they shed.
10/11/09: NO GHOSTS! :(--In August, our caramel PH ghost female threw a clutch of 9 with only 2 viables. Our ghost was the sire. We were hoping that one of the offspring would be a ghost, but instead we got a beautiful 1.1 pair of DH caramel glows. We'll be looking to trade out the male to keep the genes fresh.
9/5/09: Spider x Lesser Platinum--Last year in Daytona we got an unusually reduced pattern spider girl from Kevin Arbogast. We were absolutely thrilled to get her but didn't think she was going to go this year or thought she might slug out. This afternoon, we discovered her coiled around four large, white, vein-laden eggs. So, this is our second chance at lesser bees! But, we have to wait 'til November to find out.
9/5/09: LUCKED OUT ON PIEDS--The luck tide is rolling back in our direction. Out of a het to het pairing, two pieds and a pos het pipped out today. Here is a picture of our pied 1.1 pair from this clutch.
9/1/09: DOUBLE-SIRED CLUTCH--We bred our mojave male to our big normal girl "Rosie" but then decided that we'd rather have more lessers. We bred our lesser male to Rosie for the remainder of the season, and we ended up with a double-sired clutch (again)! Total count was four normals, four lessers, and one mojave. Below is a pic of one unusually high contrast lesser girl. She almost looks axanthic-ish. BTW, all of the lessers and normal sibs produced from the lesser male who sired the clutch have been reduced pattern.
8/28/09: ALBINOS!!!--We bred our albino male to our het female, and got a perfect Mendelian breakdown: a trio (1.2) of het albinos and 2.1 albinos. These, less one female, should be on our available page in about a month.
8/27/09: WHOOPS!--OK, so this clutch was a big surprise. We're big fans of lesser bees. Love 'em. Next to Brock Wagner's mimosas and king clowns, the lesser bee, albeit easy to make, is one of our favorites. Well, last November, our lesser male was just not digging our spider female. Perhaps she wasn't putting out the right pheromones. We tried for a month, and didn't want the spider to go unbred, so we put our male mojave with her. He, being a total "playah" jumped right on her...ONCE. We tried again with the lesser thinking that maybe NOW she was in season, and the lesser didn't hesitate! We bred the lesser to the spider a dozen or two more times over the next three or four months, then near the end of June, the spider dropped a clutch of five. Five chances for lesser bees, right? Wrong! To our utter shock pipped two mojaves, a spider mojo, a spider, and a normal. Below is a pic of the spijave and a mojo, still in egg skin.
8/23/09: DAYTONA EXPO--Well, we're back, and I'm speechless. Didn't ever want to leave. We put together a video that says it all.
8/21/09: PASTELS--This particular clutch was produced via our pastel female and het red axanthic male. We only got two viable eggs and first thought they were het red pastels, but upon further scruitiny (and a little advice from Oz), we've decided that they're both regular pastels. So, you'll be seeing them on our available page late in September.
8/16/09: LEMON PASTEL LESSERS!--This was nearly an entire female clutch of lemon pastel lessers, lessers, lemon pastels, and normals. The sire was the lesser in the pic near the bottom and the female was a lemon pastel. These will be posted for sale as soon as they get a few meals in them.
8/14/09: SUPER LEMON PASTELS!--We were pretty excited with this clutch consisting of female supers, male lemons and a couple of male normals. The best super in this clutch is awesome in its blushing and coloration, and we also hatched out one very odd looking burnished pastel. Enjoy the pic.
8/10/09: CINNAMONS!--This was a cinnamon x het red clutch, and we never really had good results with our het red clutches. We have been plagued with single codoms with every clutch, and were hoping for cinny het reds with this one. We ended up with two male cinnamons with awesome patterns. We will probably keep one and put one up as soon as he's well started.
8/6/09: Caramel PH Ghost x Ghost--Gloom, despair, and agony on me! Well, we knew she was going to throw slugs, but we were hoping it wouldn't be so many. This caramel girl is idiosyncratic to begin with and just wasn't liking her warm spot and wouldn't incubate back there. She laid nine eggs, but only two were viable. We're hoping for a ghost het caramel male in two months, but we'll be happy with double hets.
7/31/09: SUPER CINNAMON!!! OK, so our uncanny streak of better-than-average odds has hit a snag. From our cinny to cinny pairing we got ALL normals except ONE super cinnamon which is very strange as both supers and normals are the longest odds at 1:4. Hatching a cinnamon is only a 1:2 probability, and we got NONE! All of the normals are big and healthy, and our super has some distinguishing character markings that some might classify as paradoxical. But whatever you call it--leaky genes, paradox, or aberration--he's a keeper.
7/27/09: BLUE EYED LEUCISTICS!!! Wow. How we ever got four super mojaves (1.3) out of a mojave to mojave pairing is totally beyond me. But, here they are, sibs all together for their first baby pictures. We also got one mojave male and one male normal to round out the clutch of six. After three good meals, they'll all be on our available page, save one female BEL.
7/11/09: Pos Het Pied x Mojave--Our '07 pos het pied girl has THEE marker, if you believe in that kind of thing, but it was because she was so dark and so oddly outlined that we decided to keep her for a bit. This season we thought that because of her odd coloration, she'd make great mojaves, and we almost forgot that she was pos het pied. Today, she graciously allowed us to unwrap her from her new clutch of five. The unusual thing is that we just saw for the first time a picture of an actual mojave pied on Kingsnake.com, and we got very excited. So, we're hoping for some possible het pied mojaves. Next season, we'll have to prove out the breeder female.
7/06/09: Het Pied x Het Pied--Obviously, you know where these hets came from. Where else but Pete Kahl. Our female was sitting on a half-dozen eggs this afternoon, so were expecting a couple of nice pieds in two months. In 2007 we only hatched ONE pied, but she was adorable, and I don't think we'll give her up any time soon. The picture below is our 2007 pied from this same het cross.
7/03/09: Normal x Lesser & Mojave & Cinnamon??--It's mystery clutch time! We bred our 2800 gram normal female and our cinnamon male early last year, but then we decided to give the mojave male a shot. Finally, our lesser male reached breeding readiness, and we cycled him through for the last two to three months. Some of you may remember that last year we bred both our spider and cinny males to our lemon female and hatched out a bumble bee and a pewter from the same clutch! So, who knows what we might get. Our big normal girl is five years old, and this clutch of nine perfect eggs is her very first. You can see last season's pewter and bee on our collection page.
6/29/09: Het Albino x Albino--Yeah, we're looking to get half albinos out of this clutch, and the rest 100% hets. The male albino's pattern was a little orangy when he was a juvenile, but the orange has slowly been replaced by a neon banana yellow, and now he's just hot.
6/29/09: Spider x Lesser Platinum--Our lower white/higher gold spider female, who is sweet as pie, just delivered a viable clutch of five today sired by our lesser platinum. Here's hoping for lesser bees, one of our favorite morphs.
6/20/09: Pastel x Het Red Axanthic--One of our first time breeder pastel females delivered a small clutch sired by our het red axanthic male that we picked up from Ozzy. This is our first step toward recreating Corey Woods' awesome looking super pastel het red axanthic which almost looks blue as a hatchling.
6/16/09: Lemon Pastel x Lesser Platinum--We got seven good eggs from our other beautiful 2005 lemon pastel female and our lesser platinum male pictured below. They should pip just before Daytona.
6/15/09: DESERT GHOSTS!!! The odds gods were very kind to us with this clutch. We paired up a 2006 Bell line (Reptile Industries) het desert ghost pair and today hatched out 80 gram 1.2 desert ghosts and 1.2 66% pos het desert ghosts. The patterns on these big hatchlings are reduced on all neos and look spectacular! Not sure what we're going to hold back at this point; we just want to sit back and savor the flavor awhile. Sweet! Posted is a picture of the three desert ghosts next to one normal. They're all in shed right now, but the DGs will lighten considerably with age.
ADDED NOTE: Ok, we tried to get these squirmy little things to pose quietly for this picture, but no dice. Here are our three desert ghosts with the three pos het desert ghost hatchlings. The DGs will lighten up over the next year or two to resemble those awesome Bell-line almost black and white ghosts. Want an ultra "true ghost?" How about a desert ghost axanthic?
6/13/09: Lemon Pastel x Lemon Pastel--Our 2005 lemon girl dropped a clutch of five good eggs sired by our smokin' high contrast lemon male that we purchased from Morton Wright. These lemon to lemon supers should look stunning! We'll post pictures as soon as we get them. Pips due in mid-August.
6/11/09: Het Red Axanthic x Cinnamon--Hmmm. Not exactly the numbers we were looking for, but our het red female laid a small clutch of what could turn out to be cinnamon het reds. Ralph Davis produced them last year, and they weren't exactly what we thought they'd be. They were soooo much better! But, that goes to show you, you never know what you're gonna get with these gene combos.
6/4/09: Cinnamon x Cinnamon--Here's hoping for black balls! Our first time breeder cinnamon girl that we got from Pete Kahl dropped a small clutch of four today. Can't wait to see what slithers out! But we'll have to wait...'til at least August 1. We incubate a bit low (87ish) so that they pip nice and healthy.
5/29/09: Mojave x Mojave--Our perfect pattern mojave girl delivered her first clutch of six plus one slug this morning. So, we're hoping for some nice BELs around the end of July.
5/28/09: LESSER PLATINUMS!!! We picked up a gorgeous reduced pattern, high blushing, bright, almost fire-like female that was cherry picked out of hundreds of African imports. This season we bred her to our reduced pattern lesser male who has a creamy pattern with muted olives and gold dust-like sprinkling throughout the borders. He's stunning to behold as you can see in the picture below. Our normal girl, who we call Phoenix, gave us six eggs that hatched today producing 1.2 lesser platinums and 0.3 normals, all reduced pattern. These are the best lessers I've seen in a long time.
OK, I was coerced into posting a picture of one of the male hatchlings, even though we are not yet certain about the holdbacks. But, isn't he the cutest?
