Final count.......

Had the last female (finally!) lay her eggs, so I got the final count of egg production this season:

TOTALS 5018 good eggs 635 infertiles
COUNT = 348 clutches laid
AVERAGE = 14.42 eggs per clutch
% fertile laid = 88.77%

This isn't exactly accurate, since I had several clutches of all duds that I just tossed in the compost bucket. Also had a few that had one good egg and the rest bad, so I didn't bother making up cards on them either.

Guess I would just as soon not see the figures on the number of infertiles anyway. Since I'm doing this full time now, holding a handful of infertile eggs from a Hypo Blood Red is a frustrating experience.

I sincerely hope none of them go through and produce second clutches, but I just know some are going to do that. I think snakes purposely don't have ears just so they don't have to listen to what I tell them to do.

First clutches are due to begin hatching on July 10 figuring on 66 days for incubation. Maybe by that time I'll have my 2002 price list done!

Later...

HOLY COW!!!

Hey Rich...Do you have any time to sleep?!!!!
Thats a lot of babies to feed! And I'd love take any off your hands, if it gets too much for you!!LOL

Colleen

Too bad I don't live in Florida...that's the kind of summer job I'd like....at least until i tried it.

Believe me, there IS such a thing as 'too much of a good thing'....

But if you want to produce that 1 out of 1,000 snake, you need to produce 1,000 snakes. Of course, a little bit of luck helps even when you try to play the numbers.

Rich, i am guessing that beacuse of the quality you produce, and the fact that everyone here has at least one SerpenCo snake (other than me, what can I say I'm a bit slow) most of your babies are already spoken for. A wise man once told me that if you love what your doing, then do it to the fullest degree. And with that many snakes/eggs you must really love what your doing!! Anyway good luck with all those eggs!!

Kenster - all spoken for? I wish! No, that's just not the case.

I have some preorders, and have some large quantity bulk orders lined up, but I produce far too many animals to sell out of them all very quickly. Heck, it's not even possible to take a majority of all of the babies to the shows we attend. Often when I am packing up for a show, the thought crosses my mind that even if I sell out everything I am taking, it still wouldn't make a dent in the numbers I have left.

I guess if I would get my 2002 price list finished up, maybe that would prompt some people for putting down deposits on some orders. Sigh.... I really wanted to change the format of my list this year, but at this late date, it just isn't going to happen.

I did add some new photos to the cultivar pages, so if you all haven't noticed that, check it out.

02 Price List

I know I'm waiting Actually, I'm interested in some candy canes among other things. I'm not going to make it to any more shows this year

Alicia

Hey Rich, While we're on the subject of your 2002 hatchlings I have a question... Are there any morphs that your finding yourself low on this year? Other than the Hypo Bloods that is?

Man, I can't think of a more perfect example of counting your chickens before they hatch than trying to answer a question like that, Kevin!

I always am in short supply of Blood Reds, it seems. And I just do not go out of my way to produce regular Caramels any longer, so the supply of them is always pretty light.

The supply of Candy Canes should be pretty good this year and there isn't anything else much that comes to mind I will be short of. Well, maybe Motleys. Just about all of them that I produce any longer come out of my Butter Motley project. Matter of fact, I think I may have bred all of my Amelanistic Motleys with Butter Motleys this year. So plain vanilla Amel Motleys may be in short supply.

Actually, with some of the cheaper cultivars, I may try to bulk most of them out, if possible, this year and not even offer them at retail. Normal corns will be gone as soon as they hatch out and I can put them in bags to ship them out. It just doesn't make sense any longer for me to set them up in a deli cup and feed them when those spaces will be in short supply and better utilized for more interesting animals. I may even do that with regular Amels, Hypos, and Anerys this year. Depends if I have a market for them all right out of the egg or not.

Otherwise by around the middle of August, with all of those babies due to hatch right around the same time, I will certainly lose my mind.

Rich, I may be way off here but is there anyway to "weed out" the normal gene? Or is it no matter what you breed there will always be normals het for something? And I am guessing the same thing goes for amels/anery's too?

Let me try this: lets say you breed a 100% lav to a 100% lav, you would end up with lavs and what ever they were het for as offspring right? Now if you took those offspring and bred them back to their parents would the number of het's decline each time you bred them together?If that was the case how many times would you have to breed them to just get a clutch full of lavs?

Like I said before maybe my way of thinking is way off here, anyway time to do some actual work...

I just wanted to say congratulations on having so many eggs!
I sure hope you have people working for you! Where do you find the time to feed all of those babies?

Wow! A lot of eggs! I have two snakes with a clutch of <b>7</b>! Nothing like what you have!

When you told me some people have already ordered some snakes i was worried. Man now i really cant wait untill the show!!! congrats on all thoughs eggs!

Dustin

Rich Z said:

Man, I can't think of a more perfect example of counting your chickens before they hatch than trying to answer a question like that, Kevin!

Click to expand...

Hehe, Sorry Rich, You know me. I get a question in my head and I have to ask.

Is your price list done yet Rich? I am just waiting because I think I am going to buy a candy cane. And Kenster I don't have a Serpenco corn either so don't feel left out

To Kevin

Hey Kevin,

The percentage rate of crossing a homozygous animal to a heterozyous animal will always remain the same. The odds may give a few more or less each season but the calculated percentage always remains the same.

Example:
Lav X Lav = 100% Lav
Lav X het Lav = 50% Lav, 50% normal (give or take). Every time, no matter how many times they are bred back to each parent.

I understand that Clint. What i was inquiring about was whether Rich thought he was coming up short with any of his expected morphs, other than the hypo bloods. I know none of his clutches are hatching yet but in the case of the hypo bloods it appears nothing has gone well from the start. I tend to ask questions without thinking them through thoroughly, I have to stop that. heh

nova - I think Rich has said in the past that he expects his first eggs to start hatching around July 11th? I beleive thats around the time he'll have a new price list up.