Grrrrrrrrr!!!

Well, I have mentioned before that I inherited a good size collection from my uncle. A few months ago I was selling some of the snakes I didn't intend to breed. Included was a trio of Ruthveni. While I was feeding, I got them mixed up, and since I don't have my own probe set, I took them to my local herp store. I had them sexed and they were all males. Last week, while cleaning some of the enclosures, I happened to notice that my "female" Knoblochi King has quite a long tail for a female. I took my pair of Knoblochi to get sexed, and again, both male. I still have a pair of Pueblan Milks that I thought he said were proven. After the post-bru shed, I put them in together. They attacked each other promptly. Neither of them was injured, but it is not fun trying to seperate two wiley poo-flingers when they are in attack mode. I just took them to get sexed and guess what... BOTH MALE!!!! I am angry at my uncle, but I can't complain too much. It's not like he ripped me off. He gave me all of them. But I am upset that all of these snakes have been taking up room, when I could have sold them months ago and funded other projects. Not to mention that I was really looking forward to breeding some of the snakes that he gave me. All of my kings and milks came from him, so instead of having many clutches of those this year, I will only have one or two. I am quite dissapointed. On that note, anyone wanna buy an adult male Pueblan Milk?

Are you sure they were sexed correctly?

MegF. said:

Are you sure they were sexed correctly?

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Yeah, I am very sure. The owner of the store (which is the person who sexes the snakes for me) has been working with snakes for about 20 years or so. I watched her probe them and they were definately males. I think my uncle was popping them when they were young, and he wasn't very good at it.

An update

Thought I would post an update to this one. I sold the Pueblans. They were a species that I was looking forward to working with, but right now it is just not economically or spatially sound for me to keep two adults that are not breeding. I also took the last four snakes that were in question to be sexed. A pair of Albino Ruthveni and a pair of Thayeri. They were all sexed correctly, but I decided to sell the Ruthveni because I had been informed recently that Albino X Albino Ruthveni don't produce offspring. Albino to het. is ok though. I was told by the person that bought the Pueblans, that he has never heard of that cross hatching any babies. Either the eggs are infertile from the beginning or they die in egg. I didn't know that and had already sold off my het males. I also confirmed this with another trusted person that has been breeding Kings for quite some time.
So I still have the Thayeri and they should be ready to go. Looks like that pairing and the MBK's will be the only Lampropeltis I am doing this year.
Thanks for listening to my rant.

Good luck with those left!

Blutengel said:

Good luck with those left!

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Thanks.

Oh, how dissapointing...grrr.

I've only had that happen with one snake and it was really frustrating then so I'm sure I can't bein to feel your level of annoyance.

Good luck with the rest of the seasons projects...

Thayeri... Do they happen to look like San Luis Potosi or Durango's? hmmm..

Regards T and J

TandJ said:

Thayeri... Do they happen to look like San Luis Potosi or Durango's? hmmm..

Regards T and J

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Sometimes. They are calles Variable Kings because... well... they vary :grin01: Here is a pic of the male and the female.

And forgot to say thanks Adele.

Nice Trev.. I have a liking to the kings some what.

Regards... Tim of T and J