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Breeding season, 2006

Rich Z

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Well it's starting off REAL slow. I have thrown about two dozen pairs together the past two weeks and only one pair locked up.

Unfortunately I didn't sell off a bunch of adults this winter as I had planned to, so I will likely have some animals that I won't even have time to breed.

Matter of fact, this is going to be an *interesting* year, because many of the shoe boxes I have used in the past to hold clutches of eggs now have snakes living in them. I have NO idea what I am going to do when the shoe boxes run out.......... :shrugs: I would say I would sell off the adults just as soon as the females drop their eggs, but I know darn right well that I will be far too busy at that time to even list them, much less get the boxes out the door.

I have people asking me about my 2006 price list. Yeah, I know it is March already............. But right now the priorities are doing my taxes and, well, doing my taxes. I was going to say "and breeding the critters", but they aren't interested in that quite yet. So I can spend more time on those blasted taxes.

When I do my 2006 price list, I am thinking about structuring it a bit differently this time around. The 50 percent "right out of the egg" sale has worked out pretty well in the past, but I found myself going pretty nuts waiting for that one last snake of the right sex to hatch out so I could fill a bunch of the orders. So I am thinking about trying something different. Basically sell the snakes as "unsexed" for the lowest price, and "sexed" at a higher price. This may be incorporated into the pricing structure of each animal rather then using the discount coupons that I normally do. That way people can pick and choose which animals are most important to have sexed. But I will have to think about it. I don't want to bite off more then I can chew with complications at that time of year.

As for the bulk 100 lot sales I have been doing each year, if the several people who have indicated so come through, they are already sold out for this year.

Right now we are going through a worker crisis, so so far this is being a pretty crappy year. I don't know if it is just this part of the country, or it is some fundamental change in the way young people think about their work ethics. But it is being extraordinarily tough find people who can help with the animals around here. So please bear with me. My time and patience is likely going to be at a world record low this year.........
 
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I feel for you Rich. It must be a huge load to shoulder and we're all in awe of you. I'm having a slow start to the season too but my 7 breeder females count for diddly-squat when up against your harem!
 
Rich Z said:
Right now we are going through an employee crisis, so so far this is being a pretty crappy year. I don't know if it is just this part of the country, or it is some fundamental change in the way young people think about their work ethics. But it is being extraordinarily tough find people who can help with the animals around here. So please bear with me. My time and patience is likely going to be at a world record low this year.........

Rich, if I lived near you (and believe me, right now I wish that I did after yet another snowstorm...) I'd fill out an application in a heartbeat! :wavey: Not only do I have experience with snakes, I do taxes and accounting too! lol But I know what you mean about trying to find a quantity of available young people with a decent work ethic. Never again would I want to work in HR. Just as a suggestion (if you haven't already thought of it or dismissed the idea) you might want to consider contacting local high schools to see if they have a school-to-work cooperative program. Up here, it seems that the most motivated students enrolled, and because their academic record was influenced by their performance at work, the lazy, unreliable or otherwise undesirable students didn't participate. Just a thought. Good luck just the same though.
 
Rich Z said:
or it is some fundamental change in the way young people think about their work ethics.

I think you hit the nail on the head right here. My mom has taught high school for something like 30 some odd years. She's retiring this year, because she can't take it anymore (and because she's put in the required amount of time). She says the kids just don't care anymore. They aren't willing to work for anything. Barely even a handful of students are able to pass first-year spanish. :rolleyes:
 
What a year!

"My time and patience is likely going to be at a world record low this year........."

Just don't go getting yourself listed as a bad guy on the BOI...lol. Anyway Rich, best of luck to you this season. I know I'll be anxious to place a small order with you this season. I've been spending all my money on dwarf boas lately. This year has been bad for me as well since I lost a lot of good snakes and had a lot of unsuccessful pairings with my boa and python projects. Unfortunately, one of my hardest losses was my 03 male Serpenco lavender, who met a tragic end this season due to a fatal accident. He had loads of pink and I desperately hope he mated before he died. I want to get another nice male lavender. I also thought about adding a few corns to my classroom this year for pets (I teach h.s. biology).

The pricing difference between sexed vs. unsexed might be a good idea for some people. I know I'd probably take advantage of it for my classroom corns. Keep in mind that you may meet some skepticism (some may think unsexed snakes = males) in which case people will simply have to pay a little more for sexing. Well, I can speak for many when I say that I'm anxious to see what you surprise us with this year! Once again, best wishes and keep that sanity...sometimes its all we got!
Sincerely,
Jason Carl
 
Hey Rich,

sounds like you need HELP...i wish i lived out there i would love to help you with your snake business :) well hopefully someone who loves snakes just as much as anyone on this forum does will come along...have you thought about finding people that live near you on this fourm to come help? Well good luck :)
 
Rich, How is the 2006 season looking so far...

Just thought I'd check-in and see how things are going. Did things improve with your lack-of-help situation? Are corns beginning to lay eggs yet over at Serpenco? :) Or is your head spinning still? :crazy02:

Keep us posted.

Sincerely,
Jason
 
Well we have three part time workers working now. Not too sure about the longevity of one of them, however. But things seem to be getting done around here.

Got three clutches of eggs so far, with LOTS more yet to omce.

As for my head spinning, heck, I can't remember when it WASN'T spinning, it's been so long ago... :rolleyes:
 
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Are you planning on having adults up for sale at the end of the season? I am sure everyone is just aching for you to put some up for sale. I am. I am especially interested in picking up a couple males!
 
Well, I think I should put up a bunch of males for sale right now, since most of the breeding is actually finished, and I know which ones I'm not likely to need in the future. If I didn't use them this year, it's not likely I will need them next year.

Then when eggs are laid I can surplus some females.

But quite honestly, people tend to want photos, and I just don't see that as a likelihood at this time of year. So with that in mind, I just haven't felt it worthwhile putting any real effort into doing an inventory on the stuff I may move out.

:shrugs:
 
So it appears to be the same problem all over the world, youngsters not willing to work, not showing any motivation in whatsoever.. Here in Holland there's a large group of (young)people that rather lives from wellfare than find something to do during the day.. The gouvernment can't really do anything about it because of all the rules it's made, it's turned against them so to speak..

To remain on-topic, Rich, will you perhaps be selling your animals somewhere in Europe this year?

Arjan
 
Well, at least I am one of the Dutch "kids" who is willing to work fo rhis money :p

But I'm quite curious, too.... will you ever be selling some of your corns in Europe (Holland, more specific *hint*)

Which "specials" are you expectingthis year rich?
 
Well I personally am not planning on going out of the USA to sell, so about the only way you will be able to get my animals is through someone over there who may buy from me. I have a local guy who will work as a broker for shipments outside of the USA, but shipping is NOT cheap and the minimum order is quite steep. I am actually talking with a guy in England who is entertaining the idea of buying ALL my remaining 2005 animals. I doubt it will happen, but that sure would make MY day. :cheers:

I guess I really need to think about doing my 2006 price list, huh?

Got about 55 clutches dropped so far and about 400 left to go. :crazy02:

How did I get myself into this predicament anyway? :shrugs:
 
Rich Z said:
I am actually talking with a guy in England who is entertaining the idea of buying ALL my remaining 2005 animals. I doubt it will happen, but that sure would make MY day. :cheers:
Woohoo... and if he's selling them on that would make my day, a chance to get some Serpenco snakeys.... :cheers:
 
Rich Z said:
Well I personally am not planning on going out of the USA to sell, so about the only way you will be able to get my animals is through someone over there who may buy from me. I have a local guy who will work as a broker for shipments outside of the USA, but shipping is NOT cheap and the minimum order is quite steep. I am actually talking with a guy in England who is entertaining the idea of buying ALL my remaining 2005 animals. I doubt it will happen, but that sure would make MY day. :cheers:

I guess I really need to think about doing my 2006 price list, huh?

Got about 55 clutches dropped so far and about 400 left to go. :crazy02:

How did I get myself into this predicament anyway? :shrugs:

Too bad. I'd love to have some serpenco snakes.
You Americans are always a few steps ahead with all the morphs.
And most of them are so darn hard to find here in Holland...:cry:
 
Doesn't matter. It didn't happen. I don't think he realized the value of the animals still remaining and it would have been an awful big bite to chew on.

I'm about up to my eyeballs in snake eggs right now. Fertility has been really pretty good, but there are always disappointments, of course. Just today I looked at a clutch that came from a Butter Stripe bred with a GoldDust het Motley. 18 slugs and only 5 good eggs. That's what I get for counting on a young male again. Those suckers will let you down more often then not. You would think I would know this lesson by now.

I may be getting the SerpenCo.com site code upgraded, so that may delay my putting up my 2006 list even further. I'm hoping the upgrade will have some mods that will make the process easier to do. The danged program as it stands right now doesn't have any way to simply COPY a current product into a new one so I can use one as a template for all the subsequent ones. So I have to cut and paste each and every new cultivar and add the function to make the sex selection list work. Real pain in the butt to do..... So I put it off as long as possible.

I need to go through the adults and put the surplus labels on a bunch of them. I noted as I was harvesting the eggs that some of them I really didn't care much about what was going to be hatching out of those eggs. So I can't see keeping them around for another year. Maybe I can get to that when the egg laying slows down a bit. But then there is another wrinkle. Snake bags! I am about out of them from the last time I sold off a bunch of adults........ :headbang: I just can't win..........
 
I just realized that I have been setting up egg clutches for over a SOLID MONTH now....... And I'm TIRED of it! :rolleyes: By the time they stop laying eggs, the darn first clutches will be starting to hatch with NO BREAK! AAAAAAAAARRRRRRRRRGGGGGGGGGGGGHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!
 
WOW!! you realy should try to get a few days of soon.. that cant be healthy!! :rolleyes: but gosh you have to love those littel critters!! :grin01:

I hope you gett alot of good news when they start to hatch atleast!!!!
 
I feel for you Rich. I feel sometimes like it's a bit much having 24 snakes and 7 clutches when I have so much else to do.

Take heart in the fact that you're great at what you do and people respect you for it. I think it's really great to be at the top of your feild, whatever it is, even if it gets a bit much sometimes.
 
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