Mystic Exotics 2018 planned pairings

First, I have a couple of my Miami Tessera males to see if they are Super Tessera's.

I have a beautiful thick bordered Miami female from Carol Huddleston that I am super excited about pairing her with one of my possible Super Miami Tessera's.

Aster X Azurite
**HERE is the thread for this pairing**

The second Miami Tessera male (possible Super) I hope to prove out this year is being paired with a Cinder female, produced by my friend Matt Stewart, of NW Bloodlines.

Zinc X Hematite
*Zinc laid slugs

Next is a Hypo Cinder female produced by Matt Stewart of NW Bloodlines who is being paired with a Miami Tessera het Cinder male (descendant of my Miami Tessera's). I'm looking forward to some Cinder Tessera's (het Hypo).

Zairite X Vale
*No eggs

I also have a Miami Tessera het Cinder female produced by Matt Stewart, that I will be pairing with a Cinder Lava male.

Kyna X Zoicite
*No eggs

I am pairing Echo, a Miami Tessera female that I produced, now owned by my friend Rachel. Echo is staying here to be paired with my Candy cane male, produced by Nanci LaVake. If Echo is het Amel, we should have some mice Candy Cane Tessera's.

Echo X Aeetees
*Echo laid eggs, mostly slugs, one egg that looks good. I will start a thread and post it here if/when that egg hatches.

Lastly, I am pairing an Amel female produced by Matt Stewart with Brokk, my 1st generation Miami Tessera het Amel male. I know I will get some nice Miami Tessera's and Amel Tessera's out of this pairing.

Kalypso X Brokk
*No eggs

Click on the name of each to see their iHerp profile with pics.
Most of the pics on the iHerp profiles are older, I will try to get some updated pics in the near future.

Update

Some of you know I had to cut my pairing plans due to my father passing away in Feb.
I hoped I'd still end up with babies, but I knew my chances were slim.

Three of the six females laid eggs in the past 24+ hours.

Zinc laid 9 huge slugs.

Echo laid 17 or so eggs, mostly slugs, but there might be one fertile egg in there.

Aster laid about 13 eggs, most look potentially fertile.

I discovered Echo's and Aster's eggs a little bit ago, and since they're still in their lay boxes, I'm leaving them for a little bit to see if they're done.
I'll pull eggs later today and get a better count.

Kalypso and Kyne are in shed, Zairite was super cranky and restless, but she's finally settled into her laybox.

Aster ended up with 18 eggs, all look good.
One egg from Echo looks fertile, but time will tell.

Waiting is the hard part.

Wow, Aster sure came through for you. It's funny, I have one tessera female that never lays more than 5 large eggs each year, but her sister lays up to 15. Sometimes I wish for some kind of fertility drug, but it's not nice fooling with Mother Nature. Hope you can prove out Azurite this year.

Twolunger said:

Wow, Aster sure came through for you. It's funny, I have one tessera female that never lays more than 5 large eggs each year, but her sister lays up to 15. Sometimes I wish for some kind of fertility drug, but it's not nice fooling with Mother Nature. Hope you can prove out Azurite this year.

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The biggest clutch I have had so far was 30 eggs laid, 26 of those hatched.

I'm really looking forward to the babies from Aster, as well as the lone egg from Echo. I'm really hoping that baby is Amel, proving her to be het Amel.

We will try again next year with Echo and Aeetees.

I am hoping for 100% Tessera's with Aster, but I also have requests for non Tessera babies out of that clutch, so either result will be good.

I'll likely be holding back a couple babies to further my thick border Miami Tessera plans.

I don't think the other three are going to lay eggs. It's probably for the best, but I am a little bummed.

A couple of Aster's eggs are likely going bad, but the others look good, and Echo's single fertile egg is still looking good.

I am really looking forward to these babies!

Don't give up on the other 3, at least one may surprise you. I thought I was done breeding last year, but one female laid in August. You could use a little good luck this year.

Twolunger said:

Don't give up on the other 3, at least one may surprise you. I thought I was done breeding last year, but one female laid in August. You could use a little good luck this year.

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I have thought about that, I had one that I didn't think took, and a few months later, she laid 30 eggs in July, right before I was leaving town for a trip. I was showing the gal who was to be pet sitting for me the different snakes, and when I opened her bin, she was in the process of laying eggs.
Needless to say we were both shocked to see that. LOL

The three are headed out to their new home this week, but I'm watching them closely. They all ate for me last week, which isn't a certain factor, but I've not had any eat right before laying before.

The new owner is aware of the possibility. They could end up with an added bonus! LOL

My female ate just 3 days before she laid, so I was not expecting eggs. Unfortunately, when she laid the eggs were under the aspen in a row and I didn't notice them. They puckered and dried out. I no longer have good sensitivity in my fingertips like my son does, so when he stops over during breeding season I'm always handing him a snake to check. He asked me why I can't feel the eggs and I told him I couldn't feel a chicken egg under a paper towel. LOL.

Twolunger said:

My female ate just 3 days before she laid, so I was not expecting eggs. Unfortunately, when she laid the eggs were under the aspen in a row and I didn't notice them. They puckered and dried out. I no longer have good sensitivity in my fingertips like my son does, so when he stops over during breeding season I'm always handing him a snake to check. He asked me why I can't feel the eggs and I told him I couldn't feel a chicken egg under a paper towel. LOL.

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LOL!
Sometimes I can feel eggs, sometimes I cannot, so I still check, but am not always right.

Sorry to hear about the eggs, that sucks.

Photos!

They're only cell pics, but I was cleaning, weighing and feeding today, so I snapped some pics.


The first two are Aster and Azurite, the parents of one of the clutches, the one with 16-18 eggs (two of them look iffy now). Hopefully Azurite will prove to be a Super Tessera. Either way, I am looking forward to these babies, and am hoping for a couple that I can use in my thick bordered Miami Tessera project.

The next two are Echo and Aeetees, the parents of the Candy Cane Tessera project. Unfortunately, there's only one egg that looks good. I'm hoping for an Amel baby, as we don't know if Echo is het for Amel yet (her sire, Brokk, is het Amel, hopefully she is too).

The eggs are at day 61, and both females shed recently, so I'm watching for pipping and possible double clutch.

Based on past clutches that have incubated at room temp in the snake room, (averaging 80 degrees) the past eggs have gone about 66 to 68 days before pipping.

The single egg from the Aeetees (Candy Cane) X Echo (Miami Tessera) for some reason has been keeping a few degrees higher than the larger clutch. They're sitting side by side in the same room, so I don't know why the temps are a little higher.
I really hope that one hatches.

Well, I just went in to check on everyone, and realized that Echo had already double clutched. She laid 15 slugs a couple days ago, apparently. I figured hers would be slugged, since she only had one fertile egg in her first clutch.

Moving into day 64....any day now...
Aster has been hanging out in the laybox, so might be getting ready to lay a second clutch.

I have a clutch of eggs at 63 days and I too am watching closely. I've had 2 clutches hatch at 65 days, so that seems the normal for me. I wasn't too excited about most of the eggs this year, as the pairings produce nice corns, but no morphs that are special, or outstanding. The exception is a pair I bought last summer for a steal, a hypo lavender male and an amaretto female. It was her first clutch and she produced 13 eggs, and 10 hatched already.

I only have the two clutches this year, and one of them is a single egg.
I'm pretty excited about both clutches though, and part of me kinda wants a second clutch out of Aster. She recovered really well from the first clutch, I don't think she'd have problems with a second one.
I always worry about how much it can take out of them.

I don't purposely try for a second clutch, but sometimes the females have other ideas.

I love your candy cane. Years back I noticed most of my son's corns were dark morphs, so I bought candy canes from Rich so he could add some color to his corns. I raised them and gave them to him. He bred them to a couple females and sold them. He said he didn't like bright colors. GRRRR!

I've never tried for a second clutch either, my first priority is always that they recover from laying eggs.

Thanks, I love him! I would have liked to have seen Nanci do a repeat breeding. I'm looking forward to carrying on what she started.

Day 63 today.....still waiting

Amel motley male x hypo plasma female (my only clutch this year)
Creating some multi hets.
First time for the female which produced 6 eggs. 2 of the eggs leaked and died early on.
The remaining 4 look great.....
Looked at all my old records of incubation durations all the way back to the late 90s thru 2006 when I would have about 15 to 20 clutches per year and found that they normally started piping between 64 to 69 days with few exceptions or possible errors on my part recording dates.