Early introductions

When I collected my new stripey babies, I had an interesting conversation (well, several, actually) with the breeder. She puts her pairs together much earlier than I have done before, and cohabs them until the females show signs of being gravid. Obviously the situation is monitored to make sure there are no problems with the females not feeding well or being harrassed.
So, I've paired up 5 girlies with their prospective mates for this year. They will be fed separately but will live together for the next couple of months. As I'm hopefully off on holiday in Sept I need early breeding or none at all this year, so I will separate the pairs in late April at the latest.
So my experimental pairings are;
Sundance x Slim (het amel x amel)
Pearl x Little Joe (diffused anery x diffused)
Polly x Twopersons (diffused x bell/Leach/locality okeetee)
Annie x Butch (ghost mot x anery)
Belle Starr x Bonanza (het amel/anery/diffused x ghost het diffused)
All the girls are well up to breeding weight but slim and active so I'm hoping I get to use my new incubator this spring. Any signs of them being unsettled, not feeding, being stressed out will mean I separate them. Right now they are settled and digesting this week's mice peacefully.

Lots of clutches to look forward and then lots of babies to clean and feed! Hope it goes well!

desertanimal said:

Lots of clutches to look forward and then lots of babies to clean and feed! Hope it goes well!

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Thanks. I'm obviously worried at the pre-breeding cohabbing, but will monitor the health of the pairs and separate at any sign of problems. The breeder I got my stripes from has bred her corns this way for years, in fact the breeder I got Sundance and Butch from bred this way too, so I know it can be done...it's just a different way with potential risks involved.

I would be concerned about knowing exactly when the clutch is going to be laid (knowing when the pair actually mated) in so I could ensure a lay box is available when needed.

From talking to the breeder, she puts in a lay box as as soon as she separates the females who look gravid back into their own tubs. I won't know any due dates, so will be going by the size, behaviour and shape of the females to see if they do get gravid and put lay boxes in whether I do think they are gravid or not.
I know this might not work out, if the females aren't bred by April I'll separate them anyway, but I was thinking of putting layboxes in so they could lay any slugs in comfort if they aren't gravid. (I mean if I didn't breed them at all this year, in case they still ovulated)

Well, I know a really good reason not to co-habit snakes! Getting two hungry excited snakes into feeding tubs without getting bitten each time is no fun at all. I may have to resort to gloves, because I'm getting struck at from both snakes in each honeymoon tub when I'm gettng them out! At least when the boys switch over to breeding hunger strike they'll just try to escape and hopefully stop trying to eat me.
Polly is just going into shed so hopefully Twopersons will switch to breeding mode soon. She's evil enough to handle on her own, with him lunging at me too I'm wondering what kind of monster offspring I'll get from them.

The girls are shedding and there's shenanigans going on! Alerted by the cats' interest in the rack, Sundance is in the middle of shedding and Slim can't even wait for her to get her clothes off! I can see fresh sheds in Pearl's tub, and Polly and Belle's tubs are totally trashed, with shed skins and the water bowls spilt. I'm splitting up the pairs in a week or so, hopefully the boys will have done their best to get 'em gravid by then.

Hurrah! First witnessed mating, here's Slim and Sundance's tails. This is much earlier than last year, so I'll be hoping for summer pippies!

Congrats J9!

Tula_Montage said:

Congrats J9!

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Thanks girlie! Sundance is het amel, they made lovely babies before so I'm hoping my new incubator will get used this year.

Lola (christmas hypo) and Cattle Kate (Love okeetee) met and hooked up today!

I'm gonna put some together today for the 2nd time, last week none of the 5 pairs I introduced to each other mated, I hope they will now!

The okeetee is gorgeous!

Good luck with your pairings! I absolutely love my okeetee, I was so lucky to get her from breeders who imported directly from Kathy Love, and now their website is gone so maybe they don't breed any more, which makes it even more lucky that I got her!

Back to his batchelor pad for Slim, while Sundance stuffs her face

And while Lola's in blue and slithering back to singledom, Kate chows down

So today I separated the rest of the breeding pairs and put layboxes in for my girlies. This may be far too early, but as they'd been paired up so long I don't really know their due dates.
Here's Annie, Polly and Belle

Pearl, Kate and the best I could get of Sundance, who burrowed under her laybox!

My LeeLoo looks so much like your Kate! She has a tad bit less thick borders but colorwise she looks a lot alike! I love their look!

http://snakearound.nl/images/stories/gallery/corns/IMG_0414.jpg

Great that your girlies are ready to go, the five couples I paired up have all hooked up, one couple twice, so I´ll introduce them 1 or twice more and they are ready to go too

Ain't it fantastic, the whole anticipation going on

She's got the same feeding response too by the look of things! This weekend I'll set up some dummy egg trays in the incubator so I can get it running and stable before using it.

I hadn't calculated from the first hookups, so I've just realised I could get eggs next weekend! I'm not happy with the vermiculite in the layboxes, so I'll try some more places I might get moss.