Groan......

Had two more clutches dropped today. Only one infertile egg between the two. But she gave 23 good ones, so I guess she figures she did enough.

LOTS of females going through the pre-egg-laying shed right now. Put egg laying boxes in 15 females who has shed 5 and 6 days ago.

I've put in males with every eligible female now. Might have missed the cycle on a few of them as they look pretty swelled up even before being with a male. Oh well.... I just couldn't move fast enough, I guess. Need to throw males in with a few holdout females later on, but that's going to get tough to do with all the time being taken up setting up egg laying boxes and setting up clutches that have just been dropped.

Should be a pretty decent year with babies..... Guess I should be thinking about my 2009 price list so I can start selling some of them, eh?

Originally Posted by Rich Z

Guess I should be thinking about my 2009 price list so I can start selling some of them, eh?

Great idea Rich, especially if you plan to do a 50% off out-of-the-egg sale this year...

Walter,
BOUT' CORNS !!

With the economy being what it is, I am very interested to see how breeders, especially professional breeders respond. Big sales and great deals might be the theme!

Been setting up between 15 and 20 egg laying containers per day now. Connie pulled out pre-egglaying sheds out of 40 cages last night. Since I set them up with egg laying containers 5 days after that shed, Thursday is going to be pretty busy. Most are laying between 7 and 8 days after the shed. Fertility is still being phenomenally good this year. I know I am taunting Murphy's Law saying that.................

I got all eligible females exposed to at least one male. Had a few reject the first suitors who would likely mate if offered a male again, but I just may not get to that again. Had one female drop infertiles a few days after being exposed to a male for the first time, so obviously I missed that one. Probably going to be a few more that will happen to. Just had too many females and not enough time to play matchmaker with them all.

Anyway, sorry about emails and PMs that haven't been responded to. Got a lot of irons in the fire right now. Just got my taxes done on Friday. Just need to double check it, print it, write out that big check, cry about writing that big check, then mail it off.

Hopefully things will start to let up by mid May when the egg laying should be over with.

Hey Rich...do yourself a favor...go eat a bunny!!

Happy Easter, big guy!

Rich, we all aim to get to your level. Then we read a thread like this and realise it's not all beer and skittles.....
When it's all over and you get a chance to put your feet up, have a long cool one and enjoy the sunset.....
As next season will be on us before you know it...
Best of luck with them, mate.

Beer and Skittles....the breakfast of champions!

Originally Posted by snakewispera snr

Rich, we all aim to get to your level. Then we read a thread like this and realise it's not all beer and skittles.....
When it's all over and you get a chance to put your feet up, have a long cool one and enjoy the sunset.....
As next season will be on us before you know it...
Best of luck with them, mate.

For those of you hoping to get to "my level", a suggestion. Make certain that your spouse is not just supportive, but will be in the trenches with you 100 percent. Otherwise you will likely fail. I could never have done this without Connie's help.

247 clutches of eggs so far. 3,494 good eggs laid. As of last night. With more to come..... Fertility is running at 92 percent. Some of those younger males and females killed my statistics. Fertility from the older animals has been VERY good this year. I KNOW not to rely on young males, but I had some that I just WANTED to use this year to get the best possible results. For instance, I have a couple of Amelanistic Okeetee males that came out of Hypomelanistic Okeetees that I REALLY wanted to breed to some Ultramels that are also homozygous for Hypomelanism. Alas, just wasn't meant to be this year. But on the upside, my four young adult Sunkissed Lavenders have done their job and I should have quite a few of them this year.

But anyway, the efforts I made to insure fertility in the older females may have killed my chances with the younger ones. By the time I got to those racks, many were obviously on the down slope of the cycle. So breeding was just too late for them. Some went into what would have been their pre egglaying shed just a few days after mating, so I believe that was just too late to get the eggs fertilized. Never pushed it that close before, so I'm just not sure what to expect. So far, the results have been mixed. They may cycle through again and utilize retained sperm, but I'm not counting on that. Still, I'm figuring on around 5,000 or so babies this year, so that will be quite enough, thank you.

Passed the peak on the egg laying season and heading into the lull before egg hatching commences. With hatching beginning around the second week of June, I'll get a month off with some relative free time. So what am I planning on doing during this free time? Well maybe upgrading the server. Boy, I sure know how to have FUN, don't I?

Sounds like you sure are having fun there!!

got lots of cool new stuff to taunt us with this year?

Plenty of eggs there...