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I've got Pippies! And Babies!

kc261

New member
We acquired our first snake (a BP) in '07, and our first corn in '08. Before the end of '08, we'd decided we wanted to do some breeding and acquired mates for our original 2 girls. But then...well, life happened. There have been lots of delays in our breeding plans (mostly personal type stuff that had nothing to do with the snakes), but finally... after 7 years... WE'VE GOT BABIES!

You can read some of the recent background in this thread if you are interested:
http://www.cornsnakes.com/forums/showthread.php?t=136724

A pic of the happy couple:
20140318_Mating.jpg


The first pip I found 2 days ago (you might need to look closely to see the little slits in the egg):
20140624_FirstPip.jpg


Second pip, much easier to see:
20140624_SecondPip.jpg


(to be continued...)
 
The next day, they finally decided to leave their noses out long enough I could get some pics:
20140625_FirstNose.jpg


One thing I love about this second nose pic is the wavy texture you can see on the eggs if you zoom in enough. Pretty cool! You might also notice some pinkish purplish spots on some of the eggs. I have no idea what caused those. They only showed up shortly before hatching. The brown spots are stains from the moss, or at least that's what I've been assuming.
20140625_SecondNose.jpg


And a little later, I was able to see a whole head, and even got a (very blurry) tongue shot:
20140625_Tongue.jpg
 
And finally... a little more than 24 hours after I saw the first pip (but boy...that was a LONG 24 hours...)... a baby out of the egg!
20140625_FirstOut1.jpg


After I cleared away more of the moss:
20140625_FirstOut2.jpg


And now lots of noses are starting to poke out:
20140625_Noses.jpg
 
Aww, great looking pippies! Congrats!

Thanks!

very nice. 7 years well spent

Thanks! I've had some doubts and stuff over the years, but this makes it all worth it!

They're *gorgeous*! :D

Thanks! I think so... but then again, I might be biased! :)

Congrats! Great looking baby!
Each year, it is just as exciting to see those little noses sticking out!

Thanks! Can't wait to do it again!

Neat! Are you going to keep any of the babies?

Yup. Dad has some hets that didn't match anything mom had, so we are planning on keeping a couple girls to try to prove out the phets they'll get from dad.

8 are out of the egg now, and I think 6 more to go. Never was sure about the number of eggs; thought it was about 13, but pretty sure I can see 6 still occupied eggs now. Every one has pipped, but the last one still only has the teeniest slit. Would never have noticed it except for the droplet of fluid that had oozed out.

I need to get decent pics of them all, and upload them so I can show off!
 
Yup! Dad is bloodred, mom is het bloodred. Several other hets & phets floating around, but none that match up between the 2. So, expected 50/50 bloodred/normal 100% het bloodred.

So far, 9 are out. 7 bloodred-ish, 2 normal-ish. Some of the bloodreds seem several shades lighter, so... maybe something else going on? But at this point I'm leaning towards just the natural variation in the morph. Both of the normals have split belly checks, one so much so that the belly almost looks like a clear belly, so I'm guessing masque?

Really really need to figure out how to get better pics, cuz the lighting is not doing a good job of showing the more subtle details that might help people identify if there is something else going on. Since it is getting late, probably won't post more pics until tomorrow.
 
Here is a comparison shot of one of the lighter bloodreds and one of the normals. Does it look like just a lighter bloodred & a darker normal? Or is there possibly some other gene at play?

20140625_comparison.jpg
 
KC, you going to be selling any at the upcoming Richmond and/or Manassas shows? Or are you keeping all? Just curious, because if so I'll swing by to check out your booth.

If not, do you mind me swinging by sometime to check out your set-up for breeding and Q and A you on it since I may be doing some myself next season?
 
Beautiful beebees! I love the little guys!

Thanks!

That's what it looks like to me.

Thanks for your input Nanci.

Congrats on your first breeding being successful with pretty babies :)

Thanks!

KC, you going to be selling any at the upcoming Richmond and/or Manassas shows? Or are you keeping all? Just curious, because if so I'll swing by to check out your booth.

If not, do you mind me swinging by sometime to check out your set-up for breeding and Q and A you on it since I may be doing some myself next season?

Definitely not planning on keeping all. I have toyed around with the idea of trying to sell them at a show, mostly just cuz I think it would be fun to see what being a vendor at a show is like. Since I only did this one pairing this year, I don't really have enough babies or enough variety of babies to really be "worth it", so I don't know. I'll PM you though. Nice to know other local herp keepers!
 
You may want to try Off The Ark Reptiles down in Richmond. Vinny is a pretty cool guy and always looking to sell corns. One of the few that has a nice rack system in our area and takes care of all snakes well. Good set-ups, single corns per cage (even hatchlings). Very trust worthy guy. Got Cruella from him. If you go through him, ask him how he is doing for me.

If not, I don't know of any other reputable places I'd trust with young corns. You might be able to get someone at the show to take them off your hands though and make a deal. Maybe exchange the babies for a different corn or other species you've been wanting. Heard of some stuff like that going down post show as people attempt to pack up and are looking to make deals. The bloodred gene alone is enough to think one may bite (at least around here).
 
KC, do you know anyone who is going to be vending at the show? I know there are a number of us who share tables in our area, or if we just have a small number of animals, ask if we can rent space on an existing table, with someone we know.
Some ask for a small, flat fee to rent space on their table, some ask for a % of any sales you make.

It works out pretty well, if it is not worth it to get your own table.
 
Well, I kind of stopped posting in this thread because the next thing that happened was one of the babies that had pipped ended up dying before it made it out of the egg. It was the last one to pip, and had only made a tiny slit in the egg. When about 24 hrs had gone by and there was no progress, and everyone else but 1 had made it out of their eggs, and that remaining one had a big slit... I decided to help. Except it was already dead. I knew they might not all hatch, and was at least somewhat prepared for that, but I think deciding to help, but deciding too late when it was already dead was upsetting. Its entire lower part of its body and its umbillicus and yolk were all tangled up, but it didn't seem to be actually kinked. However, as tangled as it was, I don't think it was able to absorb the yolk at all, so even if I'd gotten it out alive it might have been quite weak and not made it anyway.

Anyway, I've got 13 lovely healthy babies! I got great odds, as far as the morphs. I haven't tried to sex them yet. At least assuming I'm identifying them correctly, I got 9 bloodreds and 4 normals. The DIE was bloodred, too. The normals all have split belly checkers, though, and one of them the split is so wide that at first glance I thought it was a clear belly. And one of the bloodreds has a more normal looking head and one of the normals has a more bloodred looking head. So...it isn't quite as clear cut as I was expecting, but I think I have them IDed correctly.

They all seem to be perfect and doing fine. They are starting to shed now, and wow! I knew from seeing pics that they change a lot with their first shed, but seeing it in person was amazing! I have some comparison pics I took of some that had shed and some that haven't that I'll have to post later.

For now, here's a pic of the belly of that one with the really wide split in its belly checkers:
20140627_SplitChecks.jpg


And some cuteness!
This baby was being stubborn about moving into its new home, and decided the best way to avoid that was to hold on tight:
20140626_Thumb.jpg


This baby was confused about what water bowls are for. It somehow emptied the entire water bowl, I assume by getting some substrate in there to use as a siphon. The water bowls are untippable because I've got one of the sauce cups glued into place and I set another one inside it so I can easily clean the water bowl. (That's also why the water bowl is setting on the counter instead of being in the enclosure...)
20140629_WaterBowl.jpg


Unfortunately I didn't think quick enough to throw something in the pic for size reference until after I'd removed the little one and refilled the water and replaced the wet substrate, but here's a pic of another one of those mini sauce cups that'll give you an idea of how little they are. Not quite like that picture of the world's smallest snake on a quarter...but still adorable!
20140629_SizeReference.jpg
 
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