Love is in the Air!

Things got a little hot at my house last night! Well, actually that's because I cranked the heat up to 74 degrees to see if it might help any of my reluctant breeding pairs to hook up. I'm not sure if it had anything to do with the extra heat or not, but I had four more pairs hook up last night.

Blanca X Strypster

This is a female snow het sripe breeding with a small bright orange amel stripe, who seems to be quite the avid little breeder. I am hoping to test him for anery and produce some more pretty amel stripes and maybe some snow stripes if he proves het for anery.

Wildfire X Slim Jim

This sunglow motley pair are both het for anery and always produce a nice mix of bright red sunglow motleys and snow motleys.

Goldie X Mellow Yellow

This is a female butter motley breeding with a male butter het motely. These two produced a pretty clutch of butter motleys and butters last year, but they were ALL eleven nonfeeders. I posted several of them for free, and Caryl took a chance on them and managed to get them eating on her special Southern cooking (not sure if she wants her recipe disclosed). Anyway, I have been told it is not likely that I would get another whole clutch of nonfeeders a second time, so we are going to try again and hope for good eaters this time!

Silver Belle X Casper

This is a silver queen ghost female breeding with a ghost motley male. They are very different to each other in appearance, but I think they might produce really pretty babies. I attempted to breed this pair for her second clutch last year, but when the babies hatchd, it was very obvious that the majority of them were from the multi-het male she had bred for the first clutch. However, two little ghosts hatched, which looked very different from the ones produced by the first male. These were really pretty with dark borders, like the one pictured below, and I think this male must of fathered them. So I am hoping to produce more of these pretty ghost babies with this breeding.

Oh how neat and of course I am totally jealous! Can't wait to see what you get from that ghost paring.

I definitely can't wait to see how the little ghosts turn out with ghost parents that look so different from each other. I hope I am right about the dark-bordered ones being from this male last season.

Congrats! I can't wait til I start my breeding this year!

One more picture to add to my corn porn thread! This is a huge bloodred het lavender female breeding with a lavender male. With this breeding I am testing him to see if he is het for bloodred, but I would be kind surprised if I was lucky enough to produce any plasmas. I should at least get some nice lavenders and normals het for bloodred.

Sangria X Pretty Boy

Hi Wendy!

Wow, what a lot of beautiful animals you have making beautiful babies for you! I guess the (fake) warmth of Spring was really romantic.

Feel free to disclose my "Southern cooking recipe." It may help others with challenges in feeding. I just used the tails of Mediterannean house geckos to scent the pinkies. They're an invasive species in the US, and there are a lot of them around my area. (I'm now keeping a few for difficult feeders.) Tails should be failrly parasite-free, but a 24-hour freeze will render them reasonably bio-safe. There's a risk of toxins in wild-caught lizards and I only recommend it as a last resort, but I've never had a "non-feeder" turn down a gecko tail. Many babies just seem programmed to eat lizards.

Wendy, I hope you get a lot of gorgeous hungry babies! Congrats on your beautiful pairings.

Caryl said:

Wow, what a lot of beautiful animals you have making beautiful babies for you! I guess the (fake) warmth of Spring was really romantic.

Feel free to disclose my "Southern cooking recipe." It may help others with challenges in feeding. I just used the tails of Mediterannean house geckos to scent the pinkies. They're an invasive species in the US, and there are a lot of them around my area. (I'm now keeping a few for difficult feeders.) Tails should be failrly parasite-free, but a 24-hour freeze will render them reasonably bio-safe. There's a risk of toxins in wild-caught lizards and I only recommend it as a last resort, but I've never had a "non-feeder" turn down a gecko tail. Many babies just seem programmed to eat lizards.

Wendy, I hope you get a lot of gorgeous hungry babies! Congrats on your beautiful pairings.

Click to expand...

Caryl,

Thank you for your compliments and for sharing your special recipe for nonfeeders on the forum. I think it could certainly be helpful to folks who have access to those lizards!

wendhend said:

Caryl,

Thank you for your compliments and for sharing your special recipe for nonfeeders on the forum. I think it could certainly be helpful to folks who have access to those lizards!

Click to expand...

That was my intent. :dancer:

great pairings!! I think my favorites are the sunglow motleys - they're so bright!

A couple more hook-Ups

Thank you for your nice comments, everyone! I have a couple more corn porn pictures to add to the thread:

Ashley X Strypster

This is a charcoal female breeding with an amel stripe male. I totally expect to get a bunch of normals out of this clutch, but what I am really trying to do is work toward a future charcoal and blizzard stripe project, while testing her for amel and stripe genes and him for charcoal. It wouldn't surprise me at all if she is het for amel.

Maizy X Midas

This is my amel stripe het caramel female breeding with the golddust het stripe male again. She already laid her first clutch, and now we are working on a second one.... I think. I am still hoping for some golddust stripes out of these two.

Congrats on the new pairings, Wendy. I just did one myself from which I expect a bunch of normals with nifty hets. But, there's always the possibility of hets that match, so I'm going to be on pins and needles for these pippies. This trying to check/prove hets is nerve-wracking!

Caryl said:

Congrats on the new pairings, Wendy. I just did one myself from which I expect a bunch of normals with nifty hets. But, there's always the possibility of hets that match, so I'm going to be on pins and needles for these pippies. This trying to check/prove hets is nerve-wracking!

Click to expand...

Thanks, Caryl! You know, I find test crosses like we are doing are usually the most exciting clutches to anticipate.... and I've never actually had one that resulted in all normals, like I had anticipated.... I've had amel, anery, snow, hypo, motley and striped surprises when expecting all normals. You just never know! Good luck with your clutch!

Two More Hookups!

I had a couple more pairs breeding last night, and I took some pictures.

The first pair is a lavender motley female (who you can barely see blending in with the background) that bred with a proven hypomelanistic motley het lavender. I am counting on some lavender motleys and am anxious to see whether the female proves het for hypo.

The second pair is a bloodred female breeding with a hypo bloodred male. The female is supposed to be het for hypo, so I am looking forward to proving that. She is just about to have her post-brumation shed, and I was curious to see whether she would breed already.... and they wasted no time at all!

Violet X Mr. Motley


Bloody Mary X Blaze

wow!!! beautiful snakes!!! good luck with ur breeding projects..

Some very nice pairings for sure... That butter motley x butter het motley pair sure look ... YEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEELOOOOOOOOOOOOOOH!

Rebecca

Excellent pairs Wendy!! I can't wait to see the hatchlings

Thank you for your nice comments, everyone! I have one more pairing to post this this week. This is a female motley het lavender & hypo breeding with a male lavender, who I am hoping to test for motley and hypo genes with this pairing.

Motley Sue X Pretty Boy

Good lordy Wendy!!! Congrats on all of those fine parings!!!