2016 Cleo's Kingdom Breeding Projects! Eee!

[LauRuffian]

Oh man, I am so hooked on breeding corn snakes. Well, snakes in general--next year I have three Western hognose pairs to add to the fun.

I've named our little operation Cleo's Kingdom, in honor of our 14yro matriarch--Miami het amel Cleo.

She started it 5 years ago when she started producing slugs and I became curious at the time if it was parthenogenesis. It wasn't--but then I was officially bitten by the breeding bug. I retired her after two years and brought in some other ladies to pick up what she started--and next year, her amel het motley daughter Izzy will likely be carrying on her genes when she joins the breeding program.

Here's what we have going on! First there is Zuri (classic het pied-sided line bloodred/diffused, amel, charcoal) x Rama (charcoal het amel, pied-sided line bloodred/diffused). Now, this is likely going to be a bust, but it's okay. Zuri had a mild respiratory infection when I got her a year ago, and initial vet treatment was of minimal use. When she shed coming out of winter this year, I went ahead and paired her with Rama. Then I just grew uncomfortable with how much she was starting to click and mouth-gape again, so I decided against pairing them again and took her back to the vet and she started injectables. I figured nothing was likely to come of a late January/early February pairing anyway and I wanted her healthy before breeding. Yeaaahh...good intentions and all, but it quickly became apparent she was gravid.

It might still end up being nothing, but she laid a clutch of 15 eggs on April 9, three of which look good but I'm not seeing anything on candling. I'm hoping I'm just not good at candling. :awcrap: I'm hoping for a pewter, whiteout, and some nice pied-sideds, but if it has to wait until next year, that's okay. Get her healthy this year.

Zuri:

Rama:

The three crossing-fingers-possibly-good-eggs:

One is now starting to get some white fuzzy mold on it, due I think in part to the previously-attached slug that went bad. Still hoping for three babies in about another month!

 

[LauRuffian]

We are also re-breeding our lavender Aztec het hypo, stripe female Kamalah to our hypo stripe het lavender male Keagan. They made gorgeous babies last year, even though we only got normals, lavenders, hypos, and stripes. That's right, all single morphs, but no combos. What the heck is up with that? No fair! BUT even the normals were unusually red and just gorgeous, and the babies had the sweetest nature of any clutch we've produced. Those who weren't stripes nearly all had varying amounts of the Aztec pattern, too. Unfortunately, we lost half the 19 eggs early on; my mother had an emergency 24 hours after the eggs were laid and I had to rush out the door and wasn't there to monitor them. Humidity was off and half dried out, never to recover. But we got 10 beautiful babies out of it. I'm hoping to get (and keep) a lovely lavender stripe female.

Kamalah had her prelay shed a couple days ago, so egg laying is imminent. She's also HUUUUUUGE...well over 100g bigger than last year. So excited!

Here's Kamalah a few weeks ago, looking very gravid but not as OH DEAR GOD SHE'S HUGE big as she is now :

And here's Keagan:

And for fun, here's our keeper from last year (a pet for our youngest son), hypo Aztec het stripe, lavender Snootle:

 

[LauRuffian]

Last but not least, there's my other new pair. Alina and Theo both come from Willis Wildlife Enterprises/Susan Willis. Alina is a daughter of Boo and is a ghost het amel and 50% ph motley. Theo is a ghost stripe het dilute and 66% het amel. I'm reeeeeally hoping their possible hets both come through and we get some coral motley-stripe ghosts.

Alina just went off food, so her prelay shed is probably about 10-14 days away. She's my biggest corn snake, period, so it's harder to see just how gravid she is...but she is!

Here's Alina:

I love her blue eyes!

And here's Theo--he photographs darker than he is, but I have baby pics--he is assuredly a ghost and not anery. :yes: