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Aaarrrghhh!!

Rich Z

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Took the adults out of brumation this past weekend. Guess I had to do it... Got a bunch of breeders from new projects coming on line this year, so it should be REAL interesting when the eggs begin hatching. Darn, that reminds me, I have to get my old camera fixed. If my current one goes belly up right in the middle of hatching season, I would miss a LOT of neat stuff that I would want captured.......

Although sales were EXCELLENT last year, I do hope I don't produce as many babies as I did then. No, I haven't counted up the numbers, but I do know it was more than I want to handle again. I think this year I will try courting wholesalers more than ever to try to move out stuff in BULK quantities quickly.
 
dionythicus said:
Are you going to offer an "out of the egg" bulk lot deal like before?

I would be interested in knowing the answer to this question as well ;) I have a few high end cultivars on my want list still. I cant wait to see what type of deals you will be offering. I may not be the ideal buyer in the sense that I dont want numerous babies, but I do want high end (more expensive) babies, so it evens out :) Thanks, Lindsay
 
With new breeders comming on, that means in order to produce less....you have to cut the numbers of existing projects.

Those are some tough decissions!

Do you cut the number of snakes in each project, or do you cut entire projects?
 
Tula_Montage said:
And so it begins...

How many adult pairs have you got going this year Rich?

I really don't know. I sold off a BUNCH of adults this past Summer, but I think just as many "graduated" to breeding status. Got to get all those bigger now vacant cages cleaned up and move in the new occupants. Then I'll have a better feel for what I expect to produce number-wise this year. I REALLY don't want to produce 6,000+ babies again! Sales were really great last year, but I'm not planning on being so fortunate forever.....
 
dionythicus said:
Are you going to offer an "out of the egg" bulk lot deal like before?

Well, depends on what you mean by "bulk lot". The 100 lots of assorted cheaper animals are probably already spoken for for this upcoming season. As for the "out of egg" sale I've done for the past several years, I'm not sure how I will handle that or even if I will. I sold off most of the stuff that produces the cheaper animals and concentrated more on projects that are more interesting to me rather than actual money makers. For instance I unloaded nearly all the Candy Canes and Okeetees, plus many others along those lines. So perhaps my focus will just be changing quite a bit, and selling mostly wholesale will be more in line with how I want to do things in the future.

Don't really know how I will bounce with this...... :shrugs:
 
Fenderplayer108 said:
Rich, you plan on having any adults ready any time soon? I missed out on the last surplus sale..

Sorry, but no, not really. I really cut things down to the bone this past Summer, selling about 500 adults. I may cull out more after the breeders this year drop eggs, but I won't even give that a thought until that time rolls around. While breeding the adults, I will likely come across some that will get me thinking "Now why in the WORLD did I keep THIS one?"

As for what those may be, I don't have a clue at this point.........
 
Clint Boyer said:
With new breeders comming on, that means in order to produce less....you have to cut the numbers of existing projects.

Those are some tough decissions!

Do you cut the number of snakes in each project, or do you cut entire projects?

Lately I have been cutting entire projects. Many of them are of the type that I kept a LOT of adults to give me a fighting chance to win out over statistics and luck. So once I was able to inspect the results, I would decide whether to continue that project or not. No sense just keeping some of them, so if the project didn't seem worthwhile, ALL of them go.

And some of my decisions just don't make sense, from a business standpoint. I had finally gotten to the point where I was getting some excellent results from some of my Candy Cane lines, and most were feeding very well as hatchlings, and I just decided I was bored with the project. So they are gone. I did keep a couple, just because they were just too darned pretty and I couldn't bring myself to drop them into a bag and send them off..

Others were of the case where I couldn't see any sense to keeping Butters when I am producing Butter Stripes and Butter Motleys. No sense keeping Lavenders when I am producing an embarrassing number of combo genes with them. What do I need Blood Reds for when I am producing Lavender Blood Reds and Hypo Lavender Blood Reds?

Sure, I know I will figure out somewhere down the road that I made errors in things I got rid of, but I'm just getting tired of the work load and had to do something drastic. Until you have stood in a room and looked at RACKS of baby snakes hatching out and clutches of eggs you haven't even been able to check on in days, and gotten the cold sweats thinking you will NEVER be able to get them all put away, sexed, labelled and feeding in time to keep from losing some just because you couldn't do everything that needed to be done FAST enough, you probably don't really understand my thought processes at all when it comes time to cull the masses.... I really do not understand why I have not had a heart attack from pure stress yet......
 
Rich Z said:
I really do not understand why I have not had a heart attack from pure stress yet......
We definitely don't what THAT to happen as we would have nobody who could post awesome "What are they" pictures.

So...to reduce your stress I advise you to send 1/3 of the collection to...
 
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