What snakes did people buy?
Well, this year saw us go from the 2 snakes I've had for the last ~15 years to 37 snakes and by the end of this week hopefully, 39.
It all started last February when my wife bought me a pair of corns for Valentines Day. Then we ended up going to a local pet show and I picked up a pair of desert phase cal kings and what was originally sold to me as a Mex Mex but has shown to be a sort of hybrid between a Mex Mex and a Greeri. After going to the show, our interest in keeping herps was totally revitalized.
Then I found Kingsnake.com and it all went downhill from there :crazy02:
We also hit all of the local shows plus a few out of state ones where we almost always brought home something.
This is what we ended up picking up this year:
1.0 Snow Corn
1.0 Normal Corn
1.1 Mandarin Rats
1.1 Desert Phase Cal Kings
0.1 Mex Mex/Greeri Hybrid(?)
2.2 Greeri Kingsnakes
2.1 Grey-Banded Kings
2.2 Normal Western Hognose
2.3 Albino Western Hognose
0.2 Het Albino Western Hognose
1.1 Pink Pastel Western Hognose
2.1 Possible Het Pink Pastel/Hypo Western Hognose
1.1 Axanthic Western Hognose
1.0 Het Axanthic Western Hognose
1.1 Bicolor South American Hognose
What was your favorite purchase?
At this point, I really couldn't define a favorite as we love them all.
However, I think I can honestly say that in terms of visual appeal, the Mandarin Rats win hands down with the Pink Pastel Hoggies coming in at a close second.
In terms of behavior, the Cal Kings have to be the biggest clowns we have.
And the Hoggies are just fascinating on many different levels. I would have to say that keeping Hoggies has really been a highlight for me.
What did you breed and what did you keep?
Most of the snakes we purchased this year were hatched this year save for a few adults we bought. Hopefully by 2009, most of our collection will be of breeding age/size and we can get the ball rolling.
We're really excited about our Bicolor Hoggies as they are proven breeders and were our first snakes to mate this fall and produce 2 clutches of (infertile) eggs. I believe we did end up having one possibly viable egg that looked really hopeful, but we were having problems with a new incubator we had purchased and the egg eventually turned bad. Hopefully we'll have more success with this pair after having brumated them this winter.
We're also excited about breeding our 2.1 possible double het Hoggies in 2008 to see what they might produce. They are all 2004's, but the males tend to be really undersized at 60 & 40 grams respectively while the female weighed in at 280 grams. I hope I can bulk them up a little so that they can successfully tackle the monster female :uhoh:
And our last hopeful project for 2008 will be our 1.1 adult albino Hoggies. The female was ready to go this year, but the male just had no interest. If you saw the pictures I posted of them a while back, I'm sure you could understand why
What was this year in general like for you and the hobby?
It was definitely an enlightening year for us in regaining our interest in keeping herps like back when we started 15 years ago.
I think a large part of how we lost interest over the years was the loss of many really good family run pet stores over the years only to be replaced by unprofessional and impersonal corporate stores like Petsmart and Petco. Those stores have really crippled the family run part of the industry while adding nothing to the trade. In fact, I think they hurt the industry because of their inability to keep healthy animals and having a knowledgeable staff to educate most consumers.
My wife and I used to love driving all over the place to find unique pet stores and meeting new people through them. With those types of stores having disappeared, we quit going out for those weekend drives. Mind you, this was long before the advent of the internet which has changed everything over the last decade tremendously. Now we have been able to meet new people through forums such as this and keep on top of what shows are coming up and being able to go to them. I have also ventured into buying quite a few of our snakes online and doing the overnight shipping thing which has really opened up a whole new world for us considering a lot of the snakes we have purchased are not typically found within our local shows and/or pet stores.
But I would say that this last year was really a great experience for us getting back into something we used to really love doing and for finding a means to do it using the good ol' computer. I for one am happy that Al Gore invented the internet
