Status report - breeding season, 2005

[Rich Z]

This is about the peak of the breeding season here. Most females have been bred twice and there are very few rejections taking place. Some females are getting noticeably heavy, so I guess I'd better go get my egg laying containers out of the storage shed and clean them up.

Haven't counted noses this year, so I'm not sure how many total animals I will be producing. Last year I surplussed a LOT of adults, mostly stuff I couldn't see working with any longer, so I think the numbers will be substantially less then last year. I decided that getting 6,000 babies a year is really not what I want to do as a habit. 4,000 or so is just a more manageable number around here.

I'm doing some rather off the wall and speculative breeding this year. There have been some odd things hatching out over the years, so I am trying to figure out which animals are actually carrying some of this stuff and which ones aren't. With luck, I'll get some hits so I know better which ones I need to hang onto. With my usual bad luck, however, I will just probably be wasting my time and get a bunch of stuff that I have to bulk out in bag lots.

I've just about got my taxes wrapped up, so as soon as I print that out and write out that check to the IRS ( :angry01: ), then I can think about getting my 2005 price list in order. There will be some new things on it that I am expecting this year. Let's see if I can think of most of them here:

• Lavender Blood Reds
• Lavenders het Blood Red
• Blood Reds het Lavender
• Maybe some of the above with Hypo mixed in as well
• GoldDusts
• GoldDusts het Motley
• Ultras
• Ultramels (also het for odds and ends)
• Well, some other stuff, but I'll wait till the eggs hatch before saying anything further....

We only have two shows on the books this year. Daytona Beach and the Mid Atlantic Show. We decided to cut way back on the show schedule for a while to try to keep what sanity remains in check. They were just burning Connie and myself out, so we just need to do a reality check for a bit.

Well, getting late, so I guess I'll just come up with a Part II later, if needed....

Thanks.

 

[JTGoff69]

Sounds exciting Rich, I guess I'll have to make a trip down to Daytona in August! :wavey:

 

[TripleMoonsExotic]

Rich, I'm so glad you'll still be doing the MARS show! I get excited every September because you'll be in MD and I'll have the opportunity to hand pick what I want! The Snow Mot and Blizzard I picked up last year are doing wonderfully!

 

[Kevin S.]

Just a thought, Rich

I don't know exactly how you work things so this may be a pointless suggestion. Anyway, I was just thinking if you've got the time you could probably post some of your new project hets or any unusual babies you get somewhere on here instead of bulking them out. I'm sure more than a few people would be willing to take the gamble on them and then at least you'd probably hear back about some of them if they do turn out to be something different. I seem to recall you having a green-headed baby a while back and selling it in a bulk lot and several people seemed interested. Again, I don't know if it's feasible for you to post many or even a few of those oddballs or suspected hets for unproven traits, but I think it'd be a good way to make a little extra cash off them (assuming you've got plenty of others to fill your bulk orders). Good luck this season.

 

[princess]

Kevin (yeah, I know I'm not Rich!!),

I think the idea is worth thinking about too. OK so it might mean sacrificing one unit of 100 to ship off as a bulk order but I think there are enough hobbyists (at this forum alone) to be interested in snapping up a good 50 of those at least. Marked in pairs or trios at a decent price(from both parties perspectives), I could see those marching out the door the second they've swallowed their 2nd mouse!

 

[Kevin S.]

You're not Rich!!!

Thanks, good to know I'm not the only one who thinks so. Don't know if it's actually worth the trouble for Rich or not though, but maybe he could let a few slip out at least.

 

[Rich Z]

Well, from what I have seen, people just don't want to pay dirt for stuff like that. If I have surplus of some cutting edge hets because I produced more then I want to keep, I'm really not willing to let them go cheaply. If they have to be sold cheaply, then I will simply dump them in a bag to be wholesaled out and lost in the crowd as they get dispersed from the wholesaler.

A guy asked me specifically to breed a Lavender Blood Red to a Butter Motley and he would take all of the babies from that clutch. Now if he backs out of the deal, what I will have are a bunch of normals het for Lavender, Blood Red, Caramel, Amelanism, and Motley. Actually I used a Hypo Lavender Blood Red, so they would also be het for Hypo as well. What are those babies worth to someone? To me they were worth at least the price of Butter Motleys, because I could have used that Butter Motley female to produce ALL Butter Motley babies instead of allocating her for that project.

Another thing that I need to consider is that I would much rather pack up a single box of 100 "out of the egg" assorted unsexed corns for $10 each then 50 boxes of 2 $25 sexed, feeding, and labeled corns any day of the week. As I change my direction of working more and more with only cutting edge stuff and getting rid of the regular everyday stuff, then the dividing line between the stuff I have of REAL interest, and the stuff I just want to get rid of as quickly as possible, will grow wider and wider. I really don't see any sense to setting up normals, amels, Miamis, anerys, etc., etc., in deli cups and getting them feeding any longer, when my time is better spent on the other stuff that I really SHOULD put my time and efforts into. I got rid of a LOT of adults last year simply because I couldn't see spending my time even breeding them when I should spend the time with the newer stuff instead. Heck the only Okeetees I think I will be producing this year will be culls from such things as Okeetees het for Charcoal and Sunkissed being bred together. And all Miami phase are going to be het for Crimson. There aren't too many critters around here that AREN'T het for something any longer!

So, this year my total number of babies is going to be down from the last previous years, but I think my overall interest level in what is going to be hatching out of those eggs is going to be much higher then before.

So, back to that suggestion.... I may set up a Special Projects section on my SerpenCo website as the eggs are being laid and I feel more confident about what I will actually be producing. I will then consider what I may have a surplus of and list them there with what I consider fair prices. If at the time of hatching, they don't sell at those prices, then they become fair game for the surplus bags when they actually hatch out. So they will ONLY be available for retail sale up until they actually hatch and those bulk orders need to be filled. If I don't see any interest in them prior to that, then they all just get bulked out and out of my hair.

But heck, some things I just don't know what I will get nor what they are really worth. What are the results of the *new* 'C' Anery bred to Charcoal Ghosts worth? Well, I guess it depends on what hatches out. If I get all normals, then maybe they are worth quite a bit. But if I get Charcoals to hatch out, then they aren't worth much at all then. So how do I price them?

 

[Serpwidgets]

Ya, those are some tough questions. I'd say something with 6 definite hets at this point is worth $200-300 if it's feeding. (If it's not eating, it isn't worth anything though, IMO.) There might not be a huge market for such project hets, but I think the people who really appreciate what they're worth are likely to pay what they're worth. I guess it depends on how much volume will make it worth spending "quality time" on them.