Slitherin' Sisters

2010-2011

October 14th
It's about that time again! I like to see my plans down on paper and since we are getting close to breeding season I figured I might as well write down my plans where everyone can follow along. This will be our second year at breeding, hopefully this year goes much better! If all goes well we should have four girls ready to breed. There will be a potential of four clutches containing, pastels, spiders, mojaves, and normals. I won't be starting any parings until December this year. I haven't decided what week in December I will start yet.

Planned Pairings: (Mojave male is out this year-not eating well)
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Normal1xMojave Pastel (Mojave not eating)

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Normal2xPastel and Spider

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Normal3xPastel and Spider

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Normal4xPastel and Spider

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November 15th-ish
Started breeding! All the girls made it to 1,500 grams or more. The '05 girl is about 2,200-2,300 grams now.

December 13th
I've been busy busy busy finishing up my last semester at The University of Iowa, but I have been putting the boys to work! My Pastel and Spider have both been locked up with the girls they are assigned to at least twice. The Mojave doesn't have it figured out yet though. I'm not sure if he will breed for me at all this year, he's still pretty small. He was a tough feeder from the start and has recently gone back to his old ways *shakes fist*.

December 25th
The boys are back on track. I gave them a break because the spider has been going non stop! The pastel is almost keeping up! I did get a lock picture today for Christmas!

Normal4xPastel

January 7th
Still going strong! I even got a video of one of my females wagging! It was so cool!

January 17th
I haven't be taking very many lock pictures, but I'm having a lock almost every day! Lets hope we see lots of eggs this season! Both the pastel and the spider are hard at work. The mojave male is still relaxing though. He has been a real jerk about eating. He has been refusing rats for about two months now and will only take one mouse at a time. I could choke him... Looks like we won't have any mojo babies till next season. 

Oh, and good news! The three virgin girls have been on the cool side for the past month or so. The older girl is back on the heat and has been glowing for a couple weeks now. This is the same girl that glowed and laid eggs for me last year. (Normal4)

January 30th
I'm pretty excited! I believe that my three virgin girls are glowing! One is for sure, one I'm pretty sure is glowing, and the third is on the fence. Either way I'm stoked! I'll be happy if I get more than one clutch this year, fingers crossed for the virgin girls!

Normal3xPastel

Normal1xPastel

Normal4xSpider (deep in shed)

February 6th
The boys are still truckin' along and all the girls are still locking up. By last years records I would say Normal4 should start refusing the male and ovulate sometime in the next few weeks. I'm keeping a close eye on her since I missed her ovulation last year! 

February 24th
Well, I'm still waiting for some ovulations. It seems like two of the girls are building, really close to ovulating, or I caught them right after ovulating. Still no sheds or anything, so the count down hasn't started! 

The next girl, she's my glowing machine (Normal 4)

Look at that neck glow!

I love seeing this!

March 12th
One girl is in her prey-lay shed and one girl is in her prelay pre-ovulation shed. {got ahead of myself there} Normal 4 is in the blue phase and Normal 1 is just going into shed. All four girls have gained 200-300 grams so I have high hopes for all of them! I'm still waiting for the other two girls to go into shed. 

March 18th
The biggest girl shed today! And the count down begins! Still waiting for the second girl to shed, and waiting for the other two girls to go into shed. The cool thing is that she shed on March 16th last year.

Start watching for eggs on April ~18th!

March 25th
I caught a girl ovulating for my first time! She should lay in about 45 days! (Normal 1)

April 16th
Well, the biggest girl is due in two days! She has a crazy ridgeback going on and is a bit restless today. I'm pretty excited, but I don't feel ready at all! I'm hoping this year goes 100 times better for me. I completely revamped my incubator this year, wired new flexwatt, new fan, new tubs, new everything. I'm going substrateless from the start, that much less to go wrong this year! Wish me luck!

As for updates on the girls, I still only have two girls that are for sure going to lay for me this year. The other two girls are still locking up for me, so that's a good sign they still might go for me. Like I said before though, I'm happy with just two clutches this year, 50% is a good number!

Two hours later....Update!!!

I've got another girl ovulating! She's the one girl I really wanted to go for me this year. She is so light that no matter if her babies turn out pastels or spiders they are going to be beautiful!

I put him in with her yesterday and went to check on them for the second time today and said "why the heck aren't you doing your job?!" Then I moved him off of her and said, "oh...that's why!" Yay! No more pairing up for her!

And here is the girl that is due in two days!

May 3rd
Finally! Go figure she would be really late again this year. She only went to day 43 rather than 53 this year. Only 5 this year though :( The clutch weighs 717 grams though, that puts them at about 150 grams per egg. Not too shabby!

And the last of the 4 girls oving, this is the one I thought could have been prego, but she obviously wasn't. The pastel is in shed if he looks gray.

May 14th
Got four more eggs today! All candled healthy! The one she rolled out is longer and a bit larger than the others, we'll see if there is anything funny going on with that egg.

May 22nd
All the eggs are still doing well! That roll out still has great veins, I'm keeping an eye on it to see if there is anything weird about it since she rolled it out. That clutch is on day 8, the first clutch is on day 19.

June 11th
All 9 eggs are still going strong. Only about three weeks till the first clutch should start to pip! I forgot to put up pictures of my incubator, but here is what it looked like with one clutch. The blue light is a computer fan. Very simple to hook up, just wire it to an old cell phone wall charger and plug it in. I have a Helix running this bator at 88. For some reason at 89 I kept seeing it say 90, but at 88 it's 88 every time I look at it. Who knows.

June 19th
My first clutch is on day 46! They are dimpled and only about a week away from pipping! All the eggs are doing great and look healthy. My third girl laid a clutch of slugs on Friday, and the last girl is due to lay any day. It looks like she'll only have 3 eggs, hopefully they aren't slugs!

June 27th
The fourth girl laid today, 3 healthy 100 gram eggs. Not the biggest clutch, but they have decent size to them. She was not happy with me, she was hissing the whole time.

June 30th
The first one pipped yesterday

The only pastel in the group, totally bombed the odds with this clutch :(

July 2nd
They all came out this morning!

Normal male

Normal female

Normal female

Pastel male, he has a little kink in his tail

July 19th
My second clutch is going into shed, I'm a bit late posting pictures! Here are a few pictures of them. I got 2 female pastels, 1 female normal, and 1 orange male. No clue where the orange color came from.




Normal, Orange, Pastel

My favorite pastel in the bunch