The beginnings of a breeding group

[chrisv]

I have been a long time lurker, infrequent poster and pathological PMer for some time now and I wanted to share my generally newly acquired ball pythons with the universe!

First, to describe my setup: Snakes are all housed in Boaphile RhinoRaxx. tub sizes 6 qt, 15 qt and 32 qt. Temp is maintained via flexwat heat tape controlled by a helix thermostat and a dual zone vivarium electronics VE-300. The main rack is in a room that also has a reef aquarium, so humidity stays from 60-75%. Ambient temps on the cool side are 80-81F and on the warm side my hot spot is set to 92F.

I have acquired a Georgia Quail Farms reptile egg incubator for when the time comes which will be hooked up to a helix.

All of the pictures I have provided below were given to me by the breeders who sold me the animals, so I cant take photo credit.

Next, to describe my breeding goals: I plan to have three breeding projects.

First, I will breed a pair of BEL complex animals. My male is a granite lesser yellowbelly and my female is a lesser. Both are from 2012. My hops is to produce BEL animals and lesser combos. (Lessers are one of my absolute favorites!)





Second, I will breed banana combos. My male is a Banana Pastel. The female I plan to use to start this project is a 2012 black pastel pewter. I love the clarifying effect the black pastel gene has on bananas (and most things). With this pairing I will have a shot at: pastels, bananas, banana pastels, super pastels, banana super pastels, black pastels, banana black pastels, banana pewters, pewters, banana silver streaks, silver streaks and normals. I think this will be a blast because there are so many possibilities.





Third, I will breed pieds/pied combos. My first female for this group is a 2013 high white pied. Shes currently about 500g (the picture below is a little outdated). In the near future I hope to find her a high white pied male to mate with and perhaps one or two additional pied females to share the roost with.



Last, a little about me (since this is functionally an introduction thread): I am a tropical animal enthusiast. I have been keeping herps since I was 4 years old. The most out of control it ever got was a medium scale dart frog breeding operation. I also maintain a reef aquarium where I grow small polyp stony corals and grow orchids. I live with a recalcitrant Bengal Cat named Ned and an extremely tolerant girlfriend who teaches elementary school for a living. To pay the bills, I do science. I study developmental genetics and functional genomics. That stuff is just as addicting as this stuff.

[Solarsoldier001]

That female lesser is hot


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[AlexisFitzy]

Really loving that banana and pied!! but they are all gorgeous. Thanks for sharing.


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[chrisv]

Thanks Alexis and solar, I am really excited to get things going. Snakes! What fun!

[MizTwisted]

All beautiful animals! ^.^ that black pastel pewter is sweet

[thegamejr]

Gorgeous collection! and always good to see another orchid enthusiast ha

[chrisv]

My ball python projects are coming along nicely. The lesser female is up past 1500 grams and the Black pewter female has hit 2000! My banana pastel male, who was less than 200 grams 11 months ago has made it up past 700 grams.

This year, I plan to breed my my banana pastel to my black pewter and my lesser yellow belly granite to my lesser female (shooting for blue eyed leucistics!)

My pied female is another year closer to breeding size but wont make it in time for this season.

Today I picked up her mate, a pastel pied. He is medium white and although its tough to tell from my crappy cellphone picture, his colors POP. I can't wait to get the pieds up to size and push forward on that project. Next on my list is to get a few more pied females!

[nightwolfsnow]

Good luck on your breeding season!
Right now I only have Phalaenopsis, would be cool if you posted some pics of yours in off topic cafe or something.

[chrisv]

Good luck on your breeding season!
Right now I only have Phalaenopsis, would be cool if you posted some pics of yours in off topic cafe or something.

Thanks night!

I will post some orchid pics over in the off topic area later. I have had a few cool ones recently. A nice Paphiopedilum and a nice Cymbidium.

[darkranger69]

first lesser is really a op quality animal