Why I've been gone...

[Holbeird]

So as some of you may have noticed I've been gone for the past couple of months and I didn't really post and let anyone know I've been gone. Well the reason I've been gone is that between the Daytona and Raleigh show I picked up about 20 female ball pythons, most babies, a few sub adults, and 4 ready to breed females. All were home in my qt rack and I get a call from a friend of mine. He worked out a trade with a local breeder that he had purchased numerous snakes from before, part of the trade included a female albino red tail. He knew I had been in the market and passed it along to me for a fair price. Now thanks to being burned before when I got a snake from a breeder I trusted and spreading mites into my collection, I knew better. Strict QT weather it's from joe-shmo or Ralph Davis. So while in qt I started to notice a few of the pythons acting funny, not too long after I noticed the boa stargazing. I went to the vet right away with all of my new pythons and the red tail. After numerous expensive blood test, we found that 16 of the pythons and the boa were infected with IBD. We had them euthanized. The vet said to bee safe she'd like to keep the other 4 for observation and re-testing over the next few weeks. Two weeks later I get a call that three more have tested positive and needed to be put down, a week later the last remaining baby developed mouth rot and when tested ibd was positive. I was devastated. Not only did I feel horrible for allowing this snake to even come into my collection and in doing so killing all my new pythons in my qt, but also I had put out a substantial amount of money in getting these new snakes and now they were gone. I spent the next few months talking about getting out of snakes except maybe two or three that I enjoy most. Hell I even sold off two or three of my yearling females. In early November my stepfather died. At his funeral his son gave a eulogy about his father and how great of a man he was, in this eulogy he talked about how his father relentlessly pursued his dreams and wouldn't let anything stand in his way and as cheesy as it sounds it got me thinking and I decided after talking with my wife that I wasn't going to sell of my collection and I was going to continue with our current breeding plans, now the last month has been crazy the holidays, work being busy, spending time with my mom to make sure she's doing ok, my daughters first birthday this past week, and preparing for Christmas.

I have started breeding, although a bit late and I've seen two locks so far. I hope to start posting more often on here although until the busy holiday season is through I don't see my posting returning to normal. Either way I just wanted to let everyone know what was going on and say I hope everyone else is doing well and enjoying their holidays and the breeding season.