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 Shes currently about 500g (the picture below is a little outdated).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.