The dangers of barter ...

[Black Swamp]

Bartering is dangerous! I'm up to 4.5 balls, with another 2.3 on the way. Almost entirely on barter. In for a penny, in for a pound.

It all started at a reptile show in March, when I bartered a pair of beautiful rats at the end of a show for a future turtle trade. They were just too sweet and too pretty to take home and feed to the cats. At the next show, she didn't have turtles in yet, but she had captive hatched balls. Morticia had a heart on her head, and I knew then I was in trouble.

At the end of that show, I traded the rest of my feeder mice for another hatchling, same shipment, different vendor. My Gomez is darkly handsome.

Now I have snakes, so my friend gave me his normal boy with the burned belly to rehab and keep. I named him Phoenix.

Next reptile show (they're bimonthly) and I spy a gorgeous little dark normal hatchling before he was even done setting up his table. Gotta have her, so he set her aside for me, and I put my name on her like I was guarding my lunch from coworkers, lol. She was $20, but he bought $12 worth of mice at the end, so all in all she was $8.

Same show, and a guy comes in looking to sell or trade some nice boys. We horsetraded our asses off, and I ended up going home with my 1.0 mojave and 1.0 pinstripe.

Obviously they need girlfriends, and they give direction to my breeding project, so I put the word out that I was looking to barter for one or more. I traded feeders and $30 for a big normal girl who may have retained sperm from a lesser pairing. Or not, but she'll make gorgeous babies with my mojave.

Then I traded fancy mice and rats for a 0.1 chocolate and a 0.1 fire spider just last weekend. That chocolate girl's pairings for the next 3 years are already planned out, should she and the odds gods cooperate.

In 3 weeks, I'm trading more fancy mice and rats for a 0.1 pastel and a '16 1.0 fire.

The woman I traded with for the chocolate is facilitating a trade for a 1.0 cinnamon and a 0.1 yellow belly. There may also be a 1.0 het pied in the works.

I worked up my plan with who I have, what I'd like to produce, and how to get there. This is the best 5 year plan I've ever worked up. I will eventually have a wall of bioactive vivariums in my living room to display my beauties. All of this because I wanted to offer my raw fed dog a whole prey model source of red meat. I <3 rats!

I haven't figured out uploading pictures here yet, but they're over on my blog if you want to see the pretties. http://blackswamprodentsreptiles.blogspot.com

[Cin]

Gosh diddly darn m8