Snakes and Stones Pr. 2

[Lord Sorril]

That puts you on the favorable side of the law of supply and demand. I imagine that's a rare occurrence these days for a ball python breeder.

Maybe.
Orange Ghost is allelic with regular Hypo. You would think it would be more common...

I really like a nice orange ghost. It was the second BP morph I ever owned (a good while ago!).

I guess other morphs outshine it now. But I do still like it by itself and in various combos.

Yeah, I remember when I first started breeding ball pythons Orange Ghost was a 'Big Thing'...now it seems everyone who was breeding Orange Ghost has shifted to Ultramel...I'm still Old-School.
---

I wanted to do a really nice photo for #600, but my job has been savage. My company/team has been steadily eliminating skilled members.
As I am new--I have had very little free time for my photography these days as I am constantly working to avoid the ongoing cuts.

Photo #600

BP = Spider/Het Albino/Het Gravel or Yellow Belly
Stone = Green Aventurine (Brazil)
---
Quick Update on the 2026 Breeding Season:

Out of 20 clutches, I am up to Clutch #19 hatching currently.
My last clutch #20 was collected late and will be several weeks before it hatches.

I've lost approx. 10 eggs this year so far (which is a lot for me --- mostly Spider + HGW together = Embryonic Lethal)
All of my hatchlings that are within expectation are eating (except one-my high light colored HGW/Yellow Belly - force feeding ongoing).

I have a new issue this year where randomly 1 out of 100 of my hatchlings has a regurge 2-3 days after feeding.
1% seems small, but I almost never had this issue in the past (and the smell = brutal...).

I did have one hatchling with a birth defect this year. It hatched out and then died immediately. A quick necropsy showed that the lower 1/3 of its body was underdeveloped: including the skeletal structure itself. This was a Het Piebald, the offspring of a Pastel/Piebald x GHI/Fire...the pairing was from two separate breeding lines. I am going to chalk this birth defect up to being a 'fluke'.
---
In other news, I bought a frozen pizza from Walmart to try it out:

I thought it looked pretty good, but I took one bite and didn't like it, it was both a flavor and texture issue for me.
I fed a slice to every one of my stock cages of mice.
I went back the next day to check...every stock cage had eaten 100% of the pizza with the *exception* of the pepperoni...every pepperoni was only slightly chewed on the edges...

[Bogertophis]

Your job sounds very stressful & for sure, you need to keep your focus there, though we do love your photos. The one above is gorgeous.

I love pizza but I've never been brave enough to try a Marketside-Walmart pizza, though some people have said they're not bad. Thanks to your input, I think I'll pass. I can't imagine mice eating pizza no matter how good it was, other than the crust, but I can guarantee that rats would love it. (They're fun pets because they like & can eat most anything we eat.) You have strange mice.

Just what you need after a frazzling day at work is coming home to a regurge...gah, my sympathy. Also for the egg losses. With as many snakes as you produce, one known birth defect sounds pretty normal.