Well THIS is a first—a hatchling corn snake trying to BREED his sister* fresh out of the egg!! 🤯 I thought I saw him* doing the twitchy flirty dance when I was walking by but he stopped when I started recording. Then he followed up with this ridiculousness. DUDE. SERIOUSLY?!
* As I haven’t separated the clutch yet (I wait until after first shed), I’m only assuming genders here. Would be interesting if my assumptions prove wrong! 🤣
Pippies LIVE! 😍 These guys are going to be P I N K. They’re from the two pinkest snakes we own, salmon snow with unknown hets Babs and Heliconia het motley, amel Licorice Whip. 💕🐍
Misting Goulash’s tub is always a risky venture. Actually, you take your chances just *opening* her tub. 👀 Girl is spring loaded!
(FTR Goulash is a red toffee het axanthic. She started off taking nearly 3 months to take her first meal and has been playing catch up ever since)
Dude. Mega HUGE props and thanks to Reptiles2You, Debbie Price, FedEx for helping a clusterf*** of problems and delays ultimately not causing any harm to this poor axanthic superconda girl. 🙇♀️ Short story: she shipped out for her new home Monday—only to get in a mess that wound up sending her back home to us TODAY (Friday). 😱 It’s a testament to the quality of the shipping boxes, the phase 22/Cryopak, and FedEx’s personal overwatch that enabled such a good outcome.
Long story: this girl was shipped Monday to an exporter in New York who then would send her on to her Canadian new home. Wednesday is always the import day but I ship exports a day early in case of delays. Such as…the FedEx plane left California too late to arrive at the Indianapolis hub in time for the sort. This is not a big deal, just a nuisance, and we figured she could get sorted and go out Tuesday to arrive in plenty of time for the export.
Nope. She was delayed, again. It took some sleuthing from Debbie and her contact at FedEx to figure out where she was and why—ultimately, it was a mechanical problem that led to the second delay—and the snake was kept in one of the worker’s personal air conditioned office to keep her safe.
With the export window closed, Debbie had marked for her to be returned to me (Thursday arrival). That message didn’t reach whoever put the snake on an uncooled FedEx van (and the FedEx contact was upset about this because no living thing should go on a van, and the box couldn’t be more clearly marked that a live animals was inside) to be driven to the New York destination. The poor snake was on that van all summer afternoon into the evening—only arrive in NY Thursday and immediately be whipped around onto a return flight to California. 😳
Wonderful husband and business partner Brian (another huge shout out 👏🏻) and our oldest son picked up the snake at the hub and opened the box immediately to check on her condition.
After ALL t
New mouse cage, who dis? 🐭
Extra snowy baby pile! 🥰 These are NOT the results I expected—pairing is Heliconia het amel, motley x (I thought) ultramel anery het hypo PH motley. But I see no ultramels, among other puzzling outcomes. I love when the mysteries pop up! Time to get new pics of mom and start investigating. 🧐🐍
Corn snakes hatching live! 🤩 Ultramel anery PH hypo, motley x Heliconia het motley 🐍
Like a pile of peppermints! High white extreme reverse okeetee behbehs🥰
Brian and I were casually having a business conversation in the snake room when we were interrupted by “sssSSSSSSSssss! …sssss…SSSSSS!” I turned around and saw toxiconda Broom Hilda here giving me the stinkeye from her tub. I opened it a crack, hit record, and got her input on the matter.
For those of you who’ve been following us for a while, she is a Beulah granddaughter and boy does she know it.😡🤣
Little Miss Teeny the under-2g runt ate again last night! 💕 She rejected her toad-scented pinkie pieces so I assist fed her a mouse tail again. I had no problem getting her to open her mouth as the little fiesty thing was repeatedly trying to bite anything that came near her face. 😂 All I did was push the mouse tail into the back of her throat and set her down. She took a … very … long … time … but eventually swallowed the whole thing down and has an adorable full belly lump from her minute meal. Keep it up little one!🐍
🍋👻Baby pile❤️🐍
(This is a double clutch—the older siblings are already starting to develop those yellows)
WELL. He’s hatched! And I can’t for sure-sure tell if he’s Arctic vs. superarctic axanthic. 🤪 Update: he’s a confirmed high expression Arctic axanthic. Gorgeous, regardless!🤩
This was too cute. I cleaned and refreshed the mouse colony cage yesterday, which always gets the girls in a tizzy getting their nesting jusssssst right. (I also always give them a variety of treats after so there is a lot of happy excited energy.) One young mama wanted to bring all the babies up under a wooden hide I added, and then another mama was aghast at the babies being above “ground” and was hurriedly taking them back down.
I have started hearing David Attenborough’s voice narrating the action when I observe them: “The young female, excited by the new hide, hurriedly rushes the young ones up the ramp to the top level and tucks them underneath the wooden shelter. Or at least…(pause as camera shows her trying to put a baby in the cubby hole)…*near* the wooden shelter.
“But an older, more experienced doe is horrified by the presence of babies in the exposed upper level and takes immediate action. Babies above ground? This. Is. Unacceptable! The babies must be brought below into the safety of the burrow, and that is where she takes them…”
Hmm, where did all the corn snake hatchlings go? 🧐
(I added the inverted custard cup to assist them with shedding. I’ve been keeping clutches together through the postnatal shed and find they do better taking their first meal when I do.)
UPDATE: Unfortunately, this little one never ate again and quickly started deteriorating before passing away around age 2-3 weeks.
Warning: this is a bit hard to see, but this is part of breeding unfortunately. 💔 I took this anaconda boy out for his intake photos and noticed immediately that he has a pronounced head wobble. I’ve never seen this in hogs, and only seen something *somewhat* similar in corns. I have seen this sort of tremor-type movement in very young babies but they outgrew it within a few days; I’ve assumed it was an immature nervous system. This boy is about a week old so it’s not promising that it will go away.
BUT!
He’s already eaten unscented f/t without issue. As long as he is eating and otherwise healthy, we will give him a chance. (My younger son has already said we need to keep this one because he’s a “special one.”❤️🩹)
Who doesn’t love a baby pile? 🥰🐍
They’re all in the dull colors of post-natal shed, but I look forward to what they look like after that cycle completes.
These babies are fifth generation/F5 87.5% corn snake, 12.5% black rat snake hybrids and from our Kaiju line. Kai is a 50/50 corn snake/black rat snake (AKA “beast corn”) F2 hybrid where the original breeder, Chad Dorton, sought to find out if diffused in corns and whitesided in black rats is allelic. He paired diffused corns with whitesided black rats and got all normals in the first generation, proving the genes aren’t allelic, then bred those F1 offspring together to produce the unique result (F2s) of diffused *and* whitesided Kaiju. Kai was originally bred to our blizzard anery het diffused Nanuq, producing various diffused and piedsided (and normal) offspring (F3s). I bred a pair of those (piedsided diffused masque x same, Kiryu x Jawbreaker) together to get the sire of this clutch, anery (I *thought* he was charcoal until this clutch proved otherwise!) diffused het amel Gigan (F4), who I then paired with blizzard het anery Gigdet for these babies (F5s).
🐍First corn snake* babies of 2024 LIVE! 🤩 Well. These babies are proving) sire Gigan is an anery diffused, not charcoal diffused, as pairing him with a blizzard (amel charcoal) would give all blizzards and charcoals in the offspring. Looks like we have snows, amels, and normals so far, but first shed and eye and belly photo studies will help clarify a few things. Bonus: these are page namesake and CKC matriarch Cleo’s great-great grandchildren. ❤️
*To be clear, these babies are 87.5% corn snake, 12.5% black rat snake and are from our Kaiju hybrid line. Kai is a 50/50 corn snake/black rat snake (AKA “beast corn”) F2 hybrid where the original breeder, Chad Dorton, sought to find out if diffused in corns and whitesided in black rats is allelic. He paired diffused corns with whitesided black rats and got all normals in the first generation, proving the genes aren’t allelic, then bred those F1 offspring together to produce the unique result of diffused *and* whitesided Kaij. Kai was originally bred to our blizzard anery het diffused Nanuq, producing various diffused and piedsided (and normal) offspring. I bred a pair of those together to get the sire of this clutch, Gigan, who I then paired with blizzard Gigdet for these babies. Three long term projects are so FUN to watch come to fruition!
