John,



>>Things are great...



That's good news...Things could be better financially...



>>I really appreciate your input Jim...



Thanks but I ain't no expert with this...I've still got a long way to go and so much to learn...



>>I have had 2.5 year old Mexicana breed successfully...

>>Like I mentioned in a previous post...I've had young males >>this size, but not this young of age produce viable sperm....

>>But...I've never tried a female this young or this size....



Me neither...She was the only one so far...Might be an exception and something I'll not attempt to do...I'd rather wait another year. The female that I bred the big orange male to laid a clutch of 15 eggs of which 12 successfully hatched.



The three that didn't make were in the middle of the egg pile and couldn't escape from their eggs. Two of the eggs were so buried (probably the first ones laid) that I didn't know they were there until I flipped over the pile of empty eggs. The one egg that I could see, I cut but the neonate still didn't make it out.



Compared to last year, all 12 babies were in the 5-6 gram range and 7 (regularly) to 9 (sometimes) of them are eating lizard scented...The other 6 have to be "teased". Last year they were in the 7-9 gram range from a four year old female.



Funny thing about this clutch was that it was not the typical "box-of-thayeri-eggs" so to speak. Everyone of them VERY closely resembled both adults (and three of the grandparents) in ground color and pattern (dorsal and ventral).



All of the neonates are a shade of orange (three intense) with the double-lined ventral pattern. One of their grandparents was MSP and of the three Leonis of which two were a shade of orange and one was a pale-to-tan buckskin. Kind of neat to see...



>>Some of these yearlings I got are HUGE for their age...I firmly believe it is the new husbandry techniques/options provided by the enclosures I am using...I've never seen such a strong feeding response from Mexicana...



I've had a few males that grew far and beyond all others but I've yet to see a comparable growth rate amongest the females yet. The big orange male was one of those exceptions.



>>It's sure fun to be excited about snakes again....Glad I'm back.



Yep, I wish I had worked with them many years ago...It is an addiction! Ha! Ha!



Later,

Jim.



PS: Regarding the girls, I'm not going to risk their health for a clutch of eggs...Yes, infertile eggs do take nutrients out of their system but, fertilzed eggs would take even more. For the males, I'll still make introductions if they demonstrate breeding behavior. The specimens were too hard to acquire in the first place and for many of them, I've managed to acquire provenance beyond the parents...Somewhere in the range of 7-9 years. A few of them go back further than that...The provenance project has taken years to do and there are still some holes...





I'll see if this girl is interested in the big orange male this spring...I call her "species" because of her dramatic otogenetic change and voracious appetite! Colorwise, she looks nothing like she did as a neonate. She's beginning to turn a "mossy green" (you can see a bit of it in this photo) with orange ventrals...Her ventral pattern is a mixture of "blotched" and "double-lined"...She's a 2006 Vivid specimen and the male is a 2005 Serpentdan specimen...



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CSRAJim

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