Posted by:
Rextiles
at Tue Feb 12 02:11:28 2013 [ Email Message ] [ Show All Posts by Rextiles ]
Try to get a little more sleep than you're used to and reduce stress as much as possible - could give your recovery a boost!
Thanks for the advice. Unfortunately, or perhaps fortunately depending on your point of view, I'm one of those people that have a hard time sleeping more than 7-9 hours or just taking it easy lying in bed. Regardless, my knee has been recovering far faster than the doctors told me it would and I've been pretty active just 2 days after my surgery. I was even on my exercise bike for 10 minutes today! 
Anywho...
Wouldn't mind holding onto them for as long as need be, I would like to get some nice feeding records to study, and also maybe get more food scenting experience.
I totally get that as I've held back my first couple years worth of hatchlings when I first started breeding. My reasons were:
1. To build up my collection.
2. To gain more experience dealing with the variables of raising hatchlings.
3. To perform selective breeding for specific traits/projects.
Those are just my reasons, I'm sure others might have other interesting reasons to hold back individuals or clutches to add.
Having said that though, like I said, it's also easy to put a strain on a collection when you start breeding and having to take care of a bunch of hatchlings, so planning in advance is paramount to successfully maintaining an ever increasing collection.
You mentioned getting more experience with various feeding methods which will invariably be an issue for anybody getting into breeding with those stubborn or confused individuals that won't eat what we offer them.
One thing to consider, if you don't have this already, is having a colony or 2 of mice to breed which can prove to be very important for those individuals that will eat only live or fresh killed. I have 5 colonies of mice that I maintain and while I'd love to not have to raise mice, as they are stinky, cost money to maintain as well as time to clean and maintain, I can't rid myself of them as they've proven more beneficial than not having them. But, and this is a big but, keeping colonies of mice won't always ensure that you will produce enough mice to feed your snake collection. Like I said, I have 5 colonies of mice and sometimes I can go through periods where even I am not able to harvest enough feeders from my colonies which has also forced me to also buy frozen rodents in bulk from 3rd parties to help ensure that I always have enough for feeding my collection on a regular basis.
So, with all of these extra mice I'm buying and harvesting, I invested in a small freezer to keep all of them segregated from our food supplies which is probably a wise investment especially considering that one particular frozen rodent company had contaminant health issues with their mice which had the possibility of making people sick. So if you are wanting to get into the breeding game and make a good go of it, an extra small freezer might be a good idea!
Of course I could go on forever but that should get those brain juices of yours flowing as what to plan for when getting into the breeding game.
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Troy Rexroth
Rextiles
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RE: Quick Genetic Question! - Rextiles, Tue Feb 12 02:11:28 2013