Okay, so some of you may remember my post about Whistler, my baby girl from christmas that my boss gave me. She's doing great, though I've still got her at the store to use as an educational/demonstration deal until I can get a huge display setup for her here at the house.
Thing of it is, for such a big, gorgeous girl, I'd really like to breed her. Not many Morelias down my way, either, so I didn't know when I'd find a male for her.
So, yesterday, a customer I hadn't seen in a while comes into the store with a big pillowcase. My manager and I were like "wtf?" and he comes up to us and goes "I want to get rid of my jungle and my coastal."
I'm interested.
He says he wants to put them on consignment.
We looked at our boss and she sort of shrugged and told him to pull the snakes out.
He does.
My manager ran into this guy at a concert one time and punched him in the mouth in the pit. What he pulled out of that bag made us want to do the same thing all over again right there at the counter.
Seven, almost eight years old. The Coastal, who would ten minutes later deliver my largest snakebite to date when we probed what was supossedly a male {turned out to be female} and attempt to wrap my arm and consume my hand, is roughly six and a half, MAYBE seven feet or so, and nothing but bones.
Bad, but there was worse to come.
He pulls out the Jungle next, a male that he said was a female, covered in old shed though with clear eyes and AMAZING coloring. He's dry, bonier than the Coastal, the exact same age...
...And only about three feet long.
My big girl my boss gave me isn't even two yet, and she's pushing six and a half feet.
This poor little male is VPI bloodlines, apparently, and ate two mice for me sitting there on the floor of the shop last night. Well, they both did, then went after each other, tried to go after me again, and generally gave me a hard time for a few hours. But I digress...
Since I fed him, he's perked up considerably. Definately reminds me of the first jungle I met when I started working at the shop a couple years ago, as he's all attitude and definately ready to go as soon as someone comes up to the enclosure. My boss told me to give her fifty dollars and she'd call the guy and tell him we sold one of his snakes, he'll never know the store herpetology student bought it {he'd have a fit, because he knows I know how much that snake could fetch if it didn't look like death reanimated.}.
Here's the thing--
I'll only get him if the chances of him breeding to Whistler are good, because as much as I love my herps, I HATE having random "Look at me, aren't I cool!" animals that sit there and do nothing to further the hobby.
So, two questions, really.
1) What're the odds of him hitting a growth spurt after he puts some weight back on and catching up to my girl? He's so, so tiny...
2) Will his diminuative size affect his overall success at procreation in the long run?
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1.1 Ornate Uromastyx [Re and Wadjet]
1.0 Savannah Monitor [Zephyrus]
1.0 Quince Monitor [Poe]
1.1 Eastern Box Turtles [Zoink and Abel]
1.0 Sulcata Tortoise [Littlefoot]
0.1 Pink-Toe Tarantula [Athena]
1.1 Argus Monitors [Kharnak and Mudd]
1.0 Eastern Kingsnake [Duke]
0.1 Jungle Carpet Python [Whistler]
...And more rats than I can count anymore.
{Hi, I'm Harmony, and I'm a Varanophile...}
