Well….when it rains it pours!!! Out of my 25 plus years of breeding snakes, this has been my worst year EVER! Everything was going along good with no problems until one day… My AC failed…. No power outage, just an AC failure… All of the corn snake eggs and three clutches of King snake eggs all got cooked… It really is frustrating… It was so frustrating that it took me a month to get over this and finally write about it (today)… This happened in July (during the ONLY day that neither my wife nor my sons were home)… I came home on vacation (from Afghanistan) about a week later and checked on all the eggs (I had told my wife to wait until I got home to see if there may be any survivors). After checking all of the eggs, it turns out that none of them made it (not even the tough-as-nails Cal-king eggs)…. What makes this so frustrating is that this is TWO YEARS in a row of bad fortunes. I was also anticipating some really NICE looking kingsnakes from a couple of nice pairs I had this year….
And to add insult to injury, I lost one of my het females because she had an egg stuck in her for too long and unfortunately my wife/son did not notice in time….
It has been a terrible year, but for some good news: None of my snakes died from this AC failure. Also: Two of my smaller female hets (from 05' and 06') which I had almost given up on, have recently begun to eat like pigs and are putting on some good size. Maybe they'll be ready to breed at least by 2012….
And: My only actual produced pair of golden corns (non-het), are also doing great and may be ready to breed next year….
I have a back-up power source for the house, but I have now also purchased some "Repti-Pro 5000/ Repti - Superhatch" incubators….that not only heat, but also cool in case of any other, future AC failures (anyone of you have those units?)…I hope by now I have reduced the chances of any mishaps to near zero (barring any natural catastrophes)?
I guess this is the price you pay for not being home every night….But this economy of ours and the fact that my family's future is a little more important than my love of snakes, leaves me little choice but to do what I got to do….
It wasn't easy to write about this, but there are some of you that deserve to know, so now you do....
I guess this means that: Don't EVER go to Las Vegas!!!
I do want to say: CONGRATULATIONS to ALL of you that have produced snakes this year! I have seen nothing but good stuff out there! And to those that have not, but tried: I FEEL YOUR PAIN!
-----
"I am an expert on everything, but I know so little and have so much to learn!" -Carsten "Zee" Zoldy-
