Reptile & Amphibian Forums

Ok, I am now up to 123 eggs! 2 more still to lay and then the second clutches! What the heck am I going to doing with well over 200 baby corn snakes LOL! Each snake has produced more eggs then I expected and other then my striped corn who produced 7 duds out of 28 all the other seem to have produced all viable eggs. This is turning out to be my best corn snake season ever but I am still waiting for my first litter of baby boas, hopefully (konck on wood) three litters on the way soon! But either way the corns snakes are out in force this season!!!!
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Jim Hopkins "Hoppy"
Hopkins Holesale Herps
Hopfam1@aol.com

Sounds liek you're haing a nice year!

BTW...I just got a dozen eggs from the hypo snow project. Hopefully this will help shed a little light on the hypo snow issue. My friend just bought a hypo snow from Don, I'm sure she'll be posting some pics periodically...it'll be interesting to parallell the color developement of that one with any I hatch out since they're from two completely different bloodlines.

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Mike Heinrich
michael.heinrich@comcast.net

dsfgh
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Jim Hopkins "Hoppy"
Hopkins Holesale Herps
Hopfam1@aol.com

Wow! Good for you. It's great to see so many people on here having a productive and happy breeding season.

I'm having a dismal year with my small colony. My two reliable breeders haven't produced their first clutches yet - they're later than they've ever been this year and it's driving me nuts. I don't know if they'll have time for their customary second clutches at this rate.

My one remaining old-timer is egg-bound with 10 slugs stuck behind the top of a previous prolapse. Looks like a surgical solution on Monday if she still hasn't made progress (15 vet visits in 6 weeks with the same snake is a record, am I right?).

Boy, this can be hard work sometimes...

ase
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Jim Hopkins "Hoppy"
Hopkins Holesale Herps
Hopfam1@aol.com

Is that true? That may very well be a record. I hope you didn't get charged each time. If so, I'd raise hell for a BIG refund. Why did they have you consistently coming back again and again without offering the option of leaving the snake there in a temporary tank or rubbermaid? Just curious.
Good luck, I too hope all goes well.
~Jason
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Northeast Snakes
www.members.aol.com/northeastsnakes
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0.2 Green Tree Pythons
2.2 Ringed Pythons
2.3 Ball Pythons
1.2 Hog Island Boas
1.1 Sonoran Desert Boas
1.1 Nicaraguan Boas
1.1 Argentine Boas
0.1 Solomon Island Ground Boa
1.1 Brazilian Rainbow Boas
7.8 Corns (various morphs)
1.1 N. Pines (Pituophis)
0.0.1 N.Diamondback Terrapin

Hi Carl - yep, true I'm afraid. Once the eggs started to form in earnest, I took her to the vet for a course of 10 calcium injections in 10 days. She's not been in good health for a couple of years now and occasionally displays signs of calcium deficiency - we're thinking there's probably some sort of age-related metabolism problem underlying this. Anyway, she's reacted very well to calcium shots in the past, so we decided to boost her up a bit.

The last few visits have been since the prolapse. Once to have the prolapse replaced, three more visits for calcium shots and the last checkup to confirm that there was a stricture at the top of the prolapse.

The vet wouldn't keep her in just for the shots, which are a 10 second job. The last few days back in her viv have been to give her some peace and quiet in a familiar environment to see if we really have to intervene.

As for cost - well, I guess it's immaterial. However, luckily my vet is nuts about snakes and I've been charged around 45 pounds sterling for all his work so far.

Anyway, still no joy and she's back for a stay this afternoon. The vet is hoping to lightly sedate her and get her muscles to relax so that he can manipulate the remaining eggs out. It's unlikely that he'll be able to aspirate, as she's produced slugs and they'll be pretty solid by now. It may mean surgery, but we both hope to avoid that with such a doddery old lady.

I was sorry to read about your Ronne Hypo X Columbian slugger. I can't even imagine having 200 baby corns without a well established colony of mice to feed them with. Even then, I'd only feed them every 10-14 days otherwise the cost will start adding up I'd imagine. Good luck and please let us know when babies start arriving!
~Jason
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Northeast Snakes
www.members.aol.com/northeastsnakes
-
0.2 Green Tree Pythons
2.2 Ringed Pythons
2.3 Ball Pythons
1.2 Hog Island Boas
1.1 Sonoran Desert Boas
1.1 Nicaraguan Boas
1.1 Argentine Boas
0.1 Solomon Island Ground Boa
1.1 Brazilian Rainbow Boas
7.8 Corns (various morphs)
1.1 N. Pines (Pituophis)
0.0.1 N.Diamondback Terrapin

I use to keep my own rodent colony of both Rats and mice and I could produce them in great numbers, but the rodent care was more then the snake care ever was and it started to take the joy out of keeping my snakes. I decided, much to my wifes approval, to just order frozen rodents. The babies corns are easy, if you order 500 pinkies from RodentPro they are only $16.00 per hundred (small or large pinks). I figured that even if I keep them until they are yearlings with an average of 42 pinkies per year that is only $6.72 to raise the snake to yearling size. The yearling snake will get about twice what the hatchling will in a sale so the feeding is very cost effective. I have two large freezers that I keep just for the rodents so I have plenty of space when I order to store them. I make about 5-6 orders of rodents per year at about $400.00 each so that is $2400.00 dollars in feeding costs. 1 litter of boas cover that cost easily, the rest of the babies will go towards new cages, paying for the electric bills LOL, vet check ups (about $1,000.00 per year on that) and of coruse a trip to somewhere to see herps in their native home. Last year I spent a week her localy in the Everglades and then went to Costa Rica, both were fun trips.
Thanks
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Jim Hopkins "Hoppy"
Hopkins Holesale Herps
Hopfam1@aol.com