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I was beginning to think that I wasn't going to get any Thayeri eggs this year, but lo and behold yesterday my Olive colored Leonis female laid 9 good looking eggs. I gave her last year off after she produced 13 eggs for me in from 2001 to 2003.
The strange thing is....I paired her up with my Vivid Reptiles orange milksnake phase male. I also paired him up with my orange milksnake phase female that laid 14 slugs. I guess he wasn't the problem.
I am waiting on three more female thayeri to lay.....I hope to get some more fertile eggs....
John Lassiter

Here is a pic of them in the act.....
I wonder what the offspring will look like?
John Lassiter

Hey John Congrats on the eggs. Man I think you and clutch are shipping the same olive female back and forth just to brag about her laying eggs LOL. Keep us all posted on the babies when they hatch out.

CG

I like the olive colored female alot....She is not as flashy as the yellows and oranges, but nice nonetheless......She seems to be much shinier than other thayeri I have and really proves her scientific name, "shiny shields"(lampropeltis).

How close is your Mtkings female(s) to laying Chris?

I have my yellow leonis male in with my olive female now. She ate 5 mice right after laying.....I saw some courting but no hook up yet....Maybe in a few days or so. The orange leonis female I got with the trio is in her pre egg laying shed cycle as is my buckskin milksnake phase female who coincidentally bred to an Evan Stahl leonis phase male as well. I got that male last year from David Weymouth. He has a nice yellow head, but lots of speckling in his ground color.
The milksnake phase female that came in the trio has hooked up with the yellow leonis male twice now and she is getting close to her pre egg laying shed.....That male is a stud even in a shed cycle.....LOL Pics coming soon after he sheds and eggs are laid...I really hate to bother them now to be honest with you guys. I know you know what I mean, eh?
Patience is the hardest part,
John Lassiter

Well the John Cherry female has already shed but I'm not totally convinced that she is gravid. I can feel eggs but she is just not near as big as the luis torres female. The luis torres female is getting bigger and bigger but has not gone into shed yet. She did refuse food the night before last. So I suspect she is about to go into shed. I'm hoping that "big yeller" turns out to be as big a stud as you say he is John LOL. I'm hoping that sharktooth turns out to be as big a stud as his daddy too.

I'm really glad things are turning out as good as they are for you this year John, it was a little bit of a rough start but glad to see things are going well now. I cant wait to see the pics after he sheds.

This guy is definately going to be a stud. He's the one I thought was a female. The little bastard even gave me a bit of a scare earlier this year when "he" quit feeding. I now now why he went off feed, the little horndog LOL. This is him in 2004

Although I was never a fan of Milksnake phase in the past, everyone should have one like that in the collection. I love the vibrant colors and distinct borders. He'll be a real winner for you.

Thanks Mark. I had to re-think which males I was going to keep for breeders. I had held back from 2002 a male leonis thayeri. But after re-sexing my snakes I found out I had not one but two thayeri snakes I thought were females turn out to be males. I'm keeping the MSP male so that I have 2 leonis males and 2 MSP males.

I just sold this leonis male and have one more I've got to sell too

Congrats on those nice looking thayeri eggs John! I know you are excited about those little jewels, they look great. Hats off to the old girl! BTW... that isn't some sort of a small beetle-like bug in there with those eggs, is it? Right center of photo.....

I was shocked early the other morning to see that my 5 year old dark female alterna presented me with 11 great looking eggs, and every one of them look just as nice as those thayeri eggs of yours, and they are huge. Perfect. The shocking thing about it was that this is her first year being bred. I raised her from a hatchling and she has been here in my collection the entire 5 years. Pretty cool stuff.

Photo of her and her male together on one of their 3 successful breedings in April.....

Thanks for the congrats....
And also congrats on the alterna eggs. I would love to see the babies when they hatch. My alterna laid slugs this year. They are nine years old and have never been bred(until this year)....Maybe next year, if not, it is time to get some new ones and start all over.

The "beetle" looking thing in the photo was just some Sphagnum moss debris....You made me run to the snake room and check them out again.....LOL

I incubate eggs in moist perlite. For clutches that are laid in a vertical stack I place moist Sphagnum moss over the top of the eggs so the eggs on top that cannot get moisture from the perlite can get some from the moss.
I have had a few fully developed, dead in the egg neonates in years past. Nearly all of them were from eggs that were atop a clutch and out of the perlite, vermiculite or potting soil (I have used all three).
Good luck,
John Lassiter

Hey John, congrats. It sucks going all winter long looking forward to spring when it has started out like it did for ya.

Thats to bad about the alterna.....i was looking forward to a pair.

Oh yeah my olive colored female just laid 8 good looking eggs yesterday also.

I love it when you guys talk about your thayeri laying good eggs. It just doesn't get any better. Congrats to you as well clutch! Great looking pair!

Congrats on your thayeri eggs Jim. I bet you can't wait to see what the babies look like, eh?
Yeah....I was looking forward to some eggs from my alterna, my blonde calkings and the mexmex pairing, but it just didn't work out for me. They were all first time breeding so I think that was the reason. I got one bad clutch of thayeri eggs as well. But the male did well for me with my olive female.
I believe I am going to hibernate longer this coming season. I am thinking from November 15th to March 15th rather than Thanksgiving to Valentines Day. I will also work on dropping the temps to 50 degrees F instead of 55 F.
I still got three more gravid female thayeri.....Wish them luck.

New pic of this male soon to come after he sheds......He will father at least two clutches this year....and maybe some second clutches.
John Lassiter

...show us that big yellow male again, didn't you John! lol! You lucky devil you... that guy is such an awesome cool beast! How's he doin' for you since he's been there?

That guy sure can produce some incredible offspring. Just for the heck of it, here's one of his little baby boys again from 2003, super-sized for your pleasure.....

Mike....That is nearly and exact replica of his father. Great looking snake. I wonder what my new male looked like as a hatchling. He must have been awesome emerging from his egg.

He is doing great here. He has not eaten for me but that is because his mind is on other business. He has hooked up with the female milksnake phase from Vivid that came in the trio deal from David. The orange leonis phase is gravid and is going into her pre egg laying shed. I can't wait to see to see babies from them....
I will get pics as soon as they all shed and look decent...
John Lassiter
Here is the gravid female....I will get new pics soon.
Pic courtesy of David W.

...as you well know! I hope she gives you a huge clutch of great eggs and that every single one hatches out for you, and it sounds like she is getting close! I know you already know she is the mother to my '03 yellow male from 03D clutch, as well as Chris's 'ol Sharktooth from 03A clutch... their sibs were awesome and my yellow D06 was from her second clutch that year.

Almost had his sib brother, awesome bright orange D04... almost! lol! I had him paid for, buying him from the fellow that purchased him from David. Paid for him over the winter, was waiting on weather for months to have him shipped, along with the superb C03 reduced black, orange leonis female... and shortly after coming out of brumation he managed to escape. Never seen again. The leonis female made it here, and in the male's place I was offered that killer '02 white leonis male produced by Dan Vermilya that I bred my melanistic female with. Would have loved to have had that great bright orange Weymouth male... I was pretty bummed to say the least, but all is well with the white male. He is an awesome young male and he sure knows how to get the job done! lol... he is such a good boy to boot. All is well that ends well I guess!

Good to hear the yellow male is doing fine, man... are you ever gonna be proud to have that guy around! You DOG!!! I am really happy you got your hands on that one John.

Best of luck with his first clutch coming soon, and I hope the female does well enough to give you a second clutch again this year. After her rest last year, she should be ready for it!

The Sharktooth

That one has the most red on the head of any thayeri I have ever seen. And the "sharktooth" pattern is out of this world!!
Cool snake....I wish I would have gotten it for me....LOL
I also wanted to get one of those lava orange milksnake phase neonates from David but never got around to it.
Chris.....next year you are going to have a blast breeding and hatching thayeri eggs.....I wish you all the luck man....really.
John Lassiter
I sure wish these would have produced this year. The female decided to lay 14 slugs instead.....

Thanks John. But I think we are both gonna have one heck of a good year, this year. I'm really glad to see you are having some sucess with your thayeri this year after a disappointing start. And with your new trio you ought to have some smoking babies popping out later on this summer.

I think you and I are going to have to hold a "summit" later on this summer LOL.

I'm hoping that I get one like the one Mike posted above from my Luis torres female that was bred with "big yeller". LOL I'd really like to hold back a pair. One like "big yeller" and one like this.

Sure hope your alterna do well for you next time around, would be a shame not to see babies from that group, they are awesome.

lol... sorry for the beetle scare John, I didn't want to say anything but it kinda shook me and from here it sure looked suspicious. I didn't think you would miss something like that, looking close it appeared to be a hull from something but wasn't sure so I had to mention it. I know how prescious those eggs are over there and I would hate to see a chomper like a beetle sneak past and wreak havock on a clutch.

You mentioned all the incubation mediums you've tried..... which so far do you like best?

I have a homemade incubator made out of an old glass and stainless steel popcorn machine....You know the one you find at baseball concession stands and the such.
The funny thing is that I used to use this popcorn machine as a terrarium for a Burmese python I used to have. Well it bit too much so I traded him for a Sinoloan milksnake years ago. I noticed the popcorn machine had some wires hanging out from under a cover on the bottom. I removed the cover and found out it still had a heating element.....So I wired a plug up and installed a wafer fan from a CPU and viola....an incubator. I insulated the glass box with styrofoam insulation and made shelves from plastic grid ceiling tiles.
I used to use a deep sweater sterlite box with water in the bottom, a brick for the egg dishes to set on and an aquarium heater for humidity and heat. I used to place this in my water heater closet....It worked like a charm, but was only good for about 4 clutches of eggs at a time.
The medium I am fond of most now is moist perlite. I fill a container with moist perlite. I place a lid with ventholes in it on the container and place it in the incubator well before the eggs are laid. When the eggs are deposited I dig a hole in the perlite medium and place the clutch in the hole and bury the eggs halfway. As I stated earlier...If there are eggs atop one another I will moisten some Spaghum moss and lay it over the top of the eggs. I mist the incubator from time to time. I also add small amounts of water to the perlite substrate whenever I think it is drying out. That is the only think I dislike about perlite is the fact that it dries out faster than vermiculite. I used to use perlite and potting soil mixed, but just recently (the last three years)started using perlite solely...
What are some other techniques and mediums used?
John Lassiter

I use a Coleman type cooler. The kind you use when you go camping. I put about three inches of water in the bottom and use a submersible aquarium heater to heat the water. I have one of those radio shack digital thermometers with the long probe that I use to monitor temprature with. I put a couple of bricks on the bottom, and then have some grating on them to keep everything above the water level. I just set my incubation boxes on the grating. I've done up to 16 clutches with this setup.

As far as medium. I've used perlite, sphagnum moss and vermiculite. I started out with vermiculite and I can't remember why but I decided to change to perlite. I've used perlite mostly for about 6 or 7 years. I tried sphagnum moss a couple of times a few years ago too. Recently I've gone back to vermiculite. The past two years I've noticed that mold tends to creep around in the perlite and I've lost a few eggs to mold. I have an old postal scale and I weigh out my medium and then add the same volume of water by weight. So far so good this year.

CG

I'm looking forward to seeing everyone's little thayeri gem babies with posted pics soon in this forum!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Please share with those of us, like me, who don't have any thayeri babies/eggs and I'm 2 years off from my '04 and mate to have babies.
Congrats John and everyone else here in this forum who's expecting.
Best of luck,
Uncloudy

Hi John

Very nice. Looking nice and plump! Don't Forget to show us the outcome in a few months. Take care.
-----
Jonel @ Selective Propagations
www.spsnakes.com

I certainly will keep everyone posted....I hope everyone does the same....
Thanks for the congrats Jonel.
John Lassiter