Hatching season at our house has begun! Yesterday, before going to bed, I took 6 snakelings who had already crawled out of their eggs down to the Hovabator (incubator) in the basement. I had turned it on earlier. This morning, there were 3 more out of their eggs, and just a few minutes ago I checked, and there were still 2 more. Also, all 19 of the eggs in this first clutch have at least pipped (the snakelings have cut the initial slit with their "egg tooth"). So, by tomorrow if not tonight, we should have 19 new babies!
We have a little surprise, however, and it's not such a good one. Apparently, when we kept N'omi, the snake who laid this 1st clutch, we got a little confused about which parents she was from. I say this because we had believed that she was heterozygous (carrying one copy of the recessive gene) for both amelanism (snakes with no melanin and therefore no black or brown color in them) and anerythrism (snakes with only black and white coloration). We mated her to Gur, an amelanistic snake who is het (short for "heterozygous") for anerythrism. However, we have gotten not a single amelanistic or snow (amelanistic AND anerythristic, and therefore nearly all white) baby, so now it's almost certain that she, in fact, is NOT het for amelanism. We have, however, gotten several anerythristic babies, so this definitely proves that both she and Gur are indeed het for anerythrism.
The second clutch we have was laid 5 days after this 1st one, so it won't be long until those start hatching, too. And the 3rd clutch was laid 5 days after the 2nd... :-)
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
No comments:
Post a Comment