Snakes, some for sale, some not eating

Today (Wednesday, 1 Oct), we took 28 snakes over to our friend, Golan, at Kibbutz Matzuba (near Shlomi). There were actually several reasons: some are for sale; some are in partial payment for Y'hudit, the anerythristic female that we got from him last year but who actually belonged to another friend of his; and some have either not eaten at all or have been poor eaters (Golan and the guys who work for him there are good at getting snakes to eat). This will decrease the number of mouths I have to feed considerably. While we were there, he also paid us for the 4 babies that he has been able to sell so far. So, it was a profitable and enjoyable trip on a lovely early autumn day. Afterwards, we went to Greg Cafe in Nahariya and had a nice lunch there before returning home.

Baby snake eating update

Today, I fed all the baby snakes from this year. I won't go into too many details, but this was an important feeding, since it was the 3rd opportunity for babies from the last 2 clutches to eat. If a baby snake eats 3 times, we can usually assume that it will be a consistently good eater, although there have been exceptions on occasion. The results at this time are encouraging: of the 57 babies that we currently have, 43 have eaten at least 3 times, 6 have eaten twice (having skipped last week), 2 have eaten only once, and 6 have consistently refused to eat. This does not count the 8 from earlier clutches that refused to eat that we had already taken to Golan to see if he can get them to eat. I was particularly pleased about the 6 that ate this week who hadn't eaten last week, since they are from Y'hudit's clutch, meaning that they are all heterozygous for both caramel and anerythrism (and the ones that are not hypomelanistic are also het for hypo).

First feeding for the last 2 regular clutches

Last Sunday, I fed all this year's babies. For the 4th and 5th clutches, this was their first time to be offered food. Here are the results:

In the 4th clutch (from D'vorah), 7 ate and 5 did not, which isn't so good. However, in the 5th clutch (from Y'hudit), 18 ate and only 1 did not, which is very good.

This last clutch is also one of the most interesting this year. We bred Yeled, our male amber (hypomelanistic caramel) corn snake, to Y'hudit, a female anerythristic corn snake. And we got very lucky! It turns out that Y'hudit is heterozygous (a recessive gene carrier) for hypomelanism, something that was not known before. Getting even one hypomelanistic baby would be enough to prove this. Once one knows this, one would expect about half the clutch to be hypomelanistic (reduced melanin, which makes brighter colors). However, we got 14 hypos and only 5 normals! Another interesting fact: the 5 normals all just happen to be males in this case. However, in another stroke of luck, only 4 of the hypos are male, whereas the other 10 are female. This also is good for future breeding plans with these babies (more females means a higher number of eggs in the project). When breeding a pair of these hypos (3 years from now), one would expect to get about 3/16 ambers, 3/16 ghosts (hypomelanistic anerythristics), and 9/16 hypos. The other 1/16 will be both amber and ghost, but will probably look either like ambers or ghosts (I not sure whether anerythrism overrides caramel or the other way around.).

Part of the deal we made when we got Y'hudit, however, is that we will give her previous owner (another friend of Golan's) part of the clutch. Exactly how many we're not sure, but we will certainly be able to keep some for ourselves.

Hatching season is virtually over

The last 2 clutched hatched last week. Now, there is only one egg left, which is the only good one from the only snake to lay a 2nd clutch, N'omi. This only should hatch near the end of September or in early October.

The last 2 clutches were from our 2 new girls, D'vorah and Y'hudit. D'vorah's clutch was about half normals and half amelanistics, since she is amelanistic and her mate, Gavnoni, is heterozygous for amelanism. He is also het for anerythrism (we know this only because we know his parents), but apparently she is not, since we got no anerythristics or snows (amelanistic AND anerythristic) from her. We got 12 babies from D'vorah, out of 15 eggs that she laid.

Y'hudit's clutch is about half normals and half hypomelanistics. This proves that she is het for hypomelanism, something which we did not previously know. Her mate was Yeled, who is an amber corn snake (both caramel and hypomelanistic). We got 19 babies from Y'hudit, out of 23 eggs that she laid.

All of these new babies will be fed for the 1st time next Sunday. Only then will we have some idea of how many will eat and how many will steadfastly refuse to eat.

More hatching!

Yesterday evening (Monday evening), the first eggs in the 4th clutch began pipping. None of them have crawled out of their eggs yet. This clutch is from a male corn snake, Gavnoni, who is normal (although he has had a lot of weird bumps since he himself hatched, 4 years ago!) but heterozygous for amelanism and anerythrism, and a female amelanistic corn snake (D'vorah), whom we got from our friend, Golan, in trade for the snakes that we gave him. If D'vorah is het (heterozygous) for anerythrism, we should get some anerythristics and some snows (amelanistic AND anerythristic) from this clutch. If not, we'll get about half normals and half amelanistics. In another day, we should know.

One egg in the 5th clutched also pipped, and, in fact, the snakeling has already crawled out of that one. This clutch was laid 3 days after the 4th one by Y'hudit, an anerythristic corn snake that we also got from Golan in the same trade. The father is Yeled, our amber (hypomelanistic caramel) corn snake. Barring any unexpected hidden genes on either side, this clutch will be entirely normal, but they will ALL be het for hypomelanism, caramel, and anerythrism. So, when they are later bred to each other, it will be possible to get normals, normal hypos, caramels, anerythristics, ambers, and ghosts (hypomelanistic anerythristics).