Rack city.

Hi, thought I would share an update here on the blog.  This update is going to show the racking system that I use to house my royal pythons as well as my corn snakes.  Snake racks are ideal in my opinion for housing larger quantities of snakes in a relatively small area, without compromising on their husbandry, or quality of life.  I decided to go down the hand built option of racking opposed to the professionally made version.  The reason for this is primarily the fact that when I was looking to buy a rack I was a university student, so funds were tight to say the least.  In total I would estimate the total cost to be around £240, which is not too excessive for a 9 bay rack.  Also the furniture in my bedroom (more like a snake room with a bed in) is white, so I didn't want to alter the feng shui of my room.  I enjoyed building my rack and I am happy with the result, pretty nifty looking if I must say so myself.

Each level is heated with a heat mat covering 1/3 of the shelf in order to provide a thermal gradient for the snake to thermo regulate. Underneath each mat is reflective aluminium tape to increase the transmission of heat from the mat to the tub.  I have the mats connected to a pulse proportional thermostat to control temperatures.  I find that a pulse stat keeps the temperature in the tubs within 0.5c of one another.  All the materials used to build the frame of the rack are from Ikea.  I used the Ikea Pax wardrobe frame, as well as Pax shelves for the skeleton of the rack.  The tubs used for the snakes enclosures are the largest size Komplent tubs.  Simply because it gave them the largest amount of floor space.  In all honesty I am happy with how the rack turned out, the tubs slide in and out with no drag or excess resistance, the airflow through the tubs is decent, and there is a large surface area for the animals to use.  I have had no health issues, e.g. R.I, mites etc. or problem feeders since using this rack, and I have had multiple locks between snakes, implying that they are all healthy and doing well since being moved in to their new homes.  Here is a peek inside one of the tubs to show how I decorate them. It also shows that when using a racking system the tubs don't have to just be a water bowl and a couple of hides.  This enclosure is for Dot, my female corn snake. 

Finally, you can find a link to a guide showing how I went about building my snake rack, as well as little tips I used in order to help me along the way.   Click here for the guide, not bad for a guy who struggles with DIY.

Everybody get with a partner.

So here we are, mid way through November and that can mean only one thing.  No not nearly Christmas it is time to stat pairing up my royals for the upcoming breeding season, which is just as good as Christmas.  I am going to show below my plans for this season, as well as the guides and tips provided by professionals that I will be using.

Last year I used the Justin Kobylka 'recipe' for the royal breeding season, and that worked really well for me, I got a good clutche from both of my females at the time, each with 5 healthy eggs.  I will pop a link just here directly to his routine and tips for the breeding season.  I found that this method is really easy to follow and shows you the behaviour to expect from your snakes correlating to specific milestones in the season e.g. follicular development and cool seeking.  Although this method worked really well, I have decided to use it as more of a skeleton this year as opposed to a strict set of rules to follow like last year.  I have also been browsing the internet at various other breeding guides and came across the Markus Jayne guide, which is also brilliant.  It has loads of useful information, as well as photos indicating what to keep an eye out for throughout the breeding season.  The link to this is here (I feel all technologically advanced putting all these links in).  This guide tells you everything that you need to know, and then some. 

As I mentioned before I am going to use a combination of the Justin Kobylka 'recipe' and the Markus Jayne as my plan of attack for this years breeding season.  I began to drop the Temperatures within the royals enclosures on the 1st of November, and males were introduced in to females on the 10th of November for the first time.  I am happy to say I have already witnessed some locks between Alvin and sue, as well as Bumbeel and Ruby.  Although I have not seen any locks between my other pairings it is still really early in the breeding season.  Listed below are the pairings that I will be working with, as well as the possible hatchlings that could be produced:

Alvin (albino) x Sue (het albino): het albino. albino.
Burtie (fire het pied) x Sally (double het albino pied): normal, fires, possible DH albino pied, pied, pyro pied.
Bumbeel (bumblebee) x Ruby (normal): normal, pastel, spider, bumblebee.
Bumbeel (bumblebee) x Amber (lesser) normal, pastel, spider, lesser, lesser pastel, lesser bee, queen bee.

And there it is, my action plan for the upcoming season.  hopefully everything goes to plan and all works out for me, if not I can learn from the season and make changes next year.  I will hopefully get clutches from all of my females and cannot wait until I see signs that indicate follicle growth, ovulation, gravid female etc.  I will keep updates coming throughout the season as to what is going on, fingers crossed for a great season ahead.

Slither in to the light.

I am now at day 49 of incubation and had a cheeky little look in to my incubator and thought why not candle the DH albino pied x fire het pied clutch.  And here we are, not very clear on the photo but I can see a little body moving inside of each egg. Hopefully this time next week I will have 5 healthy hatchling royal pythons to show you, and I am even more hopeful that their is a pied or even a pyro pied poking its head out at me. 

I just wish that these little guys would hurry up and pip for me so I can see what is waiting for me in there.  I had to wait a fairly long time for these eggs,  I began pairing at the same time as ruby, who laid her clutch around 2 months earlier. I began to give up hope on the fact that she would even lay and I began to convince myself that she wasn't going to.  But low and behold here we are with a week to go until they are due to pip on their own, I cannot wait.  I am pretty sure I wont be leaving the front of the incubator for at least a week just in case I miss anything.

I will upload a video of them piping, once the first one has shown signs of doing so by itself I may decide to cut the rest to show a real time reveal of what is inside, then again I may not I'm still undecided.  Watch this space for some lovely baby snake pictures.

Snake in the grass...... well moss

This has to be one of my favourite pictures I have ever taken, simply because of what I feel it shows.  Not only a baby snake poking his head out of the egg, but the struggle it has gone through to get this far, as well as the battle he faces to fully leave the egg.  I also just think he looks pretty cute just sitting there chilling out like 'hey don't just take a photo help a brother out'.  This Photo was taken of a CB13 hatchling corn snake which I hatched out this year, and my oh my was he feisty.  just thought I would share this little guy with you just because I think its an ace photo.  More to follow soon!!!!!

Hello, and welcome to the beginning of the Next Generation Exotics BlogSpot.  I am an enthusiastic hobbyist snake breeder, in particular royal pythons and corn snakes and soon to be branching out in to various other species .  The site will be continuously undergoing updates and posts as it is currently a work in progress.  I will include a range of care sheets related to the species that I have experience with, as well as displaying my collection and what my future plans are, and most importantly lots of snake related photos.  Please feel free to have a look around and browse the various sections, as well as leave comments on what you would like to see posted.