The original update was posted to iHerp on 4/27/2019.
Pretty general update.
I looked over some of my older blogs and wanted to rehash some stuff, as well as put new info in. Long story short looking for a job again, entire collection is still with me, but I have savings from the previous seasonal(holidays) job I had so the colection shouldn't have any problems with the amount of food I ahave for at least a year. SHould get a job before that time comes.
For all animals I use old school paper records most of the time and once I have a ton of records I then mass place them into Iherp. I do have a lot of records I need to catch up on specifically for the geckos but also some corn info.
If you didn't know already I simply add cleaned and water done for every weekly record because I spot clean all the time (They are in a room where I sleep so as soon as I smell that someone's gone I clean it) and water is done every two to three days at the same time as the geckos are fed. So I just do a single weekly record instead of putting in a bunch more for water and cleaning records. (The above note was for iHerp users)
All but one of the corns are currently on aspen bedding for those who were asking, and I feed the majority, spare for the biggest adults, once a week every week. The oldest corns and biggest are fed every two weeks a nice meal. I always keep an eye on their body form and if I see them thinning even a tiny bit or getting very fat I will change these schedules. I used Ares as an example last time I mentioned this, but now he's consistently eating two adult mice every week because if I only feed him one a week he still loses weight. It's definitely just his age catching up to him. All of the other corns are now being fed once a week good sized meals since they all came out of brumation a while ago. Apollo is getting fat despite his obvious growth spurt so he may be downgraded to biweekly meals soon.
The 2015 corns had growth spurts but don't think they are anywhere close to 4 feet in length which is what I would imagine a 4 year old corn should be at. I need to string measure them again to be sure. I'll probably weigh them in the same day. I really do think that no snake should be maintenance fed in its first two years of life because that's when the majority of their growth is happening. Maintenance feeding older snakes past 3 feet in length sure that's a little more doable FOR SHORT PERIODS of time but in my experience the snakes that were fed really well in their first year and a half to two years of life grew the fastest and became the longest and largest of my corns. The 2015's may be have been being fed really well since 2016 but that first year where their growth rate was at their highest was when they were maintenance fed (because we lost almost all of our years worth of snake food when electricity went out). So they have been growing slower after that first maintenance fed year despite being fed every week proper sized meals. Meanwhile look at the 3 remaining 2018 corns I have left and they have reached the size that Fides our 2015 ghost currently is. Those 2018's are already about to be switched onto small adult (I think they are called weanling) just above hopper mice. I used to call the mouse sizes differently until rodentpro showed me their sizes so I'm a little messed up on what size to call what nowadays. Point is while genetics do come into play for size of a corn so do the amount and size of the prey you feed them in the fastest growing first two years. I never want to have to be forced to maintenance feed another young group of corns again.I like my little ones plump until they hit 3 feet or after their first few years. I can't wait to see what the size difference between the 2015's I've kept and the 2018's I've kept will be in a few years.
Geckos are fed every 2-4 days. It really depends on what their food looks and smells like. It tends to average around 3 days with them.
The tarantula is being a butt when it comes to eating. She just doesn't want to eat, like ever. I offer things then take them out a few days later when she hasn't eaten them. Then I leave her alone for a week before repeating the process. Maybe it's actually a male and it's near the end of its life? I was sure I saw the sperm holding parts on a fresh molt when I checked it over but I don't know. She frustrates me.
The dubia colony is gone. Nobody ate them and I didn't want a display colony of these guys with no population control. So they were rehomed.
The Hissers are still cool even as display animals so they have been kept despite nobody eating these guys either. We found a strange looking youngster in the group during our yearly full clean of their enclosure and separated the youngster out with like sized babies. If it molts and fixes its shell then I guess it was an injury, but if it molts and it's still there then maybe it's genetic. The "frill" of this hisser reminds me of a triceratops so since it isn't adversly affecting the roach I may do some stuff with it.~
The geckos got a revamp of their enclosure because I didn't like how it looked before. Flint doesn't seem to be doing his job with Narillo as we've had 3 out of 4 unfertilized eggs with the very first egg quite possibly being from sperm held back from last years breeding. Or heck it might be a partho baby. All I know is it is due to hatch any day now and it candled nice yesterday (which I haven't tracked yet).
The younger geckos are all doing well, though even with some baby red runners their growth is slow. At least Dinrin has fully buldged to male now. Bourbon is still only half way through quarantine and so far has been clean after his last final dosing of pinworm dewormer. He's active and healthy so I'm happy with him. The two newbies are just finishing their protozoan parasite dewormer and still have the round worm dewormer to go. Both are eating well and healthy for now.
Our plants and trees are finally leafing out and breaking dormancy. We have had a steady few weeks of 40 degree F. and up nights so I'm expecting all of them to come out of dormancy now. Took a butt ton of white willow cuttings to try and root this year as my willows from previous years have all died off during bad winters. The only plant that hasn't leafed out is what I think is a tiny birch seedling that self planted itself last spring. It has a bud but no swelling yet. Everything else though has leafed and we don't seem to have lost anything that we planted last year. So that's great news for once we didn't lose things to a bad winter.
Indoor trees are doing well also, though we had a scare with the tropical island norfolk island pine bonsai. The lower tree died for some reason but the main tree is still alive (with some needles dying back.) We think it went through too long a dry spell or was moved into too much light in the window. Now it is growing a lot of new growth despite the older dying needles. We are in the process of air layering a hibiscus (apricot hybrid variety) so that I can replace the one I lost during my work stay at Glens Falls. Maybe we will have a few extras to do other stuff with. It would be nice to have a full sized hibiscus tree in a corner of the house and outside during summer.
Our orange trees are also doing well, but the tiny halo mandarin seed we managed to sprout is struggling. I really hope it makes it. According to the halo's site "What kind of mandarins are Halos?" FAQ question they answer "Halos include three mandarin varieties: Clementines, W. Murcott/Afourers and Tangos.". Considering that if we managed to grow a rare seed from one it would probably be a mix of these varieties. It's funny because they say on the site that while all halos are mandarins not all mandarins are halos. One of the needed qualities to be a halo orange is that it has to be seedless. So I guess the three seeds we got out of like, thirty halos in that box from the store meant that those three were not in fact halos. I want my money back Price Chopper and Halo's company lol. You can find out more about halos on their site here. Click me I am the link.
Pretty general update.
I looked over some of my older blogs and wanted to rehash some stuff, as well as put new info in. Long story short looking for a job again, entire collection is still with me, but I have savings from the previous seasonal(holidays) job I had so the colection shouldn't have any problems with the amount of food I ahave for at least a year. SHould get a job before that time comes.
For all animals I use old school paper records most of the time and once I have a ton of records I then mass place them into Iherp. I do have a lot of records I need to catch up on specifically for the geckos but also some corn info.
If you didn't know already I simply add cleaned and water done for every weekly record because I spot clean all the time (They are in a room where I sleep so as soon as I smell that someone's gone I clean it) and water is done every two to three days at the same time as the geckos are fed. So I just do a single weekly record instead of putting in a bunch more for water and cleaning records. (The above note was for iHerp users)
All but one of the corns are currently on aspen bedding for those who were asking, and I feed the majority, spare for the biggest adults, once a week every week. The oldest corns and biggest are fed every two weeks a nice meal. I always keep an eye on their body form and if I see them thinning even a tiny bit or getting very fat I will change these schedules. I used Ares as an example last time I mentioned this, but now he's consistently eating two adult mice every week because if I only feed him one a week he still loses weight. It's definitely just his age catching up to him. All of the other corns are now being fed once a week good sized meals since they all came out of brumation a while ago. Apollo is getting fat despite his obvious growth spurt so he may be downgraded to biweekly meals soon.
The 2015 corns had growth spurts but don't think they are anywhere close to 4 feet in length which is what I would imagine a 4 year old corn should be at. I need to string measure them again to be sure. I'll probably weigh them in the same day. I really do think that no snake should be maintenance fed in its first two years of life because that's when the majority of their growth is happening. Maintenance feeding older snakes past 3 feet in length sure that's a little more doable FOR SHORT PERIODS of time but in my experience the snakes that were fed really well in their first year and a half to two years of life grew the fastest and became the longest and largest of my corns. The 2015's may be have been being fed really well since 2016 but that first year where their growth rate was at their highest was when they were maintenance fed (because we lost almost all of our years worth of snake food when electricity went out). So they have been growing slower after that first maintenance fed year despite being fed every week proper sized meals. Meanwhile look at the 3 remaining 2018 corns I have left and they have reached the size that Fides our 2015 ghost currently is. Those 2018's are already about to be switched onto small adult (I think they are called weanling) just above hopper mice. I used to call the mouse sizes differently until rodentpro showed me their sizes so I'm a little messed up on what size to call what nowadays. Point is while genetics do come into play for size of a corn so do the amount and size of the prey you feed them in the fastest growing first two years. I never want to have to be forced to maintenance feed another young group of corns again.I like my little ones plump until they hit 3 feet or after their first few years. I can't wait to see what the size difference between the 2015's I've kept and the 2018's I've kept will be in a few years.
Geckos are fed every 2-4 days. It really depends on what their food looks and smells like. It tends to average around 3 days with them.
The tarantula is being a butt when it comes to eating. She just doesn't want to eat, like ever. I offer things then take them out a few days later when she hasn't eaten them. Then I leave her alone for a week before repeating the process. Maybe it's actually a male and it's near the end of its life? I was sure I saw the sperm holding parts on a fresh molt when I checked it over but I don't know. She frustrates me.
The dubia colony is gone. Nobody ate them and I didn't want a display colony of these guys with no population control. So they were rehomed.
The Hissers are still cool even as display animals so they have been kept despite nobody eating these guys either. We found a strange looking youngster in the group during our yearly full clean of their enclosure and separated the youngster out with like sized babies. If it molts and fixes its shell then I guess it was an injury, but if it molts and it's still there then maybe it's genetic. The "frill" of this hisser reminds me of a triceratops so since it isn't adversly affecting the roach I may do some stuff with it.~
The geckos got a revamp of their enclosure because I didn't like how it looked before. Flint doesn't seem to be doing his job with Narillo as we've had 3 out of 4 unfertilized eggs with the very first egg quite possibly being from sperm held back from last years breeding. Or heck it might be a partho baby. All I know is it is due to hatch any day now and it candled nice yesterday (which I haven't tracked yet).
The younger geckos are all doing well, though even with some baby red runners their growth is slow. At least Dinrin has fully buldged to male now. Bourbon is still only half way through quarantine and so far has been clean after his last final dosing of pinworm dewormer. He's active and healthy so I'm happy with him. The two newbies are just finishing their protozoan parasite dewormer and still have the round worm dewormer to go. Both are eating well and healthy for now.
Our plants and trees are finally leafing out and breaking dormancy. We have had a steady few weeks of 40 degree F. and up nights so I'm expecting all of them to come out of dormancy now. Took a butt ton of white willow cuttings to try and root this year as my willows from previous years have all died off during bad winters. The only plant that hasn't leafed out is what I think is a tiny birch seedling that self planted itself last spring. It has a bud but no swelling yet. Everything else though has leafed and we don't seem to have lost anything that we planted last year. So that's great news for once we didn't lose things to a bad winter.
Indoor trees are doing well also, though we had a scare with the tropical island norfolk island pine bonsai. The lower tree died for some reason but the main tree is still alive (with some needles dying back.) We think it went through too long a dry spell or was moved into too much light in the window. Now it is growing a lot of new growth despite the older dying needles. We are in the process of air layering a hibiscus (apricot hybrid variety) so that I can replace the one I lost during my work stay at Glens Falls. Maybe we will have a few extras to do other stuff with. It would be nice to have a full sized hibiscus tree in a corner of the house and outside during summer.
Our orange trees are also doing well, but the tiny halo mandarin seed we managed to sprout is struggling. I really hope it makes it. According to the halo's site "What kind of mandarins are Halos?" FAQ question they answer "Halos include three mandarin varieties: Clementines, W. Murcott/Afourers and Tangos.". Considering that if we managed to grow a rare seed from one it would probably be a mix of these varieties. It's funny because they say on the site that while all halos are mandarins not all mandarins are halos. One of the needed qualities to be a halo orange is that it has to be seedless. So I guess the three seeds we got out of like, thirty halos in that box from the store meant that those three were not in fact halos. I want my money back Price Chopper and Halo's company lol. You can find out more about halos on their site here. Click me I am the link.