Attribute to L. Neil Smith’s The Libertarian Enterprise

A  fitting sequel to last week’s article “Adventures in Herpetology: Back to the Reptile Show!”

The package from Major League Exotics was delivered Thursday morning while I was at the hospital for my biannual fire extinguisher training. Got the heads up when I checked my phone after the class and returned home promptly to find it on the patio picnic table instead of the usual place on the front porch. But it was alive and well.

Lively little thing too. Posturing defensively, vibrating its tail in rattlesnake fashion typical of most colubrid snakes—especially the young ones! I was going to leave him in the container until I get a proper enclosure set up but he crawled under the paper towel so I took him out to get some better first time photos.

Gorgeous specimen.

When I picked him up—the little bastard pooped on me!

This is a patternless Blaze Phase Apalachicola or “goini”—AKA—Goin’s Kingsnake.

I’m already considering another specimen: a normal striped phase hatching from another dealer on the Morph Market that is sexed as a female. That would get me off to a good start either way as I have no idea what gender my new arrival is but it won’t hurt to have two females and I can pick up a male eventually. Once I have a pair or trio I can later expand the colony by cherry-picking additional specimens from the online dealers and reptile shows.

Makes for the start of an exciting new chapter in the Florida Room resurrection. Going to start shopping for a Sinaloan Milk and this is the time of year to do that as the new hatchlings are popping out of the eggs. Like turtles I prefer to start off with baby snakes because they are more likely to adapt and thrive under a new husbandry routine, are less likely to have issues like older snakes—especially wild caught specimens and more importantly—they are young and have breeding potential and many years ahead of them. As opposed to someone’s burnt out retired breeders—like a really handsome patternless phase pair I passed over at the Pittsburgh Show several years ago.

The other highlight of the day happened in the evening when I was feeding the turtles.

In the greenhouse I discovered 3 eggs in the cement mixing tray pool in the striped mud turtle corner where I put the mean female to isolate her from the other female and the new male that I paired back in late spring.

Totally unexpected but you know turtles. The females can store viable sperm to fertilize eggs for several years after coupling. It’s been more than 5 years for this one which is probably pushing the envelope and the eggs were dropped in the water—but they were still intact so they had not been there long or else they would likely be broken and partially eaten. Worth rescuing so I recovered them and laid them in a community flat of orchid seedlings for safe keeping while I prepared a container with vermiculite to incubate them in.

This prompted me to check for eggs again in the Gulf Coast pen.

Found a clutch of 5—probably from Olivia who was scratching around in a less than ideal place a couple weeks ago. She finally deposited them in the sand bed that I refreshed a day later and then got busy with other things and a long stretch of days working.

That was a nice recovery.

The eggs from both species are now in the incubator along with two Florida Box eggs that were deposited on the surface of the ground in June. Chances are not good for those but I’m giving them a chance anyway. The Gulf Coast eggs will probably make it again as I usually have good luck with those. Unlike last years clutch from a Japanese a Pond Turtle that wrote about that unfortunately went bad despite a prompt recovery and careful handling.

Hopefully I’ll eventually get that one right.

 

Addendum:

Ended up getting new shoebox containers to keep the new snake and others I might get this summer because I don’t trust the older container I was going to use that might not be escape proof.

The newer ones have lids that lock more securely which is better than laying a book or brick on one that doesn’t.

Then came the issue of food. I called the lab in Scottdale where I used to get my feeder mice. Big sticker shock with a bag of 50 frozen pinkies going for well over $100! I may be better off getting some live breeders and producing my own like I did in the early days after leaving the military. In the meantime I’ll have to source from local pet shops until I can get a mouse colony going or find a better deal on frozen mice at a reptile show or online.

In my search to find a source of feeder mice I stumbled across some disturbing links to remind me the enemies of the reptile hobby are still out there and they’re still at it looking to find one way or another to shut us down. See Rodents farmed for pet snake food, by Saulius Šimčikas.

Reminds me of that anti Trump commercial during the campaign by something like “Priorities USA”. Maybe the same group? Not sure and I don’t have much time left to research as I’m putting this article together at the last minute on a Saturday evening.

Priorities?

Whoever they are they can take their priorities and shove em.

Years ago there was a snake breeder I did business with in the DC area who said that the way things were going eventually it was going to be “Heil Hitler” everywhere. That was the early 1990s and it took a while and now—if we are not there we are pretty damned close. I can’t help but think of a favorite 80s SF miniseries called “V” with a fascistic reptilian alien theme.

The things I find watching videos on snakes!: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WyFT_RZB5vk