Hey y’all! Rather than continuing to take up space in the general house snakes thread, I figured I would just make a new one so I could update and keep track of the babies. This is my first year producing African house snakes but I’m so excited to be breeding them now. This is my first snake species outside of ball pythons and boy, are they way smaller!
I got some pictures of all 6 babies, so excited to watch how they grow. These all hatched on September 6th, have all had their first shed, and have now all been offered their first meals! Babies 1-4 have eaten twice now and are doing great so far on red hot pinkies. I’m thinking because they’re so small, I’m planning to do a minimum of 10 meals before they’re ready to go. The last two babies haven’t taken the f/t pinkies yet, so I’m going to offer one more time and then try them on some locally sourced live pinkies - hopefully I can find small enough!
This clutch is Persimmon’s (KZN Red and T- Albino) and originally had 9 eggs, but 2 went bad and one hatched a baby with two heads, so we ended up with 6. She double clutched and has 5 more eggs in the incubator currently, while Spitfire, my other female, gave me 6 big eggs as her first clutch and those will hatch around the same time as Persimmon’s second clutch.
Awesome to see them doing so well, and oh my gosh, they are beautiful!! I’m so charmed by baby #2, their color and contrast. What an amazing clutch of little gems.
Glad to see this thread! I look at these little darlings and I think, oh, that’s my favorite! No, this one. No, maybe I like that one better… AAAH, they’re all too cute, I can’t stand all the cuteness!
I think if I was going to hold one back, it would be #2! But as of now I’m not planning to hold any of these back.
Feeding 3 offered this morning - now I have two taking off tongs, two drop feeding and two who still haven’t taken their first meal, but they still look perfectly healthy so we’ll just give it some more time.
@solarserpents Olivia ended up with a 2 headed little boy she named Gemini. He completed a perfect shed by himself and I believe he has eaten at least one meal by himself as well.
I am assuming your little one make it. I’m hoping that Olivia’s baby lives out a long life. I think he would make a great ambassador!
Same!! Today I’m like, wait, I think 4 is my favourite for that white streak and the roundness of the pattern marks above it.
Then again! Those patternless babies! God, imagine getting a Zambian green and in a couple of generations making a perfectly smooth KZN-red influenced butter… I bet that smooth orange would be unbeatable.
I can’t wait to see what happens to the pattern as they grow - very excited to watch these little ones get bigger and bigger. Four of them have now taken three meals, I’m going to try the remaining two on f/t one last time and if they don’t take then I’ll try live. I think these first four should be ready to go by my first show in November!
Two down after Tinley! Two of these guys found great new homes (one to good friends and one to someone very local I can assist if they need help), and the others are all doing great. Everyone is eating now - my last holdout finally took a f/t. So I have four left - tentatively three females and one male.
I’m putting together a waiting list, so have had a couple of people contact me by email letting me know they’re interested. I’ll be posting these guys on MM but I’ll also reach out to folks on the waiting list and see if we can get some well established babies some good homes. For now, everything I have left will be available at my next in-person show and we’ll see how they do there. The eggs in the incubator are on day 51 and 49 respectively, and based on last time, I know it’ll be another couple weeks before they start hatching.
I didn’t realize you had more eggs incubating! I know housies will produce multiple clutches once they’ve mated. Are these clutches all from the same pair? Or the same mating? Genuinely curious about how often they produce several clutches from one pairing.
Great question! So I have a 1.2 trio, Ares (my male) and my two females (Persimmon and Spitfire).
I originally paired Ares and Persimmon last fall, but never saw any visual locks and she never gave me any eggs, so I assumed that it didn’t take. So then I put Ares in with Spitfire, just one time, since it didn’t seem that the pairings between Persimmon and Ares had taken.
Well, about a month after I paired Ares to Spitfire, Persimmon laid her first clutch. Then it was obvious that Spitfire was gravid, and while I was waiting on her to lay, Persimmon laid another clutch. And then two days after that, Spitfire laid her first clutch.
So as of the current moment, I have this first clutch from Persimmon out of the eggs; Spitfire’s first clutch incubating; Persimmon’s second clutch incubating (should hatch around the same time as Spitfire’s first); and am expecting probably at least one more clutch from Spitfire to make a second, if not possibly even expecting a 3rd from Persimmon. That’s all a bit confusing, but basically, I have one clutch hatched, two clutches incubating, and possibly a second from Spitfire or third from Persimmon waiting to be laid.
At first I had really scaled back my feeding after Persimmon laid her first clutch because I didn’t want to encourage her to double clutch, but she did it anyway, so now I’m just feeding on their normal schedule again.
That’s a bunch of babies! You’re going to be very busy. And very charmed with their general adorable-ness.
I’ve done that with my corns, nearly always with the same results. I don’t put pairs together again. I’d prefer that they lay once and stop. Seems like they’re just gonna double whether I want them to or not, though. I had one girl lay a third clutch this year, which was a first for me.
When do you expect that Persimmon and Spitfire will be done laying?
