A New Corn Snake Morph?

The more I look at one of my hatchlings I wonder if I have a new corn snake morph or just a a natural variant normal corn snake. Usually the parents of this hatchling produce amelanistic, anerythristic, snow, and normal phase offspring. This time I got four amelanistic and one that I thought at first was normal. The more I looked at the "normal " corn I noticed things like it had very little red on its body. There is no red in the saddles and only a little splotch of red between each saddle. There is no red coloration on its sides, and the on neck the saddles break in the middle and creates a red line down the top of the neck. I have looked on websites that show the different morphs of corn snakes and I have not seen anything that really looks like this snake. The closest morph to it I think is the "black albino" but with the little red splotches, striped neck, and red on its face. Maybe if someone out there reads this and had seen this variation of corn snake before, they could please leave a comment.

Snakes on a Planet

Not just a plane but the whole MFing Planet. We have to share this planet with snakes, lizards, bugs, sharks and every other kind of creepy crawly thing imaginable. I happen to like snakes ans no I have not seen the movie yet. I am sure it will purpetuate the ignorance of many people. I have two people in my family who will kill any snake they see, their motto being "the only good snake is a dead snake". How we share many of the same genes is a mystery to me. Snakes are beneficial, they eat rodents and keep their populations down. If rodent populations go unchecked they spread diseases like hantavirus. I would rather be bitten by a snake than get hantavirus. Most snake are harmless to humans. You could count the venomous ones in the US without even having to take off your shoes. Learn the what the few venomous ones look like, stay away from those, and you need never be afraid of snakes again.

My Snake Babies

As I reported in an earlier post www.oneyearcloser.blogspot.com/2006/09/i-have-snake-eggs.html that my corn snake eggs were hatching. Unfortunately egg hatching success was not very good, only 5 eggs hatched. This could have been for several reasons:

1. The parents are getting old
2. Her laying took me by surprise and I was not prepared
3. The eggs were not prepared for incubation right away
4. I do not have an incubator so I incubated them at room temperature

What I did once I noticed that she had laid eggs, was to use moistened vermiculite in a plastic whipped topping box. I put a few airholes in the lid and put a probe thermometer through the lid. I placed the eggs in the vermiculte as best I could, trying to keep the eggs in the same orientation as they were laid. Then I put the container in the top of a closet in a room that stays fairly warm. According to the thermometer, the tempeture remained pretty stable around 80F.

Even though I only had five eggs hatch, the hatchlings are beauties. I had 4 amelanistic, like the father and one that is close to the "normal phase" of corn snakes. To me the dark one is the most beautiful, it only has a small amount of red in btween the dark splotches and instead of splotches it has lengthwise stripes on its neck. I have not been keeping up with all the designer corns that have come out in the last few years, but if anyone knows if this is a known variant, please let me know.

I plan to keep the dark one but I will probably sell the others. Anyone interested in an amelenistic corn snake? They are hearty eaters, I have fed them twice and all of them quickly devoured their pinks both times. Wel, talk is cheap so I am going to post some photos of them. Also in the previous post http://www.oneyearcloser.blogspot.com/2006/09/i-have-snake-eggs.html the photos of the parents and the eggs are finally up, so make sure you go back and check them out.

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Save Money Cutting Your Own Hair

Since one of my goals is to retire early, and to retire early one needs to save money now, I have posted an artcle about how I save money cutting mine and my wife's hair. The article can be read at my other blog http://retireearly767.blogspot.com/. I give credit where credit is due. I came up with the article from a series of comments I made to an article called DIY haircuts- Bring out your bowls! It was more about the bowl cut or the Moe Howard look than my trimmer method but informative non the less. I guess the next writer to jump on the bandwagon will expound on the benefits of the flobee (I am not sure if thats the correct spelling) or the vacuum hair trimmer. Anyway give it a read, comment if you like.

Military Coup in Thailand

While I was home for lunch, I watched CNN and they were talking about this military coup against the prime Minister of Thailand. When I was there about 2 years ago about half the Thais loved him and about half seemed to hate him. I was told he was a very rich man owning large corporations and that he was corrupt. Others said he was too strict on drinking hours, bar girls ands such. Disclaimer: this is just what I heard. Here is todays story: BANGKOK, Thailand - The Thai military launched a coup against Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra on Tuesday night, circling his offices with tanks, seizing control of TV stations and declaring a provisional authority pledging loyalty to the king. The army commander took over the government and declared martial law.

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Free Stuff

Who does not like free stuff? One of my favorite ways of getting free stuff is going to radio station promos. They are usually at car dealerships, and I like looking at new cars even if I really have no plans to buy one. If I am riding round town and hear about a radio station promo in town, I go there. I almost always get a free t-shirt, sometimes they have cool door prizes, and usually there is free pizza and soda (saves me money on lunch). The more money I save the closer I come to my goal and thats what counts. Do you think I am right?

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Photos of Snakes

I have not yet been able to post the photos of my hatchling snakes and their parents. The photos are on my other computer and it is having problems. So I decided should post some other photos. Here is a photo of a black masked racer I caught and released in the Delta National Forest in MS.

Faking Sick to get out of Work

I sure did not want to getout of bed and come to work this morning. I briefly thought about calling in sick. I have plenty of sick days and I havent taken a vacation in a year and a half. I need to schedule a vacation but I have so much work to do that I am afraid all that mess will back up on me and I will come back the even more work and along with it more stress. I could live on less pay if I had a job with less responsibility but I worry that if I do not make as much money as possible now I will not be able to retire (early I hope). I saw yesterday that some woman won a million dollars on the lottery twice. The most I have ever won is $5, I am happy for her but where is my luck. I must not be rubbing Buddahs belly enough or something.

Borrow Money or Loan Money

I stumbled across a website: www.prosper.com. You can request loans or you can bid on loans at higher interest rate than you would normally get. I got a bonus check of $400 that i did not expect, so I decided to invest in financing borrowers. It has not yet been a month yet so I have not recieved a payment yet but my loans verage about 16% interest. It is an experiment that I hope works out, and if it does I will loan out more. Check it out and see if you think it is a scam or a worthy investment.

I Have Snake Eggs

I have raised snakes for about 16 years. I have raised only colubrids and boids (non-venomous) such as corn snakes, various species of Kingsnakes and Milkesnakes as well as gopher, bull and pine snakes. I have also raised sand boas. When I graduated college finally, my work kept me busy and I began to neglect my snakes. I decided to donate all of them to a fellow who does educational outreach to children, but I also decided to keep one pair of snakes. This pair though not especially exotic or rare was special to me. I kept the first pair of captive bred corn snakes I ever bought at the first reptile show I had ever been to. I bought them at the yearly reptile expo they have in Orlando, Fl. in 1992 0r 1993. I bought a amelanistic male and a normal phase female. what I did not know was that they are both heterozygous (recessive gene) for anerythrism (big word mean no red). So when they mated I got 4 different colored offspring. I got some amelanistic, anerythristic, normals, and snow corns (kind of all white, but you can see kind of greenish out lines of the pattern). Anyhow, used to breed them every year and sell or trade the offspring for what ever reptiles I fancied at the time. I have not bred them in maybe 5 years or more. Well, this year i though, what the hell, lets see if they will actually breed again. The female laid eggs on June 25, and here are pictures of the parents and the eggs.

The amelanistic male

The normal female

The eggs

The Crocodile Hunter Dead

Steve Irwin "the crocodile hunter" died while diving in the Great Barrier Reef. A stingray barb peirced his heart. You can read his obituary here: http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20060904/ap_on_en_tv/obit_irwin_27

I was not particularly fond of his shows, not that I do not like programs on snakes and crocodiles, but I always felt he was a bit reckless. It would not matter to me that he was reckless with venomous animals except that so many people watched his shows and I am sure many tried to emulate him. I am not afraid of venomous snakes but I do respect them. I have never been bit by one but as I do handle them from time to time it could happen. I am sure he raise awareness for the natural world as well as educated people and that is a good thing.