Some Of My Photos (Big Time DUW!!)

[Zulu3]

so i have a question about your lay boxes, do you have burn holes in the sides of it to keep the eggs from getting too humid? Or how does it work, sorry it's my first breeding season this coming spring and i'm trying to take in info from as many people as possible.

 

[Justin Guyer]

Definitely! My snakes are both babies right now, so I am definitely living vicariously through everyone else's hatching shots. It's such an awesome and amazing process.

Cripes with your poisonous snakes! I would love to go field herping at some point, but the prospect of running into a cottonmouth, rattler or a copperhead makes me a little leery, even if they're docile. Major props for not being scared!

Best of luck on raising those babies up. The first time you hatch a clutch, you're going to be addicted!!! I'm like a kid at Christmas every year when the Corns start popping!! Just seeing so many different colors coming out of the same clutch and wondering what the next one looks like is amazing! That alone is the reason why the Corns will always be my #1 breeding project. Nothing else really compares to them!


The thing with venomous is that you have to really respect the animal and never ever become complacent and forget what you're working with. When you come across a viper in the field you have to give it its space and look around to make sure that no others are there unseen before you start taking your photographs. As long as you respect what the animal is and don't start doing stupid stuff, you're going to be fine. They're not going to come flying off of the ground at you.

Also when you're taking you're photographs make sure you know where your fingers are and how far they are from the business end of that snake. Distance is hard to judge through the screen on the back of a digital camera...and it's real easy to get too close when you're trying to get those really cool shots. I like to have a second person with me in the field (someone with experience!!) to warn me to back off a few inches when I'm taking those macro shots of the head.

You've just got to realize that with Vipers, you can't just grab them like you would with a Garter or a Ratsnake. You've got to keep your distance, stay out of strike range and look but don't touch...unless you're experienced and know how to hook and tail and have experienced people with you. I have to admit that pretty much all of those photos are of posed snakes...but don't you do it!

I always figure that I'm not going to be hit by a snake that I see, it'd be that one that I didn't see that I accidentally stepped on. Snake gators or snake boots are highly recommended if you're in Viper country. Don't get cocky and think that there is no way that you're not going to see a snake in the grass. Be prepared and you'll be ok.

I don't keep hots and I have no plans of keeping any but I have worked with some in other people's collections and I really do enjoy finding them out in their natural habitat.

 

[Carinata]

Well Guyer you know I will be buying a pair of them next year!

 

[Shiari]

Can we have more pictures of your ghosts? both adults and babies? They're one of my favorite morphs. :3

 

[Justin Guyer]

so i have a question about your lay boxes, do you have burn holes in the sides of it to keep the eggs from getting too humid? Or how does it work, sorry it's my first breeding season this coming spring and i'm trying to take in info from as many people as possible.

Nope. No holes at all except the one in the lid for Mom to get in there that I covered up with a notecard when I set the eggs up. Tape up both sides of the notecard too if you want to be able to read what you wrote later on.

When I have eggs I just open every box up every day before I start my chores and then close them up after I'm done to let fresh air in. I've had pretty good hatch rates since I started doing it that way.

The main thing is to experiment and find out what works best for you in your situation with your setups. You're going to find that there are as many different ways of doing things as there are breeders. At first it's probably not a bad idea to kind of copy what someone with success has been doing, but over time you're going to tweak things to your own specifications.

I know that I do things way different than most folks but overall I've had really good success so I'm going to stick with it. What surprises a lot of folks is that I've hatched lots and lots of Corns, Kings, Milks, and even Balls and I don't even own an incubator...I don't even have one.

 

[Justin Guyer]

Can we have more pictures of your ghosts? both adults and babies? They're one of my favorite morphs. :3

I'll dig through Photobucket and see what I can find.

My Ghost line was produced completely by accident in the very first reptile breeding project I ever did. At that time I was just trying to see if I could breed corns...I wasn't really after anything. I bred a male Snow to a female Hypo because that's all I had that was breedable at that time. I was expecting all Normals that would be het Hypo, Anery, and Amel.

The very first head that poked out of an egg was an Anery!! I was like "You're not supposed to be in there.". The clutch yielded Normals, Anerys, Hypos and one really pretty Ghost. So the male Snow is het Hypo and the female Hypo is het Anery I found out which gives a phenotypic yield of 1/4 Normals, 1/4 Anerys, 1/4 Hypos, and 1/4 Ghosts. I hatched 14 out of 16 eggs on my first try and pretty much figured right then that "yep, I can do this."

Here's some shots of some of the Ghosts at different ages.

Also have them in Motley now

Back to the normal patterns

A few come out as a "dark phase". All of the darker ones I've spotted have been females...So it appears to be sex linked but I'm no where near being 100% about that.

Just had to throw this really cool Butter Motley in here as I came across the photo looking for Ghost photos. I hatched this fella out in '08. The pic is old. He's a lot bigger now.

Also this old photo of a Lavender Motley from '08. Both of these snakes were definite keepers!!

 

[Carinata]

So Justin is my female going to look like teh dark phased one?

 

[petpro553]

You don't really see many of the Psuedelaphe out in the pet trade and I'm really kind of surprised that they haven't caught on. Care for them is pretty comparable to a corn. Mine are both puppy dog tame and good feeders. I will attempt to breed them in the spring.

This summer I bought out another breeder's entire collection which included 11 Ball Pythons, the pair of Mex Nightsnakes, 16 Ball Python eggs, and a couple of racks. I had never even heard of the Mex Nights before entering this deal so I had to scramble on the research side of things! But the price was right and I really couldn't turn it down. The lady I got them from told me that they were produced by Rich Cunningham who I gather is an associate of Rusty's Balls.

Seeing as how I got these as part of this deal I have no idea where the market is on them or what the hatchlings would be worth. I figure that I'll wait until I see if I can breed them first before worrying about all of that stuff and then I'll probably just get in contact with Rich C and figure out what he sold them for.

I'm really excited to have the opportunity to work with these mainly because I haven't seen them availiable anywhere online and I got them purely through luck. The only known genetic morph of these guys is Anerytheristic....and that right there is enough to tell me that they really haven't been bred in captivity. There's got to be more in this species besides Anery.

Best of luck in finding some and with working with them! If you can't find any sooner, I may be able to help you out next year if all goes well.

Sounds like a plan. I am intrigued that we haven't heard or seen more about those beautiful creatures. They caught my eye right away. I would absolutely love to learn more and possibly own one..or two..keep me posted.

 

[Shiari]

All your ghosts are stunning, but I am *loving* that darkphase female. :3 so pretties!

 

[Carinata]

Shiari mine is a dark phase, you should look at her progression thread. I took pre shed pics and I can't wait to take POST shed pics!

 

[Justin Guyer]

So Justin is my female going to look like teh dark phased one?

I can't say 100% either way David. It's really hard to tell when they are hatchlings what the colors are going to turn out to be. It does seem that that females are darker but I haven't been producing them long enough to be sure about that. When I shipped her to you she was just slightly darker than some of the others. Whether or not she'll turn out like the dark one that I kept remains to be seen.

 

[Justin Guyer]

Sounds like a plan. I am intrigued that we haven't heard or seen more about those beautiful creatures. They caught my eye right away. I would absolutely love to learn more and possibly own one..or two..keep me posted.

Will do!

Also if you happen to stumble across anyone with any of the Anery Mex Nights could you shoot me a PM? I'd really like to expand some on these guys.

 

[Justin Guyer]

All your ghosts are stunning, but I am *loving* that darkphase female. :3 so pretties!

Thanks! I wish that I could accurately tell which hatchlings were going to grow up light and which ones dark. It's really hard to tell when they are babies.

 

[Carinata]

Will do!

Also if you happen to stumble across anyone with any of the Anery Mex Nights could you shoot me a PM? I'd really like to expand some on these guys.

Justin I know Randy whittington has Anery Mexican nightsnakes

 

[Justin Guyer]

Ok thanks. I just got your email too and made a phone call. Looks like I might be getting a new snake as soon as payday hits. Thanks for that David!

 

[torsten]

Great pictures and snakes!

I've got a proven ultramel Anery adult male that looks VERY similar toy your line of ghosts, would you like me to put a picture up here or shall I direct you to another thread with pictures of him on? PM me if you wish.

 

[PJ@PJCReptiles]

GREAT Pictures Justin! Love that rattler!

A question on the chicken feedings. Do your corns eat chickens as well as mouse and rat without any issues? We have never tried chicks but we have that option available here in Maine pretty readily. I can say my corns as well as boas, pythons, and other colibrids do eat mouse, rat, gerbil, and guinea pigs. So I guess chicks would be ok too. Just asking.

Again, you have some really nice photographs Justin!

PJ

PS
How is the cage fighting going?

 

[Zulu3]

I've heard boas go coo coo over chicken, like even if you eat it and smell like it you can risk getting bitten. I know my BRB munched my dad after he had eaten chicken one night.

 

[chad27]

Very nice shots

 

[Justin Guyer]

Great pictures and snakes!

I've got a proven ultramel Anery adult male that looks VERY similar toy your line of ghosts, would you like me to put a picture up here or shall I direct you to another thread with pictures of him on? PM me if you wish.

I've noticed that Don's Ultramel Anerys over at South Mountain look pretty much identical to my Ghosts. I actually talked to him about that when I first produced these back in '05. He just said that there are some Ghosts that do look a lot like the Ultra Anerys. I've already proven the Hypo gene in them to be HypoA..I don't know why they have the look that they do except for I started the line completely by accident in my first breeding ever by unknowingly breeding hets together...It's just how they came out. I'm pretty happy with them though!

That experience has completely changed the way I breed with pretty much everything else I do. I do a LOT of two generation projects by making hets in the first generation and then breeding them back in an attempt to combine the traits in a way that just might produce an interesting looking example of a morph like what happened with my Ghosts. This takes a few years to see the fruits of my labors and the first generation hets of whatever I'm working with are really hard to sell. But in the long run its worth it.

With many of my projects I will not even know if they will be a success or a failure for 3-6 years. But I look at it like I have that time, there is no rush. I feel that extreme patience is the second best quality a breeder can have right behind passion.

I remember last fall I set up a booth at a reptile show and I was talking to some of the other Corn breeders and they were all like "You bred WHAT to WHAT?". I experiment a lot and try to do the really funky crosses that you just don't see out there much...just because of the surprise from my first breeding attempt. I think that with some of what I've started that here in 2-3 years I just might hit the odds and hatch something pretty interesting....I hope.

You can go ahead and post your photo here if you want, I'd like to see what you've got!!