Not just mice....FANCY MICE!!!

We now have 4.6 fancy mice.....The plan was/is to get the kids to help with the maintenance of all of our mice by buying them some fancy mice and let them sell them at the Dixie Reptile Show as pets.

This is a male golden fancy mouse

Here's a female fancy mouse

Here's some pictures of some of our better snakes

2009 Albino het Paradox

2009 Anerythristic Splash

2009 High Orange Flame

2009 Snow possible Yellow

2009 Nuclear Meltdown

2009 High Orange

2008 Dodoma (Reduced Pattern)

2008 Rufescen

2009 Snow Paradox

2009 Crazy Orange Stripe

From a future breeding standpoint I don't forsee me ever breeding this guy because he's not het for anything but from a visual standpoint his orange is by far the best I've ever seen. So, he's now a holdback with no future other than me pulling him out of his rack and staring at him......

Jenn took all of these pictures with a new micro lense she purchased.

Juvenile Rack Modified

We purchased a new 'baby' rack on Saturday from http://www.reptilebasics.com/ , we still love it. Frank from, if I wasn't blogging I'd tell ya, brought it down from Virginia for the http://www.dixiereptileshow.com/ that we all vend at. Frank told me I should remove the little rubber 'feet' from the bottom of the racks to help the fit and Jeff Holloway told me the only con with them was it was hard to control humidity.

This is the tubs before I made some modifications. They fit real snug and with the pins there is absolutely NO WAY a Kenyan could escape. The problem was that it fit too well, KSBs as we all know are small but by removing the little round plastic fee (the same thing you put on the bottom of an aquarium on each of the corners to lift it up 1/16" inch) gave a nice 1/16" or so between the top of the tub and the shelf. KSBs don't do well with a lot of humidity so this helped a bit, then we got out the soldering iron and melted two holes on each end and five on each side.

My small water dishes were too tall and Jeff told me about a great find at the dollar stores where they sell plastic tupperware sauce cups. Jenn and I went hunting around and found them at the first store...not much of a hunt. They came in 10 packs for a dollar! I think they had eight of them so we brought home 80 little potential miniature water dishes. I say potential because we had to solder out the middle of the lid and just leave the lip in place to keep the water from spilling out. This last advice was from Frank, of the still the name is alluding me reptile supplies carrier, who had success using small solo cups and soldering out the majority of the lid.

In the end Jenn and I spent three hours 'modifying' the tubs and water dishes last night. This morning, no more condensation on the tubs. I love it when a plan comes together.....I saw A-Team at the theatre the other night, it was AWESOME!!!!!

Reptile Room and New Juvenile Rack from Reptile Basics

I figured I could use Father's Day as a forced labor day and we were able to get pretty caught up with everything today. The place was a disaster this time last night, we spent all week getting ready for yesterdays Dixie Reptile Show and then Braxton was bound and determined to get the new 68 Tub Rack we bought from http://www.reptilebasics.com/ operational. There were 72 individually wrapped tubs in 2 large boxes and than sorted into 6 smaller boxes...it was a frickin' mess. Not to mention all the boxes from the show that needed to be sorted out. The family kicked in and we cleaned it up so well that Jennifer went and got her camera.

Here are a few images of our Reptile Room

Our Sand Boa Rack

Close-up of drawers

Close-up of drawer for rack

This rack was built by Reptile Basics for juvenile snakes of smaller breeds like sand boas and for baby geckos. I have been looking for a rack that would work with my baby sand boas but it seems like most sand boa breeders are part time carpenters and build their own. From the limited research I've done it seems most 'juvenile' racks are for much larger babies and leave too big of a space between the tub and the top of the shelf so they can escape.

I was talking with a friend who has a large sand boa collection and he told me about this rack he had purchased from Reptile Basics and how happy he was with it. I have purchased supplies from Reptile Basics before but I was unaware they offer specialized and reasonably priced racks. They have great service and in my experience will do anything in their power to go above and beyond.

We filled 48 spots and are trying to decied if we need to buy 1 or 2 more! They are real nice looking, all black and are stackable.

Dixie Reptile Show June 19th 2010

Sand Boa Morphs: Mark & Jennifer Huntley

Steve & Jenea Woods with Mice Direct and Guardian Reptiles

Justin@McBrayerReptiles.com  from North Carolina

Vendor

Justin's Finace', Kayla with Cagle Reptiles

Vendor

Sisco Ball Pythons Vendor

Mrs. Jenifer's Mice

Scott with House of Reptiles

Latest Pictures

Here are two examples of two diferent Albino Kenyan Sand Boas smooth scales. They feel soft and smooth compared to the Hognose keeled scales, which feel bumpy and rough pictured below.

This albino's name is "Speckle" because the tips of her scales are speckled with orange.

Western Hognose upclose keeled scales

Here is "Speckle" one of our Albino's upclose.

Here are a couple of close head shots.

Jenn has wanted a macro lens for a some time, these are a few pictures from the first photo shoot with it. As you can tell, it allows her to take very close shots of the snakes. I look forward to seeing what she does with this new lens. We will be at the Dixie Reptile Show tomorrow in Birmingham, Alabama. You can contact Mark@LHALegal.com if you have any questions.

Kenyan Sand Boa Genetics

I know there are a couple of you guys who I talk with regularly who know a lot more about genetics than I, you know who you are, so if you see something that is misleading or downright incorrect, or I miss something, call or email......That being said,

THE FOUR BASE KENYAN SAND BOAS

Wild Caught, commonly refered to as Normals are black/brown and yellow/orange patterned (Co-Dominant)

Anerythristic are commonly refered to as 'anery's and are black/brown and white/whiteish and lack the yellow/orange pigment (recessive trait)

Albino's lack the black/brown pigment (recessive trait)

Rufescen are generally blackish brown with a white underbelly (Co-Dominant)


Morphs

Snows (anery/albino) lack both the black/brown and yellow/orange pigment (recessive albino and anery trait) you have to breed an anery and albino together to get a normal double het snow (anery/albino) then breed a male and female from the result litter together and you'll get normals, albinos, anery's and 1/16th will be snows.

Normal Stripe is a co-dominant trait bred with a Rufescen and a Normal

Normal Stripe het albino the stripe is co-dominant but the albino is recessive, breed a Rufescen to an Albino to get a Normal Stripe het albino then breed a male stripe from that litter to an albino female and you'll get normal stripes het albino, normal tigerish het albino, visual albino stripes and visual albino tigerishes in the litter

Normal Stripe het anery the stripe is co-dominant but the anery is recessive, breed a Rufescen to an Anery to get a Normal Stripe het anery then breed a male stripe from that litter to an anery female and you'll get normal stripes het anery, normal tigerish het anery, visual anery stripes and visual anery tigerishes in the litter

Normal Stripe het snow the stripe is co-dominant but the snow (anery/albino) is recessive, breed a Rufescen to a Snow to get a Normal Stripe double het snow (albino/anery) then breed a male stripe from that litter to a snow female and you'll get normal stripes double het snow, normal tigerish double het snow, normal stripes het anery, normal tigerish het anery, visual anery stripes, visual anery tigerishes, visual albino stripes and visual albino tigerishes in the litter....that's one cool litter. See the earlier post I made on just this combination bred by Scott Miller recently.... http://sandboamorphs.blogspot.com/2010/05/how-one-snake-can-save-you-years.html


Dodoma a dominant trait in that it seems to enhance the color of the KSB and the color does not flake or discolor as they get older...the reduced pattern typically associated with them is a line bred trait, though.


Line Bred Trait

Nuclear, High Orange, Reduced Patterns all appear to be line bred traits.

Dixie Reptile Show this Saturday June 19th

We'll be in Birmingham, Alabama this Saturday morning with our sand boas. I have a male High Orange KSB that I've been holding back for about a year but his brother is just slightly better looking.....I think we are finally ready to let him go. We are anxiously awaiting a litter of normals that should drop anyday, consequently, we only have one normal baby left. But, we have a good group of normal stripes, anerys (black and whites) and one female albino. We have three western hognoses left, a regular hog, green phase hog and a red phase hog het for albino. If you are looking for something not on that list, let me know, I may have it and EVERYTHING is for sale. You can contact Mark@LHALegal.com

Second Set of Kenyans we pictured

Jennifer has just released this set of photos from her photoshop dungeon.

Albino 0.3

High Orange Tiger Female (above and below)

Paradox Snow Female

Paradox Albino Female  -  Paradox Snow Male and Female

2.2 Yellow Snows (above and below)

Snow Female

High Orange Tiger Female

Snow Female

Albino Breeding Pair

This is a picture of our albino male breeder and one of our albino female breeders. We've had the male, 'Lief', for three years and purchased the female 3 or 4 months ago but we were told she is about 5 years old. They were paired up last month and we're hoping for a nice albino litter in September.

Splash!!!!!

Have you seen the splash? They are out their....Reptile Industries (the Bells) introduced the Splash in Daytona last year. The Splash is a reduced pattern recessive gene that they have been working on for a few years.

This is our anery splash, if you notice the black pattern on his tail suddenly disappears. This 'splash' trait tends to show up on the bottom third of the sand boas that carry it.

This is our albino splash, she exhibits the same trait of the disappearing pattern on her tail as our anery along with abnormal splotchy patterning along her body. They are both het for the other so we're hoping to get some snow splashes in 2012. The snow splashes exhibit wide areas of white, like a pied ball python, and I'm sure in time will produce a 100% patternless white sand boa in the not to distant future.

This is a picture taken by Reptile Industries of one of their hold back snow splashes.