An update on our collection.

After four passes with Vapona (see previous entries), we’re tentatively declaring our collection mite-free.

I mentioned that we’ve been thinking of taking Pretzel off the breeding treadmill. Those plans are now more concrete: she’ll be put in a separate cage before mating season starts up again.

If we’re going to breed snakes, we need to increase the pool of breeders; if we’re not going to breed snakes, we should really scale back from what we have. We’ve decided, therefore, to get a few more corn snakes, with the eventual goal of having several pairs breeding at any one time. That should take care of pet store demand, provide enough variety, and provide insurance if not every pair is fertile. Jennifer has started this process; last weekend she picked up a hatchling female Okeetee corn snake, to pair up — eventually — with our two-year-old male. But it’ll be at least three years before any offspring comes of that pairing. We’ll probably get three or four more corns; we haven’t figured out which varieties, yet.

Falling autumn temperaturers caught us off-guard a bit, and several snakes have entered hibernation mode: the glossy snake, the gopher snakes and the hognose snakes have all gone a month without eating. I expect they’ll restart at some point, and am not yet overly worried: these gophers and hognoses are notorious for going off their feed from time to time.