What's new at AAR

8/2/09: It has been a while and things have been nice and busy around here. I was invited to be the guest on Reptile Radio and had a blast chatting with BT and Larry. They are great guys who have an awesome internet radio show and I applaud their efforts to keep us all up to date on what is going on in the reptile industry. If you haven't heard their show, you need to check it out! All of their shows can be found on the reptile radio site on blogtalkradio.com. Great stuff, guys!

All but a few clutches have hatched out and we are knee-deep in hatchlings. There are some very nice babies that hatched out this year, and it is definitely the funnest time of the year when all the babies that we have waited so long to see are hatching out in droves. The last python clutch still incubating is a clutch from a lesser platinum to a mojave female. I am really hoping for a male leucie to keep and breed. Gotta love those super morphs that produce all morphs in each clutch. I also have 3 clutches of banded knobtail gecko (N. wheeleri) clutches incubating and it will be fun to have baby knobtails running around again.

Speaking of ball pythons, since my last post we have hatched out a lesser spider, or lesser bee, a few more bumblebees, spiders, pastels, mojaves, and normal ball pythons. The lesser bee is so beautiful, and I would love to keep him, but I am not sure how he would fit into our projects. We will be keeping the killer bee male and a male leucy (if one hatches out), so with our mojave bumblebee, we will have plenty of co-dom power. I can envision some very fun combos. Also, I would love to pick up an enchi female or two, so if anyone sees anything they like here and has a nice enchi female to trade, drop a line.


Amazing male killer bee ball python	An updated shot of our bumblebee mojo	Sweet lesser spider (leeser bee) male	We hatched several bumblebees

We have a ton of very nice childrens pythons, and have added individual pictures to our website of the animals that are ready to go. There are some really nice red ones, so get them while they last. We may also put up a couple male Cape York spotteds for sale as well, but the majority were sold before they were born. They are definitely sweet pythons, so they don't last long. It is hard to beat an adult Cape York as far as the Antaresia go. We were also fortunate enough to pick up some great new Antaresia projects from a friend that is selling his Antaresia collection. This group includes patternless spotteds, granite spotteds, Stimson's pythons, black-eyed Children's pythons, and.....drumroll please......perthensis! This will complete the Antaresia complex and we will have all 4 species. They are such great pythons, and we have had fantastic luck getting the babies feeding on mice. This year, I only had to brain one pinky to get all of my Cape York spotteds and Children's python hatchlings feeding (>30 animals), while all the others took live pink mice with no scenting, washing, or other trickery that is usually required to get these guys feeding. I am hoping my luck will carry over to the Stimson's and perthensis when I am fortunate enough to hatch those out. Needless to say, I am very excited to get these guys in and I thank Sterling for the opportunity to get these cool projects.


Male pygmy python closeup	Female Stimson's python	Nice female VPI granite spotted	Patternless spotted python

Another cool aquisition that we have worked out is a male granite Irian Jaya carpet python! We are just waiting for him to shed and feed a few more times, and then he will be on his way over here. This will be very nice in helping us prove out the 50% poss hets that we are raising up. Granites are one of the coolest carpet morphs out there. The granite is a recessive trait, which generally means they will be produced less rapidly and will keep their value for longer. There have been reports of some problems, but these are likely due to inbreeding and have been most commonly reported with inbreeding. We have about the most outbred poss het granites out there, which should avoid any of these problems that have been seen. Can't wait to get that guy here. Shed, dangit, shed!

The zebra jungles are doing well and feeding agressively (aside from one picky female) and shedding. I took a few updated shots of some post-shed animals. These are such cool jungle carpet morphs and it is fun to be able to watch them grow. Can't wait to see how the yellow comes in. These were sired by our beautiful yellow female, Lilly, and while our male zebra isn't the best in color, he definitely has the best pattern out of all the zebras in the US. So.... if we can combine his pattern with her color, we should have some killer JCPs! Come on and grow! I am so excited to try and produce a super zebra (or two :D) this coming season, and our female zebra is growing well and should be big enough to produce a clutch. The male zebra jungle jag is also coming along nicely, and hints of yellow are starting to show through. He is another keeper that I can't wait to see how he develops. He is a 75% jungle zebra jag, so the yellow should come in nicely. Some nice genetics with that boy. Well, check them out below.


Holdback male zebra jungle	Nice female zebra HB	Another view of the previous zebra	Look at that intricate pattern!	This one is a little runty, but doing well	Male holdback zebra jungle jaguar

Hopefully it won't be quite as long between this post and my next post. Hope your season is going well and you are producing cool stuff. It is fun seeing all the new ball morphs popping up and other beautiful animals produced, especially the Australian herps. Gotta love this time of year! GET ADDICTED!

6/10/09: Happy Birthday, Jake! My son is getting too old too fast. It sure is awesome having such a great son. He helps out in the rodent room and in the reptile room, which is great. What a perfect kid!

Well, the total zebra jungle carpet count is 10! We actually had 12, but one didn't make it out of the egg and one got out of the egg, but had a congenital heart defect and died after hatching. The zebras look great and I am so excited! I'll just go in and stare at them. It will be nice to see them shed out. Looks like we have a high female ratio, which is nice because we wanted to hold back a few females to make some super zebras, so we will have many options. Such a great project! The zebra jaguar and his siblings shed recently as well and I am very excited to see how these guys will turn out.


Nice pile of zebra jungle carpet pythons	Zebra jungle jaguar after 1st shed	Here is a closer shot of the zebra jag	Male 75% jungle jaguar, sib to zebra jag

Another fun clutch hatched as well and we produced our first super pastel spider or killer bee ball python, which is a male, so he will be sticking around for some cool combo projects. Any babies produced by him would at least be pastel. It will be fun to pair him up with our pied female or a pastel mojave. There were also 2 nice bumblebees (pastel spiders) in the clutch, a male and a female, which are always fun to see hatch out. There was also a pastel and a normal in the clutch, both females. It's nice to produce a new combo (for us) and see it hatch out. Another clutch from Nacho, our bumblebee, to a pastel female should be hatching out in a week or so, so we have another shot at producing a super pastel or another killer bee. Should have some results in a couple weeks. There is also a clutch from our male lesser platinum bred to a female spider on the killer bee clutch's heels, so we might produce a lesser spider in the next couple weeks as well.

We are also waiting on a clutch from our striped male jungle to our striped female jungle carpet python, and I am really hoping that the stripes get amplified in these babies. Only 5 or 6 eggs made it the distance, but it was a first clutch, so it was somewhat expected. Striped jungles are so cool looking, so it would be nice if this project will pan out. The colors of the Python Pete line jungles with a nice bold dorsal stripe makes for a very nice jungle carpet python.

We had some great luck with getting hatchlings to feed this last weekend, with the vast majority of the Cape York spotted pythons (aka blonde macs) and childrens pythons (actually all of the childrens) taking their first meal with no coaxing or tricking, so that worked out nicely. We'll get a few more meals in them and then they should be ready to go. The CY spotteds are amazing this year, and I want to keep a bunch, but so many are spoken for, that I hope I can at least keep one or two. This year, we produced a few more males than the lone male we produced last year, so that is good. I should have some individual pictures up sometime soon so you can enjoy them as well. The childrens pythons are nice and there are some smoking red childrens pythons. I also have a few left from last year left. They are very cool snakes, and I always enjoy producing them. The adults that produced these are 11 this year and they are still going strong.

6/1/09: More awesome hatchlings venturing out of the egg today. Looks like we hit some nice odds on the zebra jungle carpet python clutch from Lilly. Lots of nice zebra heads poking out of the eggs. What a great sight! I just love this time of year and it's gotta be the most rewarding part of this hobby, to see those little noses slit the eggs and take their first breath of air. What an amazing thing to witness. Isn't nature great?! Alright, so I kinda lost count, but I am pretty sure we beat the odds on this clutch with over 10 zebras. They should be out tomorrow morning and I can get a count, but for now, I am very excited. It seems like the incubation went by quickly, but it takes forever for them to come out of the egg. I love their head patterns! OK, enough on the zebras. Can you tell I am a little excited? Ben is in New Mexico with his family for venom week and will miss seeing them hatch out of the egg. I had to taunt him with a text saying they were hatching out and that we had some good odds. Well, here are some pictures.


Head poking out of the egg. Zebra!	First one out is a zebra.	Another view of the hatchlings.	Here are the first ones hanging out.

I also slit a ball python clutch that was laid on the same day as the zebra clutch and saw a lot of yellow and white inside. The eggs were from our bumblebee, Nacho, bred to a nice light pastel female. It is hard to tell for sure, but it looks like we might have our first killer bee and super pastel, but I'll have a better idea once they stick their heads out. Hopefully I'll have an update soon with some pictures.

Another fun update is the introduction of a new project at AAR. We had a local friend, Ryan, who was moving and happened to have a nice pair of green tree pythons which he couldn't take with him. He wanted them to go to a good home, so he offered us a killer deal and we were happy to oblige. I took a few of my daughters to the zoo, where we met Ben, his wife, and little girl, after which we went to Ryans and picked up the GTPs. Talk about a great day. They have some killer chondros at Hogle zoo, and it was fun to show the girls and tell them that was what we were going to go get after we left the zoo. They are settleling in nicely and the male has shed out. He has some nice blue and is cbb from another UT local breeder, Mike Bair from Chondrodreams. The female is a Yapen locale with a nice yellow belly and lots of white spots. She has a bit of an attitude, while the male is a bit shy. They are large enough to breed, so hopefully we will have some baby chondros in the next year or two. We are going with the non-spray, low humidity method of raising GTPs, as UT is dry, and frankly, I am bad at spraying things down daily. So far, it is working well. I had a great talk with a couple of Chondroheads, Terry and Ryan, who gave some great advice. Definitely cool to work with this amazing species. I have put a green tree python page up on the collection page, so you can see the breeders there.

I am also working on a new zebra page, including some nice outdoor shots of our zebra jungle carpet python male, Grevy, as well as our female zebra jungle, Doli. Hopefully will have that up in the next few weeks. Well, hope your season is progressing well. I should have some more updates and pictures soon. Stay tuned and GET ADDICTED!

5/19/09: Great snakes hatching today! So, 4 eggs were laid by our female jungle jaguar sired by our male zebra jungle, Grevy, while the rest were infertiles. Well, 3 of the 4 went the distance and hatched out. The 4th, unfortunately, died about 1 week prior to hatching. I opened up the egg and inside was a fully formed zebra jungle jag. Well, I couldn't resist and slit the other 3 eggs. I was happy with what I saw inside. Well, the wait just about killed me, but two finally crawled out today. The two hatchlings are a zebra jungle jaguar and a zebra (75% jungle/25% coastal). The shy one is a 75% jungle jaguar. Nice to have no normals in the 3 eggs that made it. I am very excited about these two, as they are the first zebra and zebra jaguar produced in the US. The zebra jaguar carpet is amazing, and I am sure he will just get better with age and the zebra, a female, has a great intricate pattern. Of course, you have probably had enough talking, so here are some pictures.


First zebra jaguar produced in the US	Side shot of the hatchling zebra jag.	Can't get enough of this guy.	Zebra female, looking good.	Look at that amazing pattern!	Proud papa, Grevy. What a stud!

Also made a sweet new rack for the Antaresia hatchlings using a cool design that was posted on Moreliapythons.com by Derek. It is perfect for small pythons because you can minutely adjust each level. It is somewhat of a pain to get all the bolts down, but my kids had a blast helping, so it went by pretty cool. I also attached some flexwatt up the back and will put on a back to keep in the heat. It will hold around 36 hatchlings when it is completed, so I am excited to get it in working order. They should be happy in this condo. It will come in handy now that we have both childrens pythons and both Cape York spotted python clutches hatched out and around 40 baby Antaresia to house. I love this time of year, and we have lots of great hatchlings. Now it's time to get them feeding and ready to go.


This holdback jungle is amazing	One of our poss het granite females	Lilly, my favorite jungle female	Some sweet childrens pythons hatchlings	Nice looking Cape York spotteds	Here is the Antaresia condo

The next clutch due to hatch is also a big one; our clutch from Lilly bred to Grevy, which should have zebras. These will be the first pure zebra jungle carpets produced in the US as well, so we are definitely excited to see them hatch out. Hopefully we get some nice odds, but I won't count my zebras before they hatch. Anyone wanting to work with this amazing morph, contact Ben or myself. We will hopefully have several to sell. Also laid on the same day as the zebra clutch is a clutch from a pastel ball python that was bred to our bumblebee male, Nacho, so hopefully we'll see a nice killer bee poking a head out of at least one of the eggs. Guess we'll see in a couple weeks. Stay tuned, and GET ADDICTED!

4/29/09: Just thought I would put up some random snaps from the other day. GET ADDICTED!


Zebra jungle carpet male, recovering from breeding season	Some wheeleri getting it on on their new sand	Nice red female woma python	First clutch of 2009, a nice batch of childrens	Good sign; an inverted female centralian python	Wheeleri covered in sand	Nephrurus levis levis female, het for stripe	Male amyae getting a little defensive at the paparazi	Nice holdback bumblebee mojave (mojave spider pastel)

4/27/09: I am very excited about the last clutch that was laid. We got 13 eggs from our striped jungle carpet female bred to our striped PXP male JB, so I am hoping that we get some cool striped jungles with nice yellow. I thought this gal might have gone last year, but she waited until this year. She laid a nice clutch for us, though and it will be a long 2 months. Two female pastels, which were bred to our bumblebee male Nacho, also laid nice clutches of 6 eggs. Hopefully there will be a couple killer bees in there. This would also be the first time to potentially produce a super pastel or two. It would be awesome to get a killer, though. I am still waiting on clutches from our female mojave, which will also allow us to hatch out a nice clean leucistic ball. This morning, I found a nice clutch of 6 eggs from our spider female bred to our lesser platty male, so now the wait to see if we get a lesser bee. In all, we could have 4 new combo morphs this year that we have not produced before. Will be fun to see what hatches out of these clutches. A LOT of anticipation this year!

We also had a new pickup as well. Go ahead and enter us into the race for the first super zebra produced in the states. We picked up a female zebra jungle carpet python produced in '07 by Paul. She was deep in shed when she arrived, but looks pretty cool. She is a lot darker than Grevy, and it should be fun to see how she develops. This gal has some size to her, and we are hopeful that she will produce for us next year. Looks like it is shaping up to be a bigger race than I thought. I know of 5 other females out there that were produced in '07, so many should have females that will be big enough to produce in 2010. The zebras are so great and the future of this morph is very bright. I am so tempted to keep all the zebras we produce this year to see how they will all turn out, but you can't keep them all, so I am sure we will let a couple go ;) I love this hobby!

I went to check on the eggs yesterday, as I thought I better check on the first clutch laid. I opened the egg box to see how they were developing and was dissapointed to see what looked like moldy dark eggs, but was happy when I looked a little closer to realize that it was hatched eggs with 12 perfect little childrens pythons. I thought they had a couple days left, but it is nice to have them all out. One egg went bad during incubation, so I got 12/13. Well, it begins. I definitely need to get more cages built for hatchlings, as there will be a ton of babies to house very soon. This is the best time of year, and it is my favorite part to see babies hatching out. Next up is a Cape York spotted python clutch that is due any day now and was laid 6 days after the recently hatched childrens clutch. Hopefully this year will bring more males, as last year I got one male out of all the CY eggs. More updates will follow soon. GET ADDICTED!


New female zebra jungle carpet python (pic taken by Eric before shipping).	Here is the female zebra jungle in hand after her arrival (in shed)	Striped jungle carpet python on eggs sired by our striped PXP male	Pastel female ball python on eggs sired by Nacho, our bumblebee	Spider ball on eggs sired by a lesser platty, come on queen bees!

4/15/09: The eggs have landed! We have our first clutches on the ground now. Both female Cape York Spotted pythons have laid their clutches and it looks like we will have a couple dozen of these amazing little pythons. Our holdbacks from last year are turning out very nicely, and I am excited to see more of these small pythons hatch out in a month or so. Hopefully this year we will get a few more males. Last year, we only had one male hatch out of two clutches. Speaking of Antaresia, we also got our first clutch of childrens pythons. The second one should follow soon, and the second female has had her pre-lay shed and has been basking inverted for the last few weeks. We will have a nice selection of these two species. The other two Antaresia species, the Stimsons (A. stimsoni) and Anthill pythons (A. perthensis), will also be joining the AAR collection this year. We hope to pick 2 unrelated pairs of both species to complete the Antaresia group. They are such fun, easy pythons.

Our third clutch of the year was somewhat of a surprise, but a VERY nice surprise. One of our jungle jag females that was bred to Grevy, our zebra jungle, laid a clutch of 11 eggs. Unfortunately it looks like the majority are infertile, but there are a few that look like they will go the distance. It will be fun to see what will pop out of these eggs, and of course we are hoping for the coveted zebra jaguar. If we are lucky enough to hatch one out, it will be the first zebra jag produced in the US. The fourth clutch of the year was a big dissappointment, as one of our large female jungles, also bred to Grevy, laid a large clutch of slugs. There may be 1-2 good eggs, but the rest were just duds. I was hoping for a nice large clutch from this girl, but it was her first year producing eggs, despite being around 6 years old, so I guess it is not the biggest shock. Lilly gave us our final shot at zebras this year, and she definitely pulled through for us. She laid 20 nice eggs! They look great and the long wait begins. I can't wait to see what hatches out of those eggs.


Lilly on eggs sired by Grevy!	Nice clutch of Zebra jungle eggs	Jungle Jaguar on eggs	Jungle jag looking good	Cape York not the best mom	Original red childrens (VPI line)

Also got my first clutch of wheeleri, but the eggs don't look so good. What is it with infertile clutches?! Alright, so they were first clutches, so that is the way it goes sometimes. At least they are moving in the right direction. The nice thing about geckos is another clutch is around the corner. Especially with wheeleri, as they are pretty prolific producers. Our other mature female is not receptive right now, but I am not sure why that is. Hopefully she will warm up to the advances of the males. We also got a first clutch of crested geckos, which is the first clutch we have gotten from this species. It will be nice to have baby geckos hatching out soon again, especially some of the cool rough knobtail species and crested geckos.

Well, had a birthday and got the coolest reptile-related present ever! The new book, "The Keeping and Breeding of Australian Lizards" is the best! It is brand new and was recently brought into the country by Zoo Book Sales. This book is 500+ pages of individual accounts of many of the lizards of Australia, including a lot of geckos, monitors, dragons, and skinks. It is sooo cool. This book rivals Pythons of the World: Australia and goes nicely with the Keeping and Breeding of Australian Pythons. This book rocks and I highly recommend it if you have any interest in Australian lizards.

2/26/09: Well, things are shaping up well with Grevy's ladies (see pictures below). One female is basking all the time and the other two seem to be filling out nicely. We are really hoping for at least one clutch, but 3 would be amazingly nice. The 2 Cape York females are also looking nice and plump and will hopefully be laying soon. Both the female childrens are also basking inverted and should be laying some nice clutches. Our striped male bredli has been paying a lot of attention to the two females he has been with, including our nice Price line bredli we got from our friend Jeremy. A lot of the ball python females are also progressing nicely, and we are hoping for a boat load of killer bee clutches, as Nacho, our bumblebee male has been breeding several female pastels. More potential goodies as well, but not for sure yet. Things are shaping up nicely for the breeding season.


Sis, female jungle basking, hopefully to keep developing eggs warm	Pre-lay shed on Sis that is hopefully carrying Zebra eggs	Lilly also looks like she is developing a nice clutch	Grevy, our zebra jungle, looks like one happy stud.

I am contemplating buying some bearded dragons for the kids. I had a blast breeding them back in the mid nineties and have been wanting to get some for a long time. With a nice thriving colony of dubias, it should be really easy to keep them well-fed. But, lizards are a lot more high-maintenance than snakes are, so I keep waffling. I think I am going to do it, though. We'll see how it goes. I will definitely post pictures once I get them. Should be fun to have some beardies again.

Noticed one of the childrens pythons from '08 is really ghostly. I think I may have to hold him back to see what he'll turn out like. I have included some pictures of this male next to a nice red hold-back female. It is so hard to choose which ones to keep when there are such nice babies. I keep waffling on which ones I want to keep, but I think this male is a keeper for sure. I am excited to see how they will look as adults. We are also planning on picking up some Stimsons pythons this year as well as a new bloodline of childrens pythons. The Antaresia are really fun and I can't wait to pick up the whole genus. It's too bad we can't get some of the crazy western Stims that are nice bold red patterned with cream backgrounds. Amazing animals! GET ADDICTED!


Gravid Cape York Spotted Pythons	Ghostly male childrens python	Comparison with a nice red female	Male jaguar carpet holdback	Female red jaguar carpet holdback

1/19/09: Got one of the best sights I could have asked for! See the picture below of Grevy, our Zebra jungle, hooked up with Lilly, our nice Python Pete line jungle female. The little guy is getting it done!! This should add some nice yellow to our awesomely patterned zebra male. I really can't wait to see what happens and if he can sire a clutch or two this year. We also had him in with another nice yellow female that has recently started refusing food and basking under the lights a bit more. That would be about the coolest thing that could happen this year is to see little zebras poking out of eggs. We'll see what happens, but hopes are high. I have also seen Nacho, our male bumblebee, hooked up with a couple different pastel females. As of yet, no action has been observed between our lesser platty male and the mojave and spider females he is in with. I also recently put in our large jungle jaguar females with jungle males, so we may also be producing some 75% jungle jaguars. I also swithched up the bredli males to see if our striped male, who has produced clutches out of one of our bredli females for the last 2 years might produce some eggs with the other 2 unproven females. We'll see what this year brings. This is the beginning of the excitement that culminates with the hatching of babies in the spring/summer. I am also very excited to end the cooling with the wheeleri and see if I can start getting some eggs from the lizards again. The cresteds will also be set to go once things warm up a bit. The weather has taken a turn for the worse, and it is dang cold lately, and I am wating impatiently for the heat to come back on. With the heat, hopefully great things will begin to happen and we will see new cool projects come to fruition. I really love this hobby!

On a presonal note, we are enjoying our new baby girl. She is very cute and is accepted very well by her siblings. My oldest boy has been helping a lot lately in the reptile and mouse rooms and he is also hoping some of his projects will be panning out this year as well. He is almost 10 and is starting to be a nice asset with the animals. Hopefully his and his sister's rosy boas will produce some offspring this spring/summer as well. He is also raising up some mexican black kingsnakes. My wife's hognose snakes are doing very well and she is excited to get them going and on the road to producing. It is really fun to have the family involved with the reptiles, and I appreciate their support and love.

Saw a cool paper on childrens pythons posted on one of the Aussie Pythons and Snakes forum comparing a group of hatchlings split into two groups. One got 10% of their body weight in food and the other group got 30% each week. They looked at total length, weight increase, and proportions (ie, to look at "pinheadedness"). The snakes fed the 10% gained around 60 g in the timeframe of the experiment, while the 30% group gained around 350 g in the same time period. There was a massive length difference and the larger group approached adult size. It amazes me that 20% more food results in such a large difference in the end. There was no pinhead syndrome observed and all feedings were voluntary. The snakes were weighed weekly and then the amount of food was calculated for each snake. I was curious during reading to see what percentage I was feeding my snakes each week. I have always wanted to conduct a similar study to compare feeding the same amount (weight) of mice and rats. Someday... Good stuff, anyway. Well, I'll hopefully have another exciting update up soon. Thanks for reading, and as always, GET ADDICTED!

12/31/08: Hope you are having Happy Holidays and a great New Year! I can't believe it has been 3 months since the last update. Things have been a bit hectic with having a new baby (little girl at the end of Dec), working on a new grant, and the holidays. We have been sending off a few snakes here and there, so the business is running smoothly. We have begun our breeding season with a bang; putting our zebra jungle carpet male, Grevy, with two large female jungles, Lilly and Skunk's sister. He looks like he is taking notice of the girls and I have seen him lining his tail up and spending lots of time with the gals. That would be awesome if he got the job done. He is over 600 g and is 2.5 years old, so I figured it would be worth a shot and it would be a good way to start off the breeding season. We will also be putting other projects together. I switched up the male bredli to see if I could get a couple clutches out of the 2 females that have not laid yet. We will be putting our male lesser with our female mojave to hopefully produce a leucistic or two. We will also be putting our male bumblebee, Nacho, with several pastel females to make some killer bees. The poss het granite girls are a little on the small side, so we decided to give them another year of growing. One of them is over 1200 g, but the others are around 800-1000 g. We figured it would be better to give them more time than to push them this year. We are hoping our striped female jungle will produce a clutch this year. Bred to skunk, we should hopefully produce some cool striped jungles. We will also be pairing up our male jaguar with our female tiger and our male tiger with some nice coastal girls. Our jungle jag and coastal jag females are also a bit on the small side, so we will give them another year of growth as well. Other than that, it is business as usual and we should produce some nice pythons.

In Anaheim we picked up a nice hognose project for my wife. It is always nice when our wives get excited about the reptiles. She has come quite a ways since we met. She started out deathly afraid of snakes, but now she can name so many morphs and types of reptiles. She can appreciate them for what they are and the extra money they bring in is a nice bonus as well. So, when I took her to Daytona for the show, she fell in love with the hognoses, and wanted to get some to start her first snake project. We picked up an albino male, 2 het females and 2 normal females for her to give breeding a shot. They are always hungry and have such great personalities. I am with Dave on this one; hognoses are for guys too. I enjoy watching them and feeding them and am excited to see babies hatching out sometime soon. One of the females even played dead for us, which was very entertaining. They sure do sell the dead thing. I will include some pictures of each of them below. Being my wifes project, she gave them all theme names of some of her favorite pig-related names. The female het albinos are nice and red and the male albino is a nice red albino. They are not Australian, but they are awesome snakes and they fit in nicely here at AAR.


Hogsqueal, albino hog	Harley, het albino	Penelope, het albino	Squeally, normal fem

We also picked up a couple of male 100% het granite Irian Jaya/West Paupan carpet pythons from Will Leary to breed to our possible het granite females. They look pretty nice, and hopefully will develop some really nice colors as they mature. They feed well and we hope they will grow big enough to be ready for the girls in 2010. I think granites are an amazing morph and we will hopefully be producing some nice ones in a short time. We have 5 girls that are very nice looking, and a few more that were produced this season that we may hang on to. We do have a few available that will be a nice addition to your granite project that can be seen on the available page.

I also updated the woma page. We had several that were slated to go to Europe, but our export permits were denied, so we weren't alble to send them over, so they are up for sale again. They are turning out really nice and are typical womas that love to eat just about anything you put in front of them. They are feeding aggresively on fuzzy rats and are some of the nicest womas in the country. I have also put up the '08 childrens python and centralian pythons available pages as well as updated the mojave bumblebees with new pictures. We have some nice snakes available, which you can see each animal for sale on the available page above. We appreciate all our customers in '08 for their support of AAR. Happy Holidays!


100% het granite male	Cape York spotted python	Possible het spider IJ	Nice red female woma

If you haven't checked out the latest Snakebytes episode, check it out now by clicking here. Brian has done a great job with this show, and if you've missed a few episodes, catch up. If you haven't seen this show yet, then you are in for a treat. Clicking the link above will link you to all of the weekly webisodes. I am also working on some videos, but the learning curve is a bit steep. My brother is a videographer and has a lot of knowledge on how to make a good movie. You can see an early attempt on Youtube by clicking here. Hopefully I can put together a nice video, displaying our animals and how we keep our collection.

9/13/08: Sorry it has been so long. We have been busy, first with the Daytona show and a week in FL. Then a couple weeks later was the NARBC show in Anaheim along with a trip to the San Diego zoo, and now we are getting ready for the UT herp show, the Wasatch Reptile Expo. Can't complain, though, as the Daytona show and trip to FL was very fun, and the Anaheim show was the best one yet. Part of the delay was waiting until I had the pictures ready to post as well, so you can see these on the visits page or by clicking here: NRBE, Daytona FL; San Diego Zoo, CA; NARBC, Anaheim, CA. I hope you enjoy the pictures.

It is so great hanging out with my fellow herpers at the shows. We had dinners in Daytona with some moreliaphiles, which was fun. It was great to meet you guys in person and I look forward to seeing you again. Anaheim was a blast! It is so cool hanging out with our friends from the west coast and we always have some great conversations. We also got a fun visit from a singing budy, which was pretty random, but interesting to say the least. That dang bumblebee song has been stuck in my head for a while now. We had a great dinner as well, which made for some great carpet conversation. Poor Auston was outnumbered, as there were no other darksiders at the dinner, but he survived. I am looking forward to next year already.

Just before Anaheim, one of our biggest ball python clutches of the year hatched out. It was from our bumblebee to our mojave female. I was really curious to see what would hatch out and how they would look and if I could tell the different morphs apart. I did end up slitting the eggs around the time they started pipping, as I was excited to see what we had. I could tell there were at least 4 double morphs, but wasn't sure if they were tripple morph mojave bees, bumblebees, or spider mojaves. When they finally (seems so long for them to come out, especially after I slit the eggs) emerged, we were very happy with the results. 3, count them 3, mojave bumblebees (2.1), one spider mojave (1.0), one pastel mojave (0.1), and one normal. 3 triple morphs, 2 double morphs, and a normal. Not bad odds! We took along one of the mojave bees and the pastel mojave to Anaheim to show off. They look so great and I am excited to see them develop. They have just shed, and their yellows are popping, so I included a couple of post-shed pictures. Nice way to end out the season at my place.


Mojave bumblebee	Spider mojave	Dynamic duo	Normal in there for comparison	Two mojave bumblebees	Same two, nice pose	For you head pattern fans, look at this evil skull bumblebee from a different clutch

Ben also had a couple great clutches hatching at the same time. Two pied to het pied clutches, including 6 pieds, 3.3. There are some nice high whites as well as some low whites with some great patterns. We will likely hold onto one or two females for future breeding projects. Female morphs are important for production of combo morphs, and most of the pied morphs are very cool. Ben also has a spider bred to pied clutch that should be hatching soon, as well as a het albino to het albino clutch, so still a couple more clutches to go. Hopefully some more morphs on the way.

The centralian python hatchlings are also doing well, and most have started taking their first meals. The other hatchlings from this year have started doing very well. The jungles we are holding back are turning out nicely, and hopefully we will get another couple of killer jungles. All in all, it has been a great season, and the bumblebee mojave clutch sure ended out the year with a bang at my place. Can't wait to get a pied or two over at my place. GET ADDICTED!

8/15/08: We have a winner! Ben's daughter drew a name from the hat, and the winner is....Todd (Smilin-buddha)! Congratulations. The other sibling is still available to bid on and all proceeds will go to support moreliapythons.com, so go to the site and bid (post is under the morphs section of the carpet python forum list). Thanks to all who entered, and better luck to the rest of you next year when we do our next annual giveaway.

Good things happening around here with 2 clutches hatching, one bumblebee to normal clutch and one centralian python clutch. We only got one bumblebee, but I'll take it. The centralians are out and are looking good, but the balls are still staying comfortably in their eggs. They should be out soon. We also got a spider, 3 pastels, and 2 normals, so if you are looking for some nice ball pythons, we should have these at the shows or on our available page soon. The centralians generally take a little longer to get going, but we should have some in Anaheim and Salt Lake for sale, and they will of course be up on the available page when they are ready to go. Centralians are so cool!

Daytona is next week!!! I can't wait to finally witness this spectacle for myself. I have heard that many are not attending because of the cost, which kind of sucks, but it looks like plenty will still be there. Daytona here we come. We look forward to meeting some of you guys in person at the show and it should be a good time. Hopefully there will also be a ton of cool and rare animals at the show. I better leave my credit cards home, though as we shouldn't pick up any more projects this year. Can't wait for the 23rd! See you in Daytona. GET ADDICTED!!

8/6/08: We have had many entries for the giveaway. Get yours in soon before it is too late. We will be selecting the winner this Saturday, so time is running out. Some of you have put in some great responses and we will have to post a few once all is said and done. Good luck!

I went to the Hogle zoo last Saturday and got to check out the leucistic alligator. I can't believe I haven't put up a Hogle visit page until now, as it is the closest zoo and I have been several times in the last few years. After the zoo, I met up with Kevin, who hooked me up with 75 African Soft-Furred Rats. They are around 2-3 times the size of a mouse and are generally used to get picky ball pythons to eat, but I heard from Nick Mutton that jungles will eat them as well. Lily has chowed down on a few, but JB was not interested. The ASF rats are supposed to be very prolific, so I am dedicating a new rodent rack to breeding them. I had a few headaches when they decided to play with the nozzles in their temporary housing in the mouse rack and would flood their cages daily. Guess they were only used to the ball-type nozzles on water bottles, so seeing the agselect nozzle got them curious. So, after staying up until 1 am making rodent racks and getting up early for work, I am dragging a bit today. I also get to ship off some snakes, so at least I get to leave a bit early. Still need to get some info up on the rodent breeding and such. I need to work out some new menu selections up. There is so much to do, but when the choice between doing things with the animals or sitting at my computer comes up, I usually go with the animals. Posting here helps me get a bit more motivated, so hopefully more updates are on their way soon. GET ADDICTED!

8/2/08: Giveaway time! Click here to enter to win a red morph jaguar sibling from one of our jaguar carpet python clutches. This is a red morph, but not a jaguar. Pictures can be seen at the link above and the winner will get to choose from two animals. Once one is selected, the other will be auctioned off to support Moreliapythons.com. If you would like to win this snake, simply click on the link above and follow the directions. Winner will be selected through a random drawing.
Good luck and GET ADDICTED!