Our red albino, Sherbet, has left the Caldwell snake nursery and is all settled in at the Beagle home. Check out the great habitat Nick set up. If you zoom in on the photo you’ll make out Sherbet close to Nick going into his/her hide. Nick will keep us updated on how she settles in. Who will be the next baby snake to find a new home?
LC 5 Astronomer, Maria, Captures Perfect Full Moon!
Just thought I’d share the AMAZING photograph that Maria took last night of our beautiful full moon. Can you see all the mare? They really do look like seas or oceans! I can understand how poor Galileo was confused. Check out the rays shooting out in all directions from the huge lunar crater, Tycho, that Maria captured. Hooray Maria!
Forever Homes?
Two of our fourteen baby Corn Snakes have found a temporary home at our favorite reptile pet store, Pets-A-Plenty.
They were stubborn little eaters for me but the experts at Pets-A-Plenty have had no problem getting them to eat. They are happy and healthy there. Check out the link: The Ultimate Reptile Shop This store is a GREAT field trip. (Caution: They are closed on Thursdays). You can feed a Caiman or a Kookaburra and see all sorts of AMAZING reptiles.
That leaves twelve little baby snakes here living in our laundry room, eating well and ready to go to new homes. That includes both of the amelanistic snakes, Rainbow and Sherbet! Remember Rainbow has the little kink in her tail and will need some extra love.
I am hoping to get all the babies into their new homes this week and next. Please let me know if you are interested in a baby Corn Snake as a pet via an email from your parents to: dcaldwell@conroeisd.net. The babies are FREE to a caring home. Pets-A-Plenty is a good first stop before coming to visit the Caldwell laundry room. They will set you up with everything you need to provide an excellent habitat for your snake and they will expertly answer all your questions on how to care for them. A 10 gallon terrarium set up is $99.99 and a 20 gallon is $140. I recommend the 20 gallon. It will meet the needs of your pet when it reaches adult size so there will be no need to ever “upsize”. Pets-A-Plenty also sells frozen mice in bulk for the best pricing. Bring an ice cooler if you go to Pets-A-Plenty so that they stay frozen for your drive back to The Woodlands. You can get the frozen mice at Petco too but they more expensive.
Hope to hear from you soon!
“Shellebrate” World Sea Turtle Day ~June 16th
So as you have likely noticed from the home page of my blog. Scuba diving is a passion of mine and I am mesmerized when I encounter sea turtles in the wild. The photograph of the sea turtle on my blog home page is one that I took two years ago while diving in about 40 feet of water off the west coast of Grand Cayman Island.
Thursday, June 16th, is World Sea Turtle Day. According to Marine Science Today, it is a day “to honor and highlight the importance of sea turtles.” The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) has extended the celebrations to include the whole week. You can”shellebrate” Sea Turtle Week by surfing through all the information and videos on these websites below. After a little study perhaps you can answer… “What species of sea turtle did Mrs. Caldwell encounter while diving?”
NOAA Sea Turtle Week 2015 YouTube Video
Galveston NOAA Sea Turtle Lab Info.
Nature Conservancy Videos of Sea Turtles
6/14/16 – Ten Fat Bellies
Ten of Cookie and Brownie’s offspring have shed and eaten their first meal. Ten fat bellies. Eating is a HUGE first step towards healthy corn snakes. Of the four that have not yet eaten, two we haven’t tried to feed since they haven’t shed yet. The other two, including little Rainbow, will not eat 😕 We will try again on Wednesday. They will all be ready for new homes after they eat two meals!
6/11/16 – We’ve got Shed!
Our first not so little hatchling has shed! Hopefully more will shed tonight so we can feed them all soon.
The TEN new eggs are safe in the incubator. Thankfully Cooke was willing to eat a little to rebuild her weight and strength.
6/10/16 – Really BIG news!
So I woke up to two monumental events that occurred in the continuing story of Cookie and Brownie.
1) A 14th baby hatched today! A Baker’s Dozen plus one now 🙂 A very healthy looking Okeetee. I didn’t realize there was one last egg until this morning when I went to clean out the incubator and found another little friend. Why was I cleaning out the incubator…..?
2) Yup! Cookie laid another clutch of very viable looking eggs back in the sherbet tub. Not sure how many are there yet. I’m just going to let her rest today and put the eggs in the incubator tomorrow. Then time to fatten back up Cookie. She looks really lethargic so I’m a little worried about her.
Stay tuned for more summer excitement!
6/8/16 – A Baker’s Dozen of Baby Snakes
All of Cookie’s eggs have at last hatched and we have thirteen busy little snakes. Two are amelanistic! Hmmmm.. What percentage is that? The featured photo above gives you a good look at Sherbet, the healthy Amel that hatched second. Zoom in on those beautiful red eyes. Sadly the Amel that hatched first, Rainbow, has a spinal deformity that is called a “kink”. From what I have researched, as long as she eats, makes waste and sheds properly then she can live a long normal life. If you zoom in on the little Okeetee Corn’s eyes you will see they are getting cloudy. Our corn snake handlers know what that means! 
Notice the babies are out of their incubation shoebox and exploring their new “nursery”. I lined a 10 gallon aquarium with moist paper towels, added two shallow water dishes and added lots of places for them to hide. The heat lamp is on one side. I measured several of the babies and it seems that most are about 25cm long! A good healthy size for newborn snakes. The next big event that we are awaiting is for all 13 babies to shed. After their first shed they will be ready for their first meal, a pinkie mouse. I am hoping for Friday or Saturday for their first feeding!
6/6/16 – More Hatchlings!
This is LC5 alumni, Nicole. You have all heard me refer to her as the “human snake momma”. She bred her two Corn Snakes (Ray & Ruby) three years ago and Cookie and Brownie were her first offspring. She of course had to come over yesterday afternoon to check out her next generation of baby Corns and have some play time with Brownie. She is now a sophomore at the Academy of Science and Technology at College Park. I learned from Nicole that Cookie and Brownie had a 25% chance of producing an Amelanistic (red albino) offspring since Ruby was a an Amel. Amelanistic is a double recessive trait so both Cookie and Brownie carry the dominant Okeetee trait and the recessive Amelanistic trait.
I know you want to know about “More Hatchlings”… there are more! Many more! AND… we have another Amel. I can’t count them all since they are hiding and I don’t want to disturb anyone. Two more eggs left to hatch. One has a head peeking out. Hopefully they will all be out of the eggs tomorrow and I can do a good count and post more pics. Check out the video below. In the comments share some questions with me and I’ll try to answer them tomorrow.
6/5/16 – Hello Babies!
Four siblings are free of their eggs! Bottom left are three little friends. Zoom in on the photo and check out the differences in their head patterns. That’s how we can tell them apart. These I think they are all Okeetee colored due to the black border around their colors. The HUGE NEWS is that we have a little red albino. These are much more rare! In Corn snake lingo this is called an Amelanistic Corn snake (amel for short). See the red eyes. That is because they have no melanin, the pigment responsible for black or brown coloration. This is actually a color mutation that will make this little friend more valuable to those in the Corn snake breeding world. If you look closely at Rainbow, the amel, you will see she is still attached to the yolk in her egg. Also looking closely at the eggs you should see two more little noses.
Never Stop Questioning! 