1st litter of babies of 2010 for me with a big surprise!!!

[bkhuff1s]

I haven't really had an interest in acquiring a melanistic until now.. and it's all YOUR fault...

[Jeff B]

Sorry about that, but you can't have this one, I'm keeping it
yeah this melanistic has quite a bit of pattern showing, maybe the erythristic is having something to do with it, I think this will be a REALLY sharp looking snake as an adult, but we shall see.

[ConcinusMan]

That's a wonderful reason not to sleep. Newborn scrubs are so special.
Best of luck with your now and future scrubs.

P.S. I hadn't planned on waking you up. I have some specially trained radixes that do my bidding. Ninja radixes.

they can and will sneak in silently with great steath. Instead of a "jap slap" they give you a tail slap? Instead of slinging bladed metal stars at you, they sling poo?. OK. Ninja radixes they are.

I knew one of the females had babies right when I walked into the snake room tonight, it had that birthing smell if you know what I mean, for those that do not it's kinda of a foul/sweet smell that you learn to love...

Umm... can't say that I learn to love it but it is a very distinct smell. One you never forget, like you never forget the smell of a dead human being but I digress. I can relate. I know that "birthing smell".

Sorry about that, but you can't have this one, I'm keeping it
yeah this melanistic has quite a bit of pattern showing, maybe the erythristic is having something to do with it, I think this will be a REALLY sharp looking snake as an adult, but we shall see.

And to think that I found 3 ordinoides in a 10 year period ending about 5 years ago, they looked just like that. Two of them showed a very faint hint of a stripe or pattern and one was just black. Everything was black but not deep dark shiny black. More of a flat charcoal black. I can only speculate what genes were involved in those 3 snakes but they were all found in a very confined area, all close to one another, all from the same population which still existed up until Jan 2010 and consisted mostly of brown or tan snakes with orange, red, or yellow stripes. Now it's flat as a pancake and bare. bulldozers still parked there.

There is hope I suppose. If I follow the creek upstream about 1/8 of a mile here's bulldozers parked there too but the habitat remains for now. What's left of it that is. Shame. Cryin' shame.

[bkhuff1s]

That sucks, I'd ask around the neighbors and offer to remove any snakes that have fled.. They're bound to be around somewhere...

[ConcinusMan]

Yeah... sounds good but these heavy equipment drivers stop for nothing except lunch time. Besides that, it was the dead of winter and very cold. I'm sure the snakes were just trapped alive in their dens or just "mowed over" and killed. Sad.

[guidofatherof5]

My daughter Molly came in with a radix the neightbor gave her. He said kids were hitting it with sticks.
The snake sustained no injuries that I can see. He's breeding age with a little orange on his sides.