Wednesday, April 17, 2019

The Ups and Downs ...

Hi there folks!

As usual, my blogging is lacking in regularity ... but what else is new?

So .. the "downs" first ...


Last breeding season was very poor .. had more bad eggs than successful hatchings. I had 5 girls paired, but only got fertile eggs from 2 of the 5, and of those only 4 eggs survived. I have sold one of those, but was a bit younger than I normally would. If interested, the babies are Devon (sold), Karmel, Ripley (see picture below), and Cruz, and pics of them can be seen on the facebook page for Katt's Kritters ...

At this time, we have no car so I am not sure of making any shows over the summer and into the fall, but we are hoping to have a vehicle by winter. Any orders for supplies or geckos require the buyer to either meet here or pay for shipping. Sorry ...

Between the lack of a car and the low breeding numbers, the business has hit a bit of a slow-down. This makes things very frustrating, and results in a lot of questioning and evaluating of plans. I am doing my best to keep things moving in a positive forward direction, but with such a lack of needed resources, it does get hard.






So ... now the "ups" ....


So far we are off to a better start for fertile eggs, with 9 already in the incubator and the first of those due to hatch around beginning of June. There are many more months yet to go for the girls to lay eggs, but so far I have only got fertile eggs from Meg, Ruby, and Morticia. Lily has yet to drop any viable eggs, and Lady seems to have a long delay in dropping ANY eggs at all.  I know they will yet, as they have before.

I have made some changes to have some better quality breeders, so I will have high contrast harlequins (working on getting cream/red combo), pinstripes, and dark.

I am hoping that I will get some nice dark babies from my SAM x MORTICIA pairing, and if so, then I will sell Ash. Otherwise, I will list both the dark "breeders" instead. I do have nice pinstripe morph options, so I will be able to offer a range of options.

Around this time last year, we signed on and became authorized resellers for equipment and supplies that are available from many big names, like Mist King, Repashy, Pangea (not food), Sunblaster, PetTech and Galapagos, to name a few. This will hopefully help carry over through our slower times of the season.

I was also given 4 geckos to add to my collection from a gentleman that was getting out of the business. With the addition of these four, I find that I have three cresties that carry the lineage of Prince (from Dream Maker Reptiles) so I am excited for when my future breeders get closer to that stage. I am keeping 2 of the four as future breeders, and the other 2 younger ones are still growing out a bit before I list them. Stay tuned!

Many future breeders getting bigger over time, so big plans over the next few years.

Nothing worth doing is worth doing fast, so to take the time that is needed will be better in the end!




Katt
https://kattskritters.com