Pi Reptiles

June already and our feet haven't touched the ground for weeks, 15 clutches already detailed in our incubator section, one of which has hatched. A milestone was reached with our first visual morph baby, a cinny hypo, followed by two more and a hypo. A day of high fives, followed by a "down in the dumps" as we thoiught we'd lose one of the babies with a yolk sac un-absorbed, but no, Lucky survived, and is looking beautiful.

Our second clutch was a dinker female who looked more Fire than her chosen mate, Ember the Fire male. We crossed our fingers for little white noses, but sadly it looks like my beautiful Mouse is a simple normal and not a secret fire after all. We appear to have 3 normals and 2 fires from this pairing.

The two remaining eggs from Our honeybee train wreck clutch continue to survive, the larger of the two having a lively baby within, and the tiny one is also hanging on in there, a live embryo visible through the uncalcified "window".  Our fingers are crossed for this teeny baby.

Cleaning and feeding takes up much of our spare time these days, and when we have all these tiny mouths to feed our time will be further condensed. We have roped in an enthusiastic friend to help, but I suspect the rate we're going we'll need to bribe him with coke and cookies to put in an extra hour or two! fun times..

We still have a few ladies still to lay clutches, the ultrasound has proved invaluable to identify the optimum moment to introduce the male, and has been useful in identifying eggs within the girls, even to the point where we can cautiously identify "slugs" . I have loved seeing the development of the follicles to the calcified egg stage, and I hope to develop my skills further in this area, it's useful and fun to do, and such a thrill when the eggs are visible..cheating? nah, learning? yes, I think so.

So, whats next for Pi?  first goal is the safe arrival of this years babies, then a period of reflection I think, did we do it right? time will tell.

 - Jackie