Welcome to "The Niblet", two quirky exotic animal breeders sharing a taste of the farm life. In this issue we're covering horse vaccinations, our new comprehensive Green Tree Python care sheets, and sappin season here on the farm.

We hope you enjoy this issue, and welcome your thoughts and suggestions. If you have an idea for something you'd like to see here in the future just hit reply and let us know. .

All the best,

Ross Lasley	Amy Lasley

Comprehensive Green Tree Python Care Sheets now Online

It took much longer than Ross possibly thought it could have, but our new comprehensive Green Tree Python care sheets are now online.

When the project began we could hardly imagine that it would grow to 14 pages and more than 26,000 words. (26,119 to be precise).

We cover basic care information, the cage itself, what goes in the cage, heat & humidity, feeding, playtime & handling, common problems, natural history, locality types, breeding, egg care, neonate care, parasites, and uncommon problems.

Here are a few of our favorite bits .....

So unless you live in a tropical jungle you are going to need to provide supplemental heat and humidity for your GTP.

Basic care - what seems the most obvious and despite that the most common culprit when problems arise.

Our opinion is that the best overall commercial GTP cage is made by Boaphile.

When they are born we have to teach them that this is food, that it tastes good and is good for them.

Many GTP's will be thrilled to coil up in your lap and watch TV!

A locality type is just a way of saying geographic area - a Sorong GTP or a Lereh GTP - a New Jersey Corn snake or a Florida Corn snake - same thing.

Green Tree Pythons are tricky breeders - they won't breed every year, they only will accept specific mates, and there is no "proven formula" like most other reptiles. It is definitely part science and part art.

There is no doubt about it - hatching GTP eggs is a bitch.

It is our opinion that neonate GTP's are a bit like a piece of tissue paper - any error or problem is often fatal.

Ahhh parasites - the word strikes fear into the heart of reptile keepers everywhere.

What's that giant red turd sticking out of my snake? Why , that's his insides Johnny.

We like to answer questions - your questions are what we use to improve the information we present. So please feel free to email us if you think another topic should be covered in our care sheets or if there are questions we can answer for you.

Sappin Season is Here!

Sappin season has to be one of our favorite times of the year. During the early Spring, when the temperature rises above freezing during the day, and drops below freezing at night, the sap starts to "run" in the Sugar Maple trees. It is this sweet sap that is boiled down to make mapley syrup.

Here on the farm, we tap about 80 trees for our supply of syrup for the year, and some to give away. A small hole is drilled into the tree, and a spile is stuck into the hole. Some kind of collection vessel is then hung from the spile, and drop by drop the sap runs out of the tree. We use buckets like the ones shown in this picture, and gallon milk jugs too.

Perhaps the most fun part of sappin is driving the snowmobile around to collect the sap from the containers. This year our neighbor Charlie Snell and his son Chuck (shown with Amy in the photo below), made a fantastic sled wagon to pull behind the snowmobile. The runners on each side are old skis! Pretty neat!

Once the sap is collected, we bring it to the Sugar House - a special building designed just for boiling off the sap. The ratio of sap to syrup is about 30:1 - so for every gallon of syrup, that's 30 gallons of water that have to go up into the air. You can see why you wouldn't want to try this on your kitchen cook stove!

When all is said and done, we hope to have 10-15 gallons of syrup at the end of the season, which will get split up between everybody who pitched in. Its really amazing the sweet goodness that can be made from just a little tree sap and a hot fire!

Keeping Vaccinations on Schedule

There's something about March that makes us think Spring - we're sure its not the 2 feet of snow still lingering around the house - but somewhere in our brains, we know things are getting warmer. The days are a little longer, the sun seems a little brighter and we start to get just a little hopeful about planting that first seed in the garden.

One thing we have always dreaded about Spring is figuring out "who needs what" in the way of vaccinations. We'd sift through last year's receipts from the vet and little "notes to self" we'd made, getting frustrated and wasting a lot of time. This year, we decided it was time to get organized - so over the winter, we worked on a plan to make sure we keep all our ducks in a row when it comes to vaccinating every animal, on time.

Back in January, we asked our vet for a house call, to sit down over a pot of tea, and review all the vaccinations each species should be getting, and how often. What an enlightening experience that was. We learned a lot and found that we were sometimes giving vaccinations that weren't really necessary, and not giving some that we really "should" be. Most of all, we got a chance to look at our whole operation as one unit, and discovered many areas where we could be providing even better care for the animals.

After the meeting, we took a 2007 calendar, and created a vaccination schedule for the entire year based on our notes. If you have more than a few animals to keep track of, we highly recommend devising a simple system like this that will work for you.

Now, at the beginning of each month, we just look at the calendar and know instantly whether we need to schedule an appointment with the vet - and exactly "who needs what".