Welcome to "The Niblet", two quirky exotic animal breeders sharing a taste of the farm life.

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

A Showgirl Named Billie

Last week we took one of our Shire Horse mares, West Fen Billie, to the Skowhegan Fair Draft Horse and Pony Show. This was the first time Amy had been in a horse show since she was a kid, and boy did she have a great time. Amy & Billie took 5th place in their class - not bad for two amateurs!

We realize the picture above may be slightly deceptive... Billie is a HUGE horse... butt with Amy standing next to her, they look pretty balanced. So we decided to include this picture too. This is Amy & Ross with Ross' sister Beth, her husband Chris and their daughter Yvette. Draft Horses raised by Draft People? We may be on to something here!

Billie is in foal to the fabulous Isle Field Danny Boy - a well known, Grand Champion stallion. We're expecting her foal at the end of February. Feel free to email us if you're interested.

2008 Snake Breeding Plans

When the dog days of summer roll around, its time to plan for the next python breeding season here at Spruce Nubble Farm. People often ask us how pairing decisions are made and it actually isn't all that complicated.

We begin the process by eliminating females, Luna and Bingo laid eggs in 2007 so they need to rest a year. Some of our girls are too small and fortunately none of them have any health problems at this time that would prevent a good breeding.

Among the Lereh Types we have three girls – Poundcake, Tetris, and Jenga – and all of them will be part of our Capondro program. They'll be bred with our high tan / reduced black carpet male Gandolph, some of you may remember he bred Bingo (another Lereh type) last year and was proven fertile.

Our Aru Type Phoenix was bred in 2007 but didn't produce eggs or ovulate so she'll be bred with our Aru male George again. In addition Yuma, a young mixed type (but mostly Aru) girl will be placed with George.

With Luna getting a rest our Sorong type female Juliette will be bred to Orion, our bug eyed Sorong type boy. We also have a few (as yet unnamed) Sorong males as backups which may be used if Orion and Juliette don't show good interest in each other.

Pongo and Laverne will be bred to as yet undetermined males but probably some of the 2005 up and comers we have held aside.

We'll have two female Carpondros ready for the coming season, Carlita and Rosa will be bred with Butch in an ongoing effort to prove the fertility of these animals. There are two clutches of carpondro x carpondro eggs cooking this season we are aware of and we are very hopeful about those.

Our carpet female Snoopy will be paired with a Biak type male Fook in another effort to produce Carpondros.

So in total we'll have eleven females in the program in 2008, eight Green Tree Pythons, two Carpondros, and one Carpet Python. As of now these girls are ona heavy feeding program and we're trying to polish them into absolutely perfect shape before the season begins. It is worth noting here that even the best laid plans do change; if any of our females develop any problems they'll be removed from our program for this year.

About the 15th of December we'll begin cycling (cooling) the animals involved with the breeding program and getting them ready for pairing up in Mid January. They'll breed for a few months and we'll hopefully be reporting on eggs in early to mid summer next year, a few months before it'll be time to plan the 2009 season.