Getting ready to make the trip to White Plains again.  Got a bunch of pre-sold racks/cages as usual.  If you have not attended this show I would recommend it.  Not the largest show but a good quality well established one.  Promoter has his head on right and that is everything.  Of course as life would have it the cnc router crapped out a few days ago.  Timing is always dead on with that thing?? Does it know??  One does wonder.  Of course running it non-stop all day might contribute as well.  Through the efforts of a very helpful guy at the manufacturer and the great expense of UPS overnight (both directions) with Saturday delivery on the way back in a 27lb box-we are back on track.  Now so long as nothing else breaks………

Looking forward to getting the misting equipment and display up to that show.  We did very well with it in Daytona and I am curious to see how it is received up there.  I have dabbled with it a bit and had some questions but I don’t think most people take it seriously unless they see it in action.  I will have the new temp alarms up there as well for people to play with.

Frank will be doing the MARS show in a couple of weeks so if any of you out there need a rack/cage or other specific item please email me.  We will have limited space so don’t dilly dally if you think you do.  He will have some thermostats, heat tape, heat panels, etc there as well.

Happy Trails……………

Made it back Monday afternoon.  What a show.  That one is a bunch of work to be sure but we did quite well, saw a lot of people that we deal with normally through the net and met a bunch more.  Exactly what we hope for when we do it.  And did it rain!

Misting went over very, very well.  Sales on it were good, response on it was great and I it looks like we have a winner!  The big surprise of the show was the dosing needles!  WOW, sold a ton of them there.  Hides went over quite well also.  Wish we had been able to bring more racks/cages-they were pretty much gone Saturday.  Overall I think the show was a bit smaller than it has been BUT attendance seemed to be about right and there was more than enough to look at.  As usual there were some good deals, and some not so good but there was something for everyone and plenty of opportunity to spend money.  I picked up a pair of hypo bulls from Rob Nimmo (Peace River) for Stu- he is expensive on them but they are the best.  They grow up to be absolutely unbelievable, he has worked on a really good line of them-check them out if you are into Pits.  Rob is a stand up guy and quite helpful.  Tom Stevens will get me talked into those white sided speckled kings one of these days as well………While they are worth every penny I am just “playing around” with the snakes these days so I will wait for the price a little longer.

Neil Golli will be by today or tomorrow on his way home, he did very well at the show and stayed down in Fl. for an extra day to wrestle with his albino gator.  Seems to me he isn’t quite big enough for that line of work but hey-its a cool gator.  Greg Graziani had one at his table to show off over the weekend.  Can’t wait to see if they can get some babies out of this project.

Frank about sold out of our snakes.  Got some nice adult corn morphs left for Raleigh as well as some killer albino hognose.  He will be set up at Raleigh with some of my dry goods as well so if you need heat panels, thermostats or hides he will be the man to see! 

Now we get ready to do it all over again in NY in 2 weeks, looks like Neil will meet up with us there again as well and I have to get on some serious re-stocking.  Got a few to build for Raleigh this weekend but not too bad.  Should have all that done tomorrow.

I have been testing and tinkering with a bunch of misting system parts and concepts for close to a year now.  I have had some of it up on the website for sale and had a pretty good response but have not really pushed it.  No kingsnake.com ads, aggressive search engine keywords, etc. 

That’s gonna change in Daytona this coming weekend.  This has been a slow and steady project for me as I have been kept quite busy.  Got in all the high output 3/8″ pumps, extra fittings, custom parts, etc.  I didn’t like some of the fittings originally available for the quick connect so I had a couple made for me.  Had to get a ton of them but I think it was well worth it.  Also got it all in black now except for the misting heads themselves (more pics to update on the site!).  Needed the black bulkheads to match and they took forever to be made!  Found a manufacturer that is quite willing to work with me and has some awesome high quality parts.  Fewer parts required, lower overall costs and fewer parts to leak or otherwise mess up-  And as I am learning quickly this year, more immunity to rising oil costs.  Anything palstic is on the rise, and quick.  Efficiency in design and execution is going to become more and more important in the coming years.  The way I like it!  Come check it out this weekend if you are going to be in Daytona and see what I have got.

Pretty much coming to a close on the cage and rack building for the show.  Been going like mad but it will come together in time.  Looking forward to the end of this Wednesday.  If it isn’t ready or packed by then it just won’t be.  I think it will be a very good show this year.

The Daytona show is a bit of a time marker for me.  A point in time to look at all that has been done-or not done- in the past year.  Kind of my “New Year”.  I have to say I really enjoy this business and all of the challenges that come with it.  Keeps me thinking and moving about all the time.  I have been quite fortunate to have a great customer base and some good guys to work with.  Like any industry there are the good, the bad and the ugly but overall it is very, very good.  We have good business and/or personal relationships with a couple of other cage makers, tempgun makers and breeders and though we trip over each other occasionally it is quite refreshing to be reminded that you don’t have to be at war with one another all the time even in an industry as small as this one.

We have tables 452, 453, 378, 379, 380 at the show.  Neil Golli will be set up right next to us again this year at tables 450-451.  Beside myself we will have Dr. Lew (good friend and reptile guy), Scott Seavey and Frank (the animal guys).  Unfortunately a lot of our regulars can not attend this show, quite a few do and it is always nice to get to talk to them-even if only briefly.  Attach a face to the name, email address and voice.  Stop by if you can.

Wait till you see what is cooking for next year!

Well I got doen playing with the new alarms and I am pretty happy.  These will be a very welcome addition to our hobby/business and I have no doubt they will help save countless animals and eggs.

I added them to the site this morning so you can check them out.  They are currently “out of stock” on the site waiting for them to arrive middle of next week.  I will probably not make them active for sale until after the Daytona show.  Please email with any questions or comments on these exciting new products at sales@reptilebasics.com

Looks like we are bringing several racks/cages after all.  Hard to know what to bring to this show.  Oddly, it is not usually a huge sellout on racks at the Daytona expo, I think it is because so many people fly in or travel from a pretty good distance.  If you have any specific orders for pickup please let me know in the next day or so.  Want to check them out first?  We will have an assortment of several for sale.

I am also looking at an alarm system for your reptiles.  Being in this business for some time now I have talked to thousands of you out there and a recurring story among many of you that have decent size collections for many years is the overheating saga.  The cause and consequences vary some but the theme is generally the same, huge losses and very discouraging. 

This gadget has wireless temp sensors that can be set up on either the room as a whole or individual cages/racks/incubators.  The main station can “talk” to up to 15 sensors.  It will call up to 9 phone #’s (gee, is that enough?) and play back a message if a  user defined high/low threshold is reached.   Pretty neat I think and with about everyone having cell phones on them it should be pretty effective .  Cost on the main station looks like a little over $100 and the sensor stations about $45-$50 each which isn’t too bad and it does notneed a monthly monitoring service.  Once you have it your done, it just needs a phone line to call out.  Battery backup as well.  I think of how much money I have living in the room and that is pretty darn cheap really.  Not to mention the time and work in it that I really don’t need to cook.  Snakes might not mind it as well??  Seems like pretty good peace of mind at a reasonable cost.  I am playing with one to make sure it works like it says but it seems pretty much a no-brainer.  If I decide to go with it I will hopefully have some in time for this show.   Either way, watch for them pretty soon.

Got this done a little while ago- Looking pretty nice.  Got our “escape test” leucistic Texas Rat still in the cage.  I am going to give him a couple of days and if he can’t get out I think we are set!

The stacking brackets are shown on the right.  Goes together real easily and the cages are “tied” to one another-no slipping apart.

This looks pretty simple but like most things……One of the early problems was adding weight in the upper cages.  We set up a little bit of a bow to pre-stress the floors so the upper cages weight doesn’t pinch the doors below.  This also keeps the Sliding 1/4″ acrylic doors from popping off the track with out direct help from the user.  I have had adult corns manage this caper in the past with relatively light acrylic doors.  The doors use a simple locking pin to keep the animal from opening them.  If needed I have a sliding case lock that will go on here but that is optional.  It looks like the price on these will be $74.99 plus shipping.  I need to look at boxes but I should be able to ship up to three cages for the same price as one since they can “nest”. 

I know-I am working on the optional litter dam now.

Well, got two weeks before I have to leave for Florida.  Got the misting display about 98% together and working yesterday.  I have a couple of more custom made parts to get here for this project before I really start pushing it.  I would really like that to be in time for the show, been tinkering with this stuff for several months now and it is time to get it done so I can focus more on a couple of other things. 

Talked to Neil yesterday, he has a couple of more rack orders for the show in Daytona.  We have kind of reached critical mass and now we are looking at the possibility of bringing a trailer load after all.  If any of you want to pick up a rack/cage at that show now is the time to let me know!!  If we can get enough to fill the trailer we will bring it.  The decision will be made one way or the other by this weekend-it will be tight building enough as it is.  Always an adventure.

Got in a few new items yesterday.  We have added a nice cage hook (24″), a large pair of hemostats (18″) and a less expensive probe set to the line.  I have had requests on all of these items so decided to give them a try.  They are all in the “Husbandry/Heat Pack” category. 

I also spent the night sorting through the mother load of dosing needles-Now I get to take pictures of them all for the site!  What a fun afternoon. 

Finally all of the Leuc. Texas rats are out of the egg.  Also have most of the Cal Kings out now as well.  Got yet another “surprise” clutch from a PastelxSpider breeding so a few more chances for some Bees this season.  Balls have been so late it kind of makes me wonder what will happen for next season??