Virginia Cheeseman Blog

Time to slow down, the bug room is packed to 'almost' full capacity as Winter approaches. I must stop buying and do more selling. Much as I love all my bugs and enjoy pottering around in the bug room, it is ridiculous the amount of time I spend looking after everything. The baby snakes are doing well, I now have 5 feeding, only 15 to go! I think I was probably worrying unnecessarily as they all look healthy enough, it just seems that some begin to feed earlier than others. I say they are all healthy, one has a bent/deformed tail, I have named him Wonky. He was the last to hatch, hopefully he will be ok, time will tell. I was very excited a couple of days ago when I realised that one of my Tail-less Whip scorpions has a clutch of tiny babies on her back. I have been trying to breed these for ages, years in fact. I think I may have another two that are pregnant. Thankfully they are not like the true scorpions which seem to hang onto their young indefinitely, or at least unt...

A busy week with lots of new animals coming in and mountains of emails to answer. I bought in some lovely Chile scorpions, they are not large but most look like they may be pregnant. Still had no luck with my Imperial scorpions or Flat Rock but I certainly have plenty of Asian Black Forest scorpion babies. I bought in some new Desert Hairy scorpions, they are a lovely species and because they were cheaper than my last ones I have put them on special offer. Talking of offers, I set up another 10% discount code last weekend, I'm sure it has brought in more orders but it is due to finish quite soon. I spoke to my website guy yesterday, he has been working away from home and not been able to finish the upgrade on my site. I'm sure he will get it finished soon, there were a number of modifications that I had asked him to make so I think it has been a lot more complicated than he had anticipated. I received my winter supply of heat packs this week. I haven't had to use any y...

They have hatched! Snakes everywhere, goodness knows what I am going to do with them all. I have 19 as of today and there are still a couple more that could hatch. They are much the same colour (normal Corn snake colour I'm told) but they all have different markings, some have spots, some have stripes and some have both. I know they can be tricky to get feeding so I will report back next week on their progress. All very exciting but I would have been quite happy with just two or three! It has been a pretty busy week in the bug house, I have been sorting out my beetles. They are very popular pets this year, I intend to get some new ones soon. I will probably stick to the fruit eating species as they seem to do far better in captivity than the meat eating varieties (I say meat, generally crickets or other bugs). Millipedes too are popular this year, between the beetles and millipedes I am gradually switching from collecting armfuls of bramble to collecting leaf litter and rotten...

What to say? I usually have a theme in mind but I seem to have so much on my plate at the moment that nothing jumps out at me as a major topic. I had a lovely email sent as a result of my blog last week, regarding Winter postage (do I charge more or not? Indeed can I charge more, even though it costs me considerably more in the cold weather?). I have been given permission to put it in this week's blog. I think it is very nice and I always appreciate people taking the time to let me have their view on a topic. "Just read your recent blog and thought I'd give my opinion on the question you asked about postage costs. Personally I feel that it's irresponsible and senseless to worry about the postage costs as a buyer - it's great to see that your mortality rates seem to be lower than other sellers. Having a 'percentage of acceptable losses' highlights the fact that some people are in it for the business rather than the animal care, which I'm sure is why my...