Saturday, December 15th, 2007
But instead I’ll tell you about my soon to be “opened” blog and offer
ONE lucky winner $100.00. I know you can’t wait to hear about the new blog so we’ll talk about that for a few moments first and then I’ll tell you how you might have a chance of winning $100.00 from me.
I’ve been resisting blogging in a niche, enjoying the freedom a nicheless blog affords. That however is about to change. That’s right I have decided to go into a niche. I’ll answer some questions I expect to receive about this change.
- What niche?
- The topic of the niche will be snakes in general, Ball Pythons in particular.
- Why that topic?
- There are a few reasons I’ve chosen this topic, but taken as a whole it really goes to the heart of how you should choose your niche, whatever that might be. My process was as follows:
- I considered various topics
- I started by asking myself a few questions:
- What topics do I know enough about to teach other people about?
- What topics interest me enough to keep talking about them?
- What topics aren’t saturated in the blogging world?
- What topics will I enjoy learning more about as I go?
- What topics will benefit others by virtue of more education?
- I narrowed the topics down
- Once I had decided on the topics I then had to narrow it down to just one particular topic. That process looked something like this:
- What topic do I just not understand enough to write about? Biblical studies
- What topic do I know about, but I know I won’t stick with it? Pit Bulls
- What topic am I just not interested in at this point? Make money blogging
- I narrowed my focus
- By now I had decided I would be blogging about snakes. The next step was to dial in the niche microscope and decide exactly what snake species I would blog about. This led me to asking myself even more questions.
- What snakes do I have hands on experience with? Burmese pythons, Reticulated pythons, Columbian boas, Ball pythons, King snakes, Corn snakes, and a few others
- What snake can I get my hands on on short order without breaking the bank? Corn, Kings, Boas, and Balls
- What snake can I support in terms of housing and food? Balls,Corns, and Kings
- Which snake out of those do I prefer? Ball pythons
By now I had decided the general topic (snakes) and a targted niche (Ball pythons). I had even considered further focusing my niche to the breeding and husbandry of Ball pythons, but decided I would rather not limit my options by getting that tightly focused.
That in a nutshell is why I decided to start my new blog about Ball pythons. Nothing fancy, just some educated consideration. The moral is to blog about what you know, blog about what you’ll stick with, and blog about what someone will read.
What about this blog?
This blog will remain largely unchanged. I will continue posting 3 to 5 articles per week on this blog as I have been doing. And here’s a special announcement for everyone to makes sure you’re paying attention: Be the 150th person to subscribe to this blog via email rss (link in upper right corner) and I’ll send you a $35.00 Amazon dot com gift certificate. I’ll let everyone know a winner next Thursday (and this time I’ll be kind and gentle about it…) If it hasn’t reached 150 by then we’ll keep going until it does. Now back to our regularly scheduled blogging. You’ll notice a lot more guest posts here. If you’d like to submit a guest post for consideration please feel free to email it to me in full and I will review it. If I like what I see I will post it on this blog.
When will your new blog be up and running?
I plan to have it up and running by January 1. It might be up before that depending on how long it takes me to finish up writing the pillar posts
What’s this I hear about $100?
Back here again are we? Ok here’s how it will work. On the day that the new blog opens I will write an article with about 20 questions (give or take 5 or so) pertaining to information found in the pillar posts on the new blog. Answer the questions by sending an email to the address supplied in the contest article and one of two things will happen. Either you will qualify, or not (meaning you’ll either get ALL the questions right, or you won’t). If no one qualifies for the prize by answering the questions correctly the contest ends and noone wins the money (or in my case loses it). On the other hand if only one person answers the questions right they’ll be sent $100.00. If multiple people answer properly I’ll assign each person a number and choose the winner using random.org. Think about it all you need to do is answer some questions and you might be able to win $100.00! Think how nice that extra $100.00 will come in after your spending sprees over Christmas!
Will you tell us when the new blog is open?
Sure can. I’ll announce it on this blog among other places
Do you think the new blog will succeed or fail? Why? Will $100.00 encourage you to read the articles? You answers won’t matter the offer is on the table (so to speak) and you’re eligible to enter regardless of what your answers are.
Posted in Blogging | 7 Comments »
Tuesday, December 11th, 2007
Snakes are one of God’s greatest inventions of the animal kingdom. They are absolutely stunning in every sense of the word. Videos courtesy of
youtube (and their respective uploaders). Any video that says
WARNING contains footage of a strike/kill/feeding so if that bothers you don’t watch it. You’ve been warned!
But before we get going lets take a few things into consideration.
Google Images
- Not everyone will appreciate your new found friend. Ask those who will be living with it BEFORE you buy one
- Snakes are predators and they can appear brutal, but when compared to most peoples table manners they’re quite endearing
- Prey animals don’t like to die and they WILL scream when they are being constricted. Keep this in mind when you’re showing it off to people because not everyone will be as appreciative of feeding time as you are
- Every snake is a unique personality. Just like every other living creature. Because one snake likes to sleep curled up in your pocket doesn’t mean its brood mate will
- Snake grow. Some such as the Burmese python (who we’ll take a good look at a little later) can get huge! Over 20 feet and 200 pounds. Others only a couple of feet and a few pounds. Keep this in mind as you’re looking for a snake to buy
- Snakes can live well over 20 years. That’s a long term commitment. Be sure you are ready, willing, and able
- Never ever attempt to scare someone with your snake. They are misunderstood as it is the last thing we need is for some poor granny to keel over dead because you shoved your pet snake “Gertrude” in her face
- When adopting get one that is captive hatched, already feeding (be sure to see it happening to verify), and local to your area so you can pick it up
There are a ton more “rules” I could list out, but lets get started with the fun stuff.
Google Images
- Ball Python (Python regius)
- The Ball Python (sometimes called a Royal python) is known for being docile and shy. It grows to be about 3-4 feet in length when full grown and gets its common name from the fact will often coil up into a ball when frightened. Consistent handling will help this snake overcome its shyfulness however don’t be alarmed if it still coils into a ball. That is the nature of the animal.
One problem with this snake is that they are known to stop eating for no apparent reason. Snakes can go a long time without food so it isn’t always as big a problem as it might seem. It seems to happen most frequently in wild caught specimens and that’s a good reason as any to get a captive hatched one.
Experience level: Intermediate beginner. I would go with beginner except the fact that these snakes are known to stop eating and getting them to feed again can be quite a chore.
Aggressiveness: Very low. Will sometimes strike out of fear, but is much much more likely to coil up into a ball.
Food:
- Baby - Pinkies
- Adolescent - Full grown mice, gerbils, etc
- Adult - Rats and similar sized rodents
Of course every snake is different so one might be dining on large rats while another of the same size will only eat mice.
Price: It depends on the age and marking (pattern)of the snake but expect anywhere from $50.00 to several hundred dollars. The difference in price is usually only a matter of their appearance and really has nothing to do with things like temperment.
And now for a few videos of our friend the Ball Python in action. The first one is a baby only a few months old and the second is a full grown adult.
In the next few days we’ll spend some time with a 20 foot plus beauty and learn what it takes to handle an animal like that.
Posted in snake series | 25 Comments »
