1999 began as a banner year, with six females producing clutches containing at least some fertile eggs, including the first-ever babies from my Calico male, as well as from my Lemon Tree bloodline female Lilly.   I also had two 100% hatches with the Blue diamond and Joan Collins clutches.

Sadly, 1999 also included some disappointments as well as an outright disaster.  First, a power outage during the final week of artificial incubation resulted in the loss of much of the Lilly clutch.   Then, a thermostat in a brooding incubator stuck on, killing all the eggs in the Original Green clutch.  Finally, I lost almost twenty babies from four bloodlines in May, June, and July due to a mysterious toxin that caused massive liver damage.   The symptoms were consistent with poisoning from an insecticide such as flea medication, but the true source has never been proved.  Needless to say, those were dark days for me, after having begun the year so well.

The losses resulted in very few animals being offered as yearlings in 2000, as I added most of those that survived to my breeding stock.  The good news is that they all turned out to be very attractive animals, and a few are truly high-end.  These include the second known calico male, Calico Junior, as well as two high yellow females, Grace and Chiquita.

This year started off slowly after 1999's boom crop, with a couple of false pregnancies as well as some uninterested pairs, resulting in only one clutch of three babies hatching by the end of May.  In addition, several females were given the year off, or had a late start, due to the 1999 successes.   However, two more clutches hatched in the fall.  Seven babies were hatched in September, and a clutch of thirteen hatched in late October 28.

I experienced a great year in 2001, with healthy babies being hatched from four different clutches, including the exciting April calico clutch.  Buttermilk finally saw her second clutch of babies hatch, and a small but very valuable clutch of babies were produced from blue parents.  The big disappointment for the year came with Lilly failing to produce good eggs in late December.  Several new breeders were acquired for the collection this year including a Lemon tree male and an outstanding pair of wild caught Aru types, as well as some choice babies from Walsh and Goetzger clutches.  The future looks bright!

2002 began with an outstanding little clutch of Biak outcross offspring that hatched in March.  A second clutch of 6 blue mite phase babies hatched in August.  Several high end pairs failed to produce offspring this year, including the big disappointment of the year, slugs from Aquaman x My Song.  I did not have as much time as usual to devote to breeding this year, due to my writing and photography schedule for The Complete Chondro.

Two large clutches,19 and 22 eggs respectively, started off the year.  Both were sired by high-end, unproven males, and both contained all yellow offspring - an unusual occurrence for me.  A special event followed, the hatching of five Aru type babies from the only pair of wild-collected parents in my breeding collection.  Characteristic of Arus, the babies were yellow too.  I proclaimed this "The Summer of Gold!"

An outstanding year for high end chondros at Fine GTPs, with almost 60 babies produced and the third generation of calicos to hatch.  Also of note:  The Pepper clutch sired by the cousin of the Salceies albino.  The two larger clutches represent some of the best specialty morph, selectively bred chondros to have been hatched anywhere in the world to date, and demonstrate that Fine GTPs is the leader in the designer breeding of chondros.

Severe early winter storms had a noticeable positive effect on chondro breeding in the mid west during the 2005 breeding period.  The first clutch was laid in early December, two more were deposited in January, another in February, and two final clutches were laid in March.  Although a couple pairs produced small clutches, over sixty babies were hatched, making this another good year for production of selectively bred chondros from multiple bloodlines and morphs.