Mocha, my plains hognose, laid two clutches for me last year, one with 7 healthy eggs and I think 4 slugs, and then she completely slugged out her second clutch.
I started pairing her again in late December, and caught multiple copulations between her and Mango:
She for sure has gained a ton of girth in her back end, just like she did last year. She’s also in shed now, so I think she’s going through a prelay shed!
Moved her to a bigger tub, so she has plenty of space. I added a humid laybox with spagnum moss, but I’m wondering if it might be too small for her. She laid in the same type of container last year, but has grown a bit bigger since then as well.
Either way, really excited for more hoggie babies!
Got her a bigger laybox setup, with a tub I found at the dollar tree. Her eyes are starting to clear up, so she’ll likely shed here in the next couple of days. Then we wait 5-14 days or so for her to lay! She didn’t make me wait too long last year, so she’ll hopefully lay quick this year too.
Sure enough, I checked on her today and found two slugs; one in her laybox, and one outside her laybox. Hopefully the rest comes soon, and she lays some healthy eggs!
So far I’ve only been finding slugs here and there. 4 as of now.
She seems really flighty, and hasn’t been staying in her laybox. She doesn’t look as thick as she did before, but she also doesn’t look like she’s quite done laying.
I’ll update this with a pic of her, I didn’t grab one while I was checking.
EDIT: Per my expectations, she had already left her laybox again so I was able to grab these two pics:
I’m just worried she’s gonna slug out on her first clutch, or that maybe she decided to eat the good eggs.
I know there’s the second clutch, but still. I’d like to have some babies to incubate now!
She laid yet another slug. Restless and all over the place, in and out of her laybox… I took a look at her and she looks to have a few eggs in her still.
I’m not sure why she’s taking so long this time, last time she laid one slug and then laid the rest of her clutch the next day. Could anyone maybe help me out here? I’m really concerned about her.
In my experience, if they start off laying slugs, they’ll continue to. I’ve only had 1 instance where a female laid 2 fertile eggs in a clutch with 4 - 6 slugs.
Give her a week, maybe slow down on the frequency that you’re checking in on her. That tends to cause them a TON of stress, so they’ll hold their eggs. In a day or 2, offer her a small meal. Sometimes that helps get things going enough for them to drop the rest of the eggs
I will keep that in mind. I’ve only been checking on her once or twice a day, I’ll give her a day without checking and see if she calms down enough to finish laying then. Thank you!
Please keep us updated! I went through this with my snow girl last year, but it resulted in a $1k surgery. I’m hoping your girl passes her without issue
I checked again today, and she’s passed 6 slugs now. Not as flighty as before, so I think giving her 12+ hours between checks is good. I can tell she’s looking less chunky and the eggs/slugs are moving down her oviduct(?).
Though I wonder what caused her to slug out (if she does completely slug out) — I fed her an adult mouse twice a week, and saw multiple locks with my male. Same male as last year.
I didn’t brumate them like I did last year, so I wonder if that was the issue? Last year I set them up in our incubator (with fridge part running) and had the door cracked open to maintain the temps I wanted + giving circulation.
I tried a different method this time where I went the 2 weeks without food to clear their systems, then unplugged their heat for 1 month before plugging it back in and resuming feeding + pairing.
However, I think the issue was that our room heater was sitting closer to the rack they’re in, so the temps weren’t really particularly cold on one side.
I know if hog breeders that don’t burmate and still have successful clutches. However it isn’t something to rule out either. But -just- because they may not have burmated doesn’t immediately mean bad clutches. How old is she?
I don’t know her exact age, I bought her as an adult in November 2019 at an expo. She was 250 grams last year, and was 280 grams this year when I started pairing. Again I upped her feeding to 1 adult mouse each Wednesday and Saturday, so she should have had plenty of nutrition to build eggs.
Last year she produced a clutch with 7 good eggs and I think 4 slugs, then on her second clutch she completely slugged out.
I paired her with the same male as well.
As an update, we’re up to 12 slugs now I believe. She looks pretty empty but I’ll give her a few days longer before I attempt to feed
agree with 
