Advice regarding potential gravid female

Nope, letting her crawl over your hand won’t hurt her or her eggs. It’s true that you should generally avoid handling when they’re heavily gravid, but gentle handling is fine when done sparingly. In nature, they move around when gravid. If she’s accustomed to handling, simply moving over your hand has zero chance of causing problems. Support her body well when lifting her and all will be well.

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Definitely exciting :laughing:

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Perfect thank you will try that once shes shed and looking to come out

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Don Soderburg, if you don’t know, literally wrote the book on corn snakes. He personally told me that he makes his gravid females run through his fingers—clenched tightly—because when they used their muscles to struggle and wiggle through his grip, it reduced the number of times his females became egg bound. I don’t tell you this to make you worry about egg binding, but I do tell you so that you rest assured: you definitely won’t hurt her or her babies if you gently feel her belly for eggs.

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Wow thats crazy and iv been worried about just handling her :rofl: great to know shell be fine
I waited forever for her iv wanted a yellow snake called banana since i was a kid (40this yr​:astonished:)
And finally get her in 24
This is just after i got her

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She’s beautiful! And now she’s going to be a mama! So happy for you. There’s nothing like watching the miracle of life.

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I’m so glad you got your snake at last.

Too funny about Don’s method, lol. I don’t make my gravid girls squiggle, at least not late in the game, but I do keep handling them at least until they go blue. Good muscle tone logically contributes to healthy laying, so it’s the same idea I guess. In nature they would be out and about. In captivity, not so much.

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Personally, I’m of @caryl’s opinion. I don’t squeeze them, but I do like to get them out and about. Only trouble is, it seems they’re always digesting because I’m trying to keep their calories up, so it’s hard to find the right window of time to hold them! :joy:

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This girl spend her day in her log and its impossible to get her out unfortunately so i dont get to hold her as much as id like
Wgen shes not in there it can be difficult to get her out anyway as her vivs rather cluttered

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There is that :rofl: should i continue to feed once shes shed?
Iv looked online and some say to offer but she may refuse others say not to after shed as she could get egg bound from it :thinking:
We fed her Saturday and she took it
Pic from last night hanging out her fave log :joy::rofl:

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There’s a lot of differing advice about feeding after the prelay shed. The theory is that you don’t want to have lots of bulk in her digestive tract which might potentially interfere with labor and egglaying. I personally offer a couple of fuzzies or a hopper right after that prelay shed. Most take the meal. Most dams fully digest that and pass it through several days before they lay. I don’t think I’ve ever had one have trouble laying after having that meal. Assuming that she’s in good shape, the female probably doesn’t require the extra little boost but as I say, I have had good luck doing it.

If I were you, I would be removing a whole lot of decor from that enclosure before your female lays. She may choose a weird spot where you can’t get to her, can’t see how she’s progressing, couldn’t easily get hold of her if vetcare is needed etc. Give her a nest box or two with a lid you can remove, filled with moist sphagnum. Make it easy for he to choose wisely. At minimum, the water dish should be replaced my a smaller one which she can’t lie in, even partially. Females looking for moist depressions will sometimes lay eggs in water dishes, resulting in drowned eggs.

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Thank you again for the great reply
She took the mouse Saturday and shed sunday night
Wont be due again till Saturday so il leave it now until after she lays if she lays
Iv cleared out lots of clutter and will add smaller water dish
Also need to try find another tub all mine are clear would it be best to try find a black one?

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Since she ate and then shed the next day, I would let that be the last feeding until after she lays. Looks like you’ve made some great changes for to encourage safe laying. I can’t tell 100% how large the opening is on the nest box. If it isn’t already 2x-3x the size of your female, it is a good idea to enlarge it to that size.

Clear is fine. I prefer it. Mine get clear plastic shoeboxes positioned so that I can shine a light into them without opening the enclosure and disturbing the mother to be. I do this a couple of times each day more or less to accustom them to me doing it. I also open the enclosure daily. Of course mine are very much used to me putting my hands on them, getting them out etc. Some are more naturally shy, and some become nervous as they near laying. :grimacing: I do minimize bothering them and stick more with the light twice daily.

Within the last couple of days before laying, the majority of females will have chosen their nest box. They scoot most of the moss to the side where the opening is and create a hollow with little to no moss on the floor which is where they’ll lay the eggs. If the moss about half fills the nest box without her in it, that’s about perfect. Sometimes they go on a mad search around the enclosure during the final hours before egg laying. If she does this, don’t open the enclosure. Stay calm and check on her and she will most likely get down to business in a nest box.

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Thank you
The hole is big enough for her to fit in and come back out in one go as she demonstrated earlier​:rofl: unfortunately i dodnt get pictures
Iv put another big hide with moss in as i couldnt find another tub and iv got an old ceramic cat water bowl for her in there
But shes looking smaller to me so im now completely confused if she is or isn’t gravid :thinking:
Im not a patient person so the wait is a killer

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Still looking gravid to me. Here’s why. If you’ll pardon me marking up your photo, the fact that she gets noticeably bulgier from the blue line back to her vent rather than being chunky all over is one indicator. The other biggie is the triangular shape she’s taken on towards her rear portions.

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Thats perfect and good to help me see for future reference
Iv set the incubator up at 28c and its staying with 0.2 of that
Iv pit a govee thermometer in a tub of perlite pic of the temp
The humidity says 99.9 but i only wet the perlite to were it clumps but when sqeezed no water comes out is that still ok?

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4 days since she shed and i got her to go over my hands again im 95% sure i felt what feel like marbles/pearls but they felt smaller than what i thought they’d feel like :thinking:
Is that a bad sign or do they just feel small from outside normally ?
Felt atleast 5 but she only went over my hand once as im still worried il hurt her or the eggs :grimacing:

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I’m terrible at feeling for eggs. I’m better at visual assessment, but in the end, they’ll lay eggs or they won’t. If you give them a properly set up lay box, you just have to wait. :slight_smile:

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Very wise words from Dean. If she’s got a good place to lay and she’s gravid, she will lay. Nothing for you to do but wait. Easy, right? Lol okay, maybe not easy but we’re all still stuck doing it. Probably between 7-14 days after that shed, with most of mine going between 7-10 days.

Temps sound good for the incubator. I always use sphagnum rather than perlite, so I’ll let someone else give specific advice on that, but it sounds correct to me fwiw.

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I prefer sphagnum moss as well—a good one that hasn’t been compressed and 100% dried out or it will mold—but I imagine you’ll be okay in perlite for the lay box.

I did have trouble (and know others who have had trouble), with molding eggs from using perlite for incubation, though. If you incubate on vermiculite or sphagnum, I think you’ll have better odds than perlite in the long term. Vermiculite and good sphagnum, as I understand them, are better at mold control.

Now that I’ve given my two cents, though, I also know people who regularly incubate on perlite and they think it’s great. So the decision is ultimately yours.

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