Poking in here again to see if I can get a more definitive answer!
I’ve been leaving my two hognoses together for the past couple of months, and I assume they’ve been copulating. The female did have an increased appetite and I fed her either prekilled rat pups or f/t mice twice a week (she seems to take both just fine so I will switch it up occasionally)
I didn’t see any actual locks, but I did see a lot of this:
When I offered her midweek meal tonight, she just hissed and puffed at it. Normally she would have launched herself into the air with her mouth open trying to get at it. It’s kinda funny to watch, actually.
I gave her a few minutes to calm down just in case it was because I had startled her, and tried again only for her to continue hissing at the rat pup.
Could this mean she is going into a prelay shed? I’m leaning on the side of yes, but it’s always a relief for my poor mind if I hear from more experienced people
Oh! I also forgot to mention, she did seem to gain weight dramatically as well:
Gonna also add that she’s gotten kinda grumpy towards me as well, hissing and puffing up at me when I touch her. If I pick her up she calms down a bit, but she normally wouldn’t hiss at me unless I startled her
She’s also spending most of her time on the heat right now, curled up in a circle… wonder if she thinks she’s a ball python
I’m not sure I am a very good judge. I don’t want to try to guess.
You should have a DM for someone that can definitely help. I don’t want to toss them under the bus publicly, so check your DMs.
I found a single slug in her tub this morning, and gave her a lay box to lay the rest in.
I’ve been checking in on her every few hours, but have not seen any more eggs so far… should I be giving her more privacy?
I don’t want to be disturbing her too much but I also don’t want eggs sitting for too long if I can help it.
Alright, thanks for the quick reply! I’ll wait until the end of the day before I check again, instead of checking every few hours… just hoping she doesn’t slug out on me, that’d be rather unfortunate if she did.
Correct when an animal is laying regardless of the species you definitely want to leave them alone so they can feel secure and proceed. Keep in mind this is a time when they feel vulnerable.
Yeah, fair enough. Just me being overexcited over getting my first clutch of hoggie eggs next will be the ball python eggs, just waiting on that as well!
Small update! She laid some more, three eggs have good looking veins (the third one doesn’t look fully calcified but has visible veins so I’ll incubate it anyways… she laid it right after we pulled the other two)
She’s got more to go so I’ll check later for more eggs. Super excited!
All 6 came out healthy, and I turned out with 2 males and 4 females. I’m keeping one female that looks really red in coloration, and the remaining ones I believe will all have been spoken for. Nobody really breeds them in my area so I’ve had a lot of people interested
As of today, 3 of the 6 babies have eaten. I tried f/t pinky mice twice to no avail, then this time tried live unscented, and sure enough those 3 ate once I left them alone. Look at how plump the little one looks!
The other 3 I have placed into deli cups with the live mice, with the lid on and back in their regular tubs. Hopefully that’ll get their attention to the mice and they’ll eat for me as well.
I did NOT expect my female to be gravid as she was paired in September and was gravid in February haha. Anyway, she was super hissy at me towards the end and an absolute nightmare. She was also showing intense nesting behaviour just the few days before she lay. Your female definitely shows all the signs, esp the hissy attitude and rapid weight gain!
