My girl laid sooner than I expected and it’s unknown if this is her first clutch or not (though I suspect it is). She laid all successfully, no retained eggs or prolapse, and she’s back on food. 8 eggs no slugs! Laid Weds night to Thurs morning. I noticed the eggs around 12:45pm yesterday (Thurs) when I went in to change her water and add some to the substrate to increase humidity a bit.
These ARE however, the first eggs that I’ve ever handled or seen in person.
Photo taken right after I removed them and started gently separating what I could. How do these look? They aren’t as perfect/uniform as I’m used to seeing in clutch videos and photos. I know variety is natural, but I’m wondering if anything here indicates troubles or deficiencies (like calcium) in the mother or if all is well.
Ah that’s good to hear. Figured best to check juuuuust in case there’s something I’m not aware of or just isn’t at the forefront of my mind.
Ultramel x Leopard
I’m after those hets specifically from my boy he did throw some weird babies at his previous home so he MIGHT have something else at play, but I believe he’s just a nice ultramel. We shall see
Woo hoo! Congratulations on your/her first successful clutch! I’m not a breeder either but I’m still proud of you and her! And excited to see what hatches!
Nice eggs! Great 8 egg clutch, especially if she was a first time mom! Since snakes eat whole prey items it is unusual to have any significant amount of calcium deficiency. Good luck with incubation!
Thanks! I thought so but figured it would be worth asking, I know I’ve heard of some people dusting frozen thawed with calcium just in case but maybe that was a species specific thing.
Now I’m just hoping my colubrids are successful next.
Wow! I never thought about the benefit of whole prey items and calcium but the connection makes sense! Actually I have never heard of dusting a rodent with calcium anyway?
It used to be recommended in older texts sometimes, for gravid females. Thought the windows or thinner spots in the egg were due to being calcium deficient. With snakes, this is not needed.
Just wanted to update! They started pipping 2 days ago! (I snipped 2 of their slits open a bit more, bc they stuck their head through the smaller of the 2 slits they made and couldn’t pull their head back in)
All but 3 are out of their eggs as of right now, I plan to take an updated photo when I get home tonight. Waiting for the last three to come out before ai move them out of the incubator. Realizing now that the vermiculite is kinda messy.
I used to use vermiculite, had to give the babies a shallow swim after they came out to clean them off. Those particles are tiny! I switched to coarse perilite years ago and never had a problem. Both work great to hold humidity though! Congrats on the pips! Update more when you can!
It’s definitely gotten messier with them all slithering around!
Here’s the 7! Gently cleaned off and only temporarily in that bin, which now has a spread clump of moss for humidity and is back in the incubator next to the eggs bin.
Do they look ok? No kinks or other abnormalities that I noticed, all responsive/active or balled up and tongue flicked as expected. One was a real mover haha. I’ll take more photos after their first sheds.
I didn’t realize one was still in the egg til I was almost done cleaning off of the siblings. Soooo, just waiting on that last baby to come out on their own! Hoping they are ok and just taking their time.
Empty egg question: One of the hatched eggs has some red fluid at the bottom, is that normal, or did someone not absorb everything? It seems to just be the fluid, nothing yolky or chunky left behind.
Nice! I definitely see a leopard or two! All look great from these pics, the red in the bottom could be fluid from the cord when it broke off or from the sack when the snake broke the shell, nothing to worry about. This is the ONLY time in their entire lives snakes are actually a little slimy😂
life isn’t always clean and easy, sometimes it’s a little messy! Great success on this clutch, well done! Keep the post shed pics coming!
I’ll tell her to be proud of her dino eggs!!
