Unsure if shes ovulating or gravid is it to hard to tell just by the pic and does it at least look like somthing positive is happening thanjs in advance.
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When has she been paired?
Have you palpated her?
How’s her feeding habits?
If she’s hanging out on the cooler side I would think ovy.
If you can maybe get a photo of her stretched out that may help.
On the other hand… I have had a girl come down with a horrendous case of gas and look like she was going through an ovy as well. Which was impossible as she had just laid a month prior. Lol.
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Been pairing every other week from September with the odd break when in shed she hasent eaten in the last 4 weeks never misses a meal normally i wouldnt be confident palpating her unless its obvious whens theres eggs there and mostly cool side id say.
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Sounds and looks like you may have a surprise coming. But there are never any guarantees.
Do you know how you are going to incubate yet? I would have a plan and have things ready and tested, if the mother is not going to do it herself.
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I have a incubator ready with a few tubs i have the vermiculite and egg crate for them to sit on.
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Hold her vertical with one hand kind of towards the head end such that the bottom half is dangling. If the bottom third looks like she swallowed a football, that’s an ovulation . The bulge from ovulation can be as short as 24 hours, so if you’re not looking for it you can miss it. Don’t dangle her long as it can’t be comfortable, but just long enough for an observation. After ovulation the bulge shrinks back to normal.
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It’s a lot easier to see what stage you are in breeding, when the animal isn’t quite so overweight. Based on the picture, I’m gonna guess that she’s gravid. After she lays this clutch, I would suggest backing off on the feed a little bit to keep her a little leaner the next go around. She’ll live a lot longer that way too.
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Does it feel like she has a pronounced ridge to her back, sort of like an upside down V with her spine being the point of the V?
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Daym i didnt think i was over feeding ill definitely spread it out in future thanks for the advice.
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Yes been looking for that thats just come up.
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I only feed my adults a small or medium rat every two week throughout the majority of the year. I stop feeding them entirely for at least the month of January. Very few species actually eat all year long. Most have a 1-3 gap in food availability. On top of us generally overfeeding them, we feed them fattier prey than they would naturally eat. And they already have a heroically efficient metabolism so they simply don’t need it.
The clutch will bust a good chunk of her weight off, after that you can just feed small rats every other week for a while and she should get back to a healthy range.
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I’m with @ballornothing on this one, I didn’t want to say anything at the risk of coming across as judgemental with my wording, but she’s pretty firmly in the morbidly obese category. I’m not sure how often you’ve been feeding her, but I would very much scale down. They should still have somewhat of a triangular shape to them, not be completely round.
I’ve had great sucess keeping my females a little leaner, my female clown that just recently laid/hatched out a clutch barely looked gravid, but had 8 beautiful healthy eggs, no slugs, and bounced back flawlessly even with maternal incubation. I alternated between feeding a medium and a small rat every two weeks and that was the sweet spot.
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No i appreciate the comments i want them to be at top health so ill definitely scale back iv been feeding her every 7-10 days once again i do appreciate letting me know better ways to take care of the little ones.
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No worries!! It can take some trial and error to find a good feeding schedule
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One thing no one talks about to new snake owners (mostly ball python), is that once they get bigger they tend to cut back on feedings. We usually wait until they refuse a meal then change to every other week feedings. Some may not stop eating, so after about year and half, we cut them back. This age frame is not set in stone, just a guide. Even our largest adults only get med rats, this helps keep them from getting over weight and also they tend to keep eating and not go on eating strikes.
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