Should I be worried? My corn snake not laying

Hi everyone,
So I have been breeding corns for two seasons and I have a female that has me a little concerned. I paired her on 04/6 and she had her pre lay shed on 04/19. So it’s been 23 days since her pre lay shed. She’s in her laying box, I check her once in the morning and maybe once a night just to check, since it’s been so long. My questions is, should I be worried? I YouTubed my head off, but all the egg binding videos start with a female that started laying and stopped, not one that just hasn’t started. She doesn’t look in distress. I welcome everyone’s advice with this and thank you.

4 Likes

It she doesn’t seem to be in distress, is behaving normally, there’s no reason to think she’s necessarily in trouble. They don’t always follow the usual time frame or script. They are usually somewhat consistent with themselves, though of course they’re sensitive to environmental factors like temps. A few questions.

  1. Did you observe her actually locked with the male? You say that you “paired her.” Is it possible that they didn’t actually mate?

  2. How does she look? Does she seem gravid? Do you happen to have pics/records from last season to for comparison?

  3. How’s her appetite? You could try offering a couple of fuzzies. If she’s willing, the nutrients are a good thing, and the physiological factors of the meal moving down through her body might help stimulate things if she’s actually close.

  4. What are her temps?

This is a very short interval between lock and prelay shed. If there was a successful lock, it’s possible that she may have stored some sperm. Maybe her shed on the 19th was just a shed, and the next shed will be her prelay shed. I had a female do that once. Threw off all my calendars and expectations, but she eventually did lay.

6 Likes

Hi, thank you so much for replying to my post.

  1. I did observe locks and in all honesty, I paired them from the 1-6th.
  2. She does looks pretty gravid and round. I think I can tell some of the eggs in her body.
  3. She had a meal after I separated them. He’s refused to eat all this time. I’ll offer a small feeder tonight to see if it entices her.
  4. I just went to check, it marks 86 on the warm and it grades down to 79-80 ambient.
  5. Her lay box is in the cold side, should I move her to the warm end?
    Thank you again for all the knowledge.
3 Likes

Have you palpated her? Can you post a picture of how she’s looking? I wonder if she reabsorbed. That’s an awfully long time to not have laid if she is indeed gravid. Offering a small meal is a great idea.

5 Likes

Any updates on your girl, @miosoti25 ?

1 Like