Finally, after many months of being here on a breeding loan from Welsh Morphology, Oli the Tioman Island Red Kukri Snake has laid 11 fertile eggs! In my defence, everybody thought this snake was male but she has turned out to be a long tailed female. The father of these eggs is an absolute beast of a Mainland Brown male that I thought was female because of his sheer size.
I’m excited to meet the babies from this cross. The mother is multi-generation captive bred and strike feeds on frozen thawed mice off tongs. The father is my biggest kukri and he is SALTY. He bit the guy I bought him off and attempted to take a chunk out using his razor blade teeth with a corkscrew action like a cookie-cutter shark.
26.5°C
+/- 1°C
There’s a chap in France who’s incubated Oligodon lacroixi at this temperature and they hatched in 65 days (from memory). But I’ve heard Oligodon purpurascens takes 90 days. Travis Wyman incubated some O. purpurascens at a lower temperature and they took 120 days or so.
I ran both my clutches at just room temp. First clutch took 110 days and second took 93 if memory serves me. Second clutch came later in the year and room temps had risen a bit by then so I attribute the difference to that
I’ll keep a close eye on them. Room temperatures are pretty low at the moment, we’ve had snowfall since these eggs were laid. They’re in a polybox incubator with a thermostatted heatmat and being monitored with a digital thermometer probe, so I’ll have pretty specific temperature records when they do hatch.
Stabitha has decided to get in on the action and has laid eleven eggs! One slug, ten not-so-bad looking eggs. These are LTC Mainland Brown x LTC Mainland Brown. They have the same father as the CB Tioman Island Red x LTC Mainland Brown clutch above, but these don’t look quite as pearly white. Still, I’ll incubate till there’s no debate with the ten that don’t look like absolute garbage.
The two LTC Mainland Brown parents. Stabitha is the female and she’s the peachier, lighter coloured one of the two. Cutlass is the male (potentially the father to two clutches now) and he’s the darker, mahogany brown snake.
These were the CB Tioman Island Red x LTC Mainland Brown clutch. The eggs on the right were moved into a perlite tub like the ones on the left within a week. They weren’t doing very well in the little egg tray.
All look more pearly white than the LTC Mainland Brown x LTC Mainland Brown clutch.
Comparing and contrasting some Brown Kukri Snake (Oligodon purpurascens) eggs! Both clutches have the same father(if fertile) - Cutlass the Brown phase LTC male.
The two tubs on the left numbered with roman numerals are the entire 11 egg clutch laid by Oli the Red phase CB female. They’re at 23 days and Cutlass is the only male she’s been with. The eggs are plump, dry to the touch, pearly white and full of veins when candled.
The two tubs on the right numbered with dots were the 10 best eggs from an 11 egg clutch laid by Stabitha the Brown phase LTC female. She’s years older than the other female and has previously laid eggs in captivity for her previous owner, which also failed. These eggs are on day 9 but are slumping, slimy, all kinds of fungal/bruised looking colours and I’ve only tried to candle one once because they’re nasty to touch. I couldn’t see any veins inside. I’ve dusted these eggs with anti fungal powder after this photo was taken, but I doubt they’ll hatch.
