Egg bound Cal King: UPDATE

[Tim_Cranwill]

After giving the matter much thought and a lot of research, last night my wife (who is a nurse) and I decided it was time to do something for our egg bound Cal King. We resigned to the fact that she was not going to be able to lay these eggs on her own. After almost two weeks with no progress and since she was becoming less active and more weak over the last couple days, we needed to act soon. I would NOT recommend that anyone try this without the help of someone who has experience with the subject. This post is not intended to be a "How To". If anyone decides to copy our methods, it is at their own risk. That being said, here is what we did...

We bought some 18ga needles, 10cc syringes and alcohol wipes and set up to perform our "operation". We put the snake inside a dark pillow case with just her tail end out. Then we looked over her large lump of retained eggs trying to figure out how many eggs there might be, which order/orientation they might be in and where we should first drain from. I restrained her and held her steady while my wife, who has had plenty of needle giving experience and training, poked through the snakes side. It is written that about half way up the snake's side and in between scales is the point where you should penetrate so that is what we did. We drew out just over 6cc's of milky yellow fluid from the egg closest to her cloaca. Then we tried to move the egg further back and through her vent. It didn't work. We tried to drain a couple more times and drew out over 3cc's form another egg. Once we had done that, the bulge had gotten a lot smaller.

We gave her a few minutes to rest before going any further. When I took her out of the bag to start again, she was relaxed enough for us to be able to open her cloaca and see the off white shell of her first egg. Using a mid sized probe, my wife held her cloaca open while I pushed the mostly empty egg out of her. Over the next few minutes we pushed out two more eggs. Here is a picture of what we ended up with...

http://www3.mb.sympatico.ca/~cranwill/net_pics/badeggs.jpg

This morning, Adrian had pushed out a nice smelly stool and a rather large one too! There is no longer a sign of any eggs in her but between what she laid on her own and what we helped her get out, that's only 5 eggs which is kind of a low count for a Cal King. Anyway, I will be keeping close tabs on her for the next couple weeks and let you all know how she is progressing. Thanks a lot to everyone who offered their advice! :D

[unBOAlievable]

Glad everything went well. I know a few people who have used that method with great success. I am content with removing stiches and moving the eggbound breeders aside as pets.

[vanderkm]

Thanks for the update Tim. I had been wondering how she was doing. Sorry to hear it came to this, but hopefully she will be ok.

best wishes,


mary v.

[gonesnakee]

Good to hear that you got them out of her. Good Luck Mark I.

[Tim_Cranwill]

Thanks guys. I kept thinking "She's designed to lay these eggs. Just giver her more time..." But I'm glad I abandoned that theory because I don't think she would have ever laid those eggs.

[Jeff_Favelle]

So they were infertile?

Makes sense because infertile eggs are a million times harder to pass than fertile.

Sorry Tim. Kudos to you guys for having the ba!!s to do something about it.

[Tim_Cranwill]

Ha! I guess it's my wife with the ba!!s then! ;)

I'm wondering now if it was my male or my female who couldn't "finish the deal". The only way I can think of to find out is to let them go at it again. That way I can get a sperm sample from him and see if she can lay some fertile eggs this year... or ever. The thing is, she shed a month and a half after him. Could she have taken too long for him? I didn't think that males had any restrictions on when they could provide viable sperm.

Anyway, my mind changes a few times a minute on the subject of trying hewr again this year. I'd love to hear what you guys think...

[Jeff_Favelle]

I'm wondering now if it was my male or my female who couldn't "finish the deal

If I could have a biggest pet-peeve about the reptile-keeping world, this would be it.

Tim, we're buddies, you know this, so don't take any offence, ha ha.

Why the he!! does everyone blame the animal when something goes wrong in reptile keeping/breeding? I don't get it. They've been around breeding and living for millions of years without being in our cages, so when something goes "wrong" (an event we don't want) we blame the animals? All wrong. 999 out of 1,000 its our fault. Always.

Having said that, Tim, the reason can be a million things, and breeding them next year might not tell you anything. What if she has 15 fertile eggs next year? Then what went wrong this year? I guess it would all be moot, but if I know you, you'll still be curious as to what happened. And so will I. I was going to suggest improper brumation at first, but Cal Kings can breed and lay fertile eggs without cycling.

So what was it?

My guess was that you missed it. You either missed the male having fertile, motile sperm ready for copulation, or the female moved her follicles before they copulated, or both.

Tim, buddy, try again next year and we'll talk this over a few beers (on me).

[Tim_Cranwill]

Deal. ;)

p.s. No offence taken. I don't want someone to tip-toe around giving me advice. Just lay it out! :D

[gonesnakee]

I'll 2nd Jeff's comments, but who really knows. Snakes can be on again, off again breeders on their own, before factoring in the variables that we "think" we can "control", lol. Good Luck with her next year. Mark I.

[jncoclub]

Or you can go the route that it was simply not meant to happen this time around. No one is at fault in that scenario.
:atom:

[vanderkm]

I can only say that I really appreciate the threads on this snake and the update even more today than I did yesterday, Tim. When I got home last night my husband met me with a weird expression on his face and asked if I had ever bothered to probe our old cal king. We got him as a rescue and were told at the time that he was so thin that his hemipenes could be felt in his tail. It never occurred to us to doubt the assessment that he was a male and we had no plans to sell him or use him for breeding so we had never confirmed it by probing. You can guess where this is going. 'He' had laid an egg that afternoon.

Going back to the records put the egg at 9 days post shed, and explained the unusually active behaviour 'he' had been showing the night before. I will give it a day or so, but given the advice that slugs are harder to pass then fertile eggs and the fact that this 'guy' was never with another snake - we won't be waiting long on this one. I am still having a really hard time wrapping my head around the gender switch - this guy is a long term pet and it will be hard to think of him as a girl.


here is hoping your girl recovers and wish me luck,


mary v.

[gonesnakee]

I hear ya Mary. I have 2 corns that I wanted to wait until next year before breeding because I wanted them nice & big first. They both decided to "fill up" with eggs anyway so I have 2 females full of slugs that I'm waiting to drop. So much for waiting that extra year, DOH! Fingers are crossed for both you & me now & of course for the snakes also, as they can't do it themselves, LOL. GOOD LUCK! Mark I.

[Jeff_Favelle]

Holy Mary, that is weird!! I hope both females recover 100% for you guys (Tim and Mary).

And Tim, i guarantee you'll breed those deserts next year. Just make sure you get the male with the female early and often!

Cheers. :D

[Gillards]

We had a similar problem with one of the thayeri this year. You might want to follow up with an antibiotic to fight off any infection.
Paul and Lorraine

[Tim_Cranwill]

Just for education's and debate's sake, if anyone cares :). What I suspect to have contributed to the whole situation was her late shed. She took just over two months after brumation before she had her post-brumation shed. Her mate was nearly at his second shed of the season..... Just a hunch.?.?

Any thoughts or past experiences???

Good luck to the rest of you with snakes full of slugs. :(

Oh, one more thing. I was surprised at the lack of detailed anatomy information I was able or unable to find on the net. Does anyone know of any good books on the subject? All i found were rudimentary drawings...

[gonesnakee]

Hi Cranwill, I too had some wierd shed activity on the go this year. I had females that came out of burmation & didn't shed until their "prelays". I'm sure glad I didn't wait until their "1rst sheds" prior to breeding efforts, as you read in some books etc. because I would have "missed" on about 3 or 4 snakes. Anyone else experience females not shedding after burmation until they do their prelay shed? Seems weird to me. Mark I.

[reverendsterlin]

both mine shed right on schedule after brumation, the female with good eggs did not have a pre-lay shed, she waited until after laying 2 weeks. the one that did pre-lay shed gave all slugs *shrug* beyond my expertise.