More Green Tree Eggs...

[LTownsend]

I came in early today to find this clutch being deposited three days sooner than expected. It took her most of the morning to lay them all, but when she was all finished, she laid 16 perfect fertile eggs. The sire is the same male that was used for Corey's clutch below, so he definately earned his stripes this year. I was going to let her maternally incubate them, but I figured I'd better take her out of the nest box and make sure she wasn't left bound with one or two since she is a little on the small side for an adult female (between 800 - 900 grams). When I did, she looked really frail and weak, so I decided to take them away from her and put them in the incubator and try feeding her right away. I think it was a good choice since she snapped up the rat as soon as it hit the cage floor. Now it is going to be 49 days of no sleep waiting for them to hatch :)

Lance

http://www.ssnakess.com/photopost/data/507/1264BiakEggs1-med.JPG

http://www.ssnakess.com/photopost/data/507/1264BiakEggs2-med.JPG

http://www.ssnakess.com/photopost/data/507/1264BiakEggs3-med.JPG

[Corey Woods]

Congrats Lance and Peggy!! That's a nice looking female!! Maybe we'll have to swap offspring.

Corey

[PortCreditPets]

Great job folks.

Grant

[spidergecko]

Can I ask a newbie question (since I don't keep snakes)? In general, what is the benefit of maternal incubation vs. taking the eggs away? Or is it just a choice thing? Do they eat their babies?

[Stockwell]

Nice Job Lance!! When I saw Corey's I figured you'd be next.. They look great.. She appears to be a better mother than Corey's lazy one.. LOL
Best wishes for a great hatch out!!

[Ryan and Katie]

Congrats! Very nice to see...

[LTownsend]

Thanks guys...hopefully all goes well over the next 49 days.

Spidergecko....In general, the benefit of maternal incubation with Green Tree Pythons is that it eliminates the guesswork so to speak with artificially incubating. Chondro eggs can be pretty sensitive to any possible fluctuating temperatures in an artificial incubation chamber and it is often times better to just let the female do all the work if she is up to it, especially for a keeper's first attempt at reproducing them. Had this female been a little larger, since this is my first attempt, I would have left them in with her, but I decided to go with artificial incubation since she is fairly small and I wanted to get her back on a regular eating schedule to put some weight back on.

[Clownfishie]

That's awesome Lance, congrats!! :) Be sure to post pics of those babies when they hatch! It's going to be a long 49 days, eh? LOL... Best of luck :)


Jen

[Joe]

Awsome lance & peggy. good luck guys!

[NiagaraReptiles]

Congrats man!!! I can only imagine your excitement!
Best wishes, and here's hoping you make it throught he next month and a half without pulling all your hair out ;)

JonK

[Hamster of Borg]

Could you detail a bit about your incubation procedures? Much of the literature says to alter the temperatures near the end cycle? I have a friend who hasn't had much luck with his chondro's eggs - even with maternal incubation. Any insight would be helpful seeing as they're a little more complicated than corn snakes. :)

Ham

[greg schroeder]

Hey, that's awesome! Great pictures too. It's always a pleasure to see a female on eggs.

Was that weight for the female before or after the eggs? Just curious.

[LTownsend]

Hamster....Currently, the eggs are sitting on plastic egg crate over moist vermiculite at a temp. of 87.5 degrees. So far three of them have spoiled in the first eleven days, but the remaining thirteen seem to be doing fine and I will likely continue to leave them as they are unless I see more of them starting to spoil in the coming days, in which case I have different egg containers with the water substrate method ready to make the switch. The three that have spoiled, even though they were fertile when layed, did have kind of strange clearish looking ends on them, almost like a window in the egg, whereas the others don't have that on them, so I am assuming that it is fairly normal for a few not to make it if they have weak shells or some other unforseeable problem. I chose to place them over moist vermiculite because I find a lot of excess humidity builds on the lid of the egg container with strictly water in the bottom which I haven't had much success at keeping down and I worried that maybe some of that excess hunidity may start to drip directly on some of the eggs and cause damge to them that I couldn't rectify if that happened. Since this is my first clutch, I haven't any experience to share about the final week of incubation yet, but I have read all the same literature where it suggests turning the temp. down during the final week and I expect I will do the same as I would hate to lose any that make it that far during the final stage.....I will post an update when they reach that point and let you know how I made out :)


Greg....her weight of 800-900 grams was before the eggs, right at the beginning of my cooling cycle in October; and actually it was closer to the 800 gram mark when I started the cycle. I didn't expect any eggs from her to be honest, since she is my smallest female, but I decided to try her and place a male in just out of curiosity and so far she is the only one to go for me this year....I'm glad I did now, and she is showing no ill effects....she's regulary eating again and has her bad Biak disposition well back in place.

[zappaguy]

good for you always nice to see more gtp eggs. to help with the moisture buildup on a lid you can always tilt the container on 1 end and the moisture will run off so as not to drop on the eggs.good luck