5 Clutch Day!

[gonesnakee]

Yesterday was the big day or the biggest day yet this season anyhow. 5 girls "dropped". 2 clutches of Jungle Corns, Ivory CK & 2 clutches of Striped Corns WOO HOO! Not all good news though :( My Amel striped female suffered a MAJOR prolapse last night (uterus on the outside, poor girl!) while laying after the first 18 eggs & became eggbound as a result too boot (probably at least a dozen left in her). After some debate some hard decisions were made at the Vet this morning it was decided that "Sadie" be euthanized. Rest In Peace little one :( Mark

[wyz]

This does take all the joy away :(

Sorry for your loss.

WYZ

[Invictus]

Congrats on the 5 clutches, but I'm so sorry for the loss on Sadie. She was a nice snake.

[marisa]

Aw that sucks about the female. These are the risks we sometimes forget about especially during the excitement of egg time.

Good luck with all your clutches! I hope you can keep a female from her clutch as a little reminder or "replacement" (for lack of a better word)

Marisa

[Katt]

Best of luck with all the clutches.

Really sorry to hear about your Sadie. How tremendously awful. Hopefully her babies live long and well!

Put me on the list for stripe corns, and Ivory's and Jungles!!! In fact, I'm sure I have an email here saying, I get some stripe corns. Oooh BABY SNAKES!!

[Simon]

Congrats on the eggs and sorry to hear about the loss

[Vanan]

Sorry to hear about your loss Mark. I've been having a rough year so far too. Here's the count.

0.1 4yr old, 6ft bull, died eggbound. Was her first breeding.
0.1 proven breeder bull, 8slugs 2 fertile. Both eggs have since drowned and died due to my mistake in not fine tuning the humidity in the egg boxes.
0.1 4yr old W. Hog laid 4 slugs, and got eggbound with 2 remaining. One came out fine when palpitated. The other came out while still in the oviduct (possibly dystocia). Had to make incision into the membrane of the oviduct to get egg out. Snake is now damn near spayed!
0.1 4.5-5ft corn laid 4 eggs and got eggbound with remaining 2. Unable to palpitate eggs out as it seems that the intestines have got in the way (dystocia again!). Aspirated egg and biding time right now.

Don't mean to hijack this thread but just had to vent. Seems that we're not the only ones with problems breeding. *sigh*

On the other hand, I wish you all the best with your current clutches Mark! Would love to see what comes out of them jungle eggs! I'm still waiting for some house snakes and another W hog. *fingers crossed*

[vanderkm]

Glad to hear about the clutches you got, but certainly share your disappointment at losing your striped female. Hope the gods are good to you and you get a great hatch from the striped clutches this year. Know I will be fighting Katt off for some of those striped amel babies.

Also Vanan - sorry to hear of your bad luck this year - especially surprising with bullsnakes - they are such big strong critters. As my girls get closer to laying, I am certainly paranoid about the risks that come with breeding.

mary v.

[gonesnakee]

THX all & Vanan I think that it is only right for us to share some of our horror stories. Makes people more aware of some of the risks involved & the chances we take by breeding our animals. Too bad that they are the ones that suffer. Pocketbooks can always recover, the snakes aren't always so lucky. On a good note the An. Striped dropped 5 more good ones & still has some to go. Fingers are crossed hard for this girl to finish with no problems (she slugged out last year). My Motley/striped female is also laying right now & her eggs are all looking big & healthy so far (first clutch ever for her). The other 2 striped girls eggs are all really small & even though good, I'm guessing by the way they look that lots of them will die in incubation? Well I have approx. 140 eggs currently incubating (10/11 successful clutches lots of slugs with them too though) & more currently being laid & expected, so life could be worse I guess. Still got that ugly prolapse picture stuck in my head though, poor Sadie. Mark
P.S. Approx 30 JC eggs to look forward to hatching so far
P.P.S. yesterday was the first really warm day again & they all decide to start dropping, think the weather has something to do with it? I do.

[Katt]

Losing Roman, the bull was very devastating. A four yr virgin huge female, to die with all her eggs inside of her. Very tragic. We will be putting together a post very soon discussing our mistakes our wins and the lessons we've learned.

Egg binding seems to be a very real problem with first time breeders.

[Vanan]

I agree Mark. Alot of new herpers think that breeding is what snake keeping is all about. Well not all of it is fun and games. That's why I'm trying to follow my new motto " Keep snakes for what they are, not what they can do for you". lol.

As for the last corn which I was waiting for to pass the aspirated egg, I just managed to "get inside the oviduct" and widen and align the tightening ring of muscle holding back the aspirated eggs, thus enabling the remaining egg pieces to pass through. Here's to a good recovery!

Mark, looks like you're gonna be a busy granddaddy this year! lol!

[gonesnakee]

Busy no doubt LOL. Well after doing some head scratching LOL After 10 clutches so far (#11 An Stripe Corn & #12 Motley Stripe Corn, still being laid) I gots 130 "good" eggs & 31 slugs (+dozen+ lost with Sadie) So for good ones:
17 VBBs, 13 Childrens Python (I know wrong forum lol), 0 Mexican Milks (DOH!), 11 LTRs, 18 Amel Corn het Snow, 11 Ghost Corn, 13 Ivory CK, 29 JCs (all breeders hets or albinos), 18 Amel striped Corn.
The An. stripes at 18/20 good so far & the Motley stripe had started a nice little pile as well. After them theres only 18 more girls to go YIPPEE! I don't even want to think about round 2 yet LOL Mark
P.S. On deck are GBs, Alb & Reg Striped CKs, Lav & het Lav Desert Banded CK, more Ghost, Snow, Amel & mystery mix Corns including JCs both reg & Albinos, Mtn. Kings? JCPs? (Boids again eh) & hopefully some EIs at Kyles (fingers crossed on lots of things here folks LOL) :p

[Invictus]

I want more ghosts and definitely the An. striped and Amel striped from you this year. Damn Mark, you're gonna break my bank again. :P

[Joe]

Congrats buddy!

[Lisa]

What causes egg binding?

[gonesnakee]

Eggbinding, well there are lots of factors that can contribute here. Too young or too small of a female may not be able to pass a clutch. Bigger & Older is better folks! Sometimes snakes have little "flaws" that don't affect them until egglaying time. Sometimes infertile eggs or funny shaped ones will cause blockage. Bigger than usual ones can also cause it. If the female does not have a suitable spot to lay them she can cause eggbinding by retaining them too long. Same thing can happen in the middle of a clutch if they are disturbed too much or even prior laying if they are bothered enough to make them nervous enough not to feel secure. If your girls are big & healthy, given the proper space & time you should have no problems, but than theres always "Murphy" & Mother Nature to worry about LOL Mark

[chuck911jeep]

sorry for you lost guy but the sun will shine soon for you!

[Scales Zoo]

5 Clutches, Wow Mark - good day.

Sorry to hear about your female Mark. Also sorry Vanan and Katt to hear about your troubles.

We've had 2 snakes die during fasting / cooling. Last year our female Northern Pine (which really really sucked, she was an amazing snake) and this year the male spilotes. I felt bad that they might have died because I was trying to breed them. The result was that both snakes were "replaced" - we had a female northern pine lay eggs, and we now have a male spilotes again.

I'm nervous any time we breed any snakes, this year we bred a few that were really close to us - and have been lucky so far that none have gotten egg bound. I'll shut up now before I cause my self trouble.

Mark, you now have an amazing amount of eggs - may I point out a lot more than Jeff.

We only have 47 eggs cooking at present, and had 33 baby boas. These are our highest numbers so far (but it is only 3 species, and the burm accounts for a whopping 40 eggs), hopefully we'll increase it a bit in the next few months.

Ryan

[Tim_Cranwill]

I'm sorry to hear about everyone's (and their snake's) hard times. :(

It's true that breeding snakes is not all joy and money. There are a lot of potential dangers and risks (mostly for the snakes). I've had more than a couple disappointments so far.... not nearly as bad as Vanan (sorry to hear, dude:( )... but any bad news is too much.

Anyway, congrats on your good news Mark and good luck with your 130 eggs! :D

p.s. I'm at 53 eggs so far with a couple more clutches expected... My brooksi is on day 14 after her pre-lay (I’m 90% sure she’s gravid) and all this egg-binding talk is making me <b>really</b> nervous. I HOPE she lays tonight.

[Unregistered]

conrats on all those clutches, and sorry about the loss.

[Unregistered]

losses

[gonesnakee]

Well the Motley Striped came through with 20/20 good ones to bring the count up to 168 good ones & 33 slugs from 12 different snakes. #13 an Albino Striped CK is laying right now WOO HOO! Congrats & condolences to everyone else as well. I just LOVE the daily egg count! Mark

[Scales Zoo]

Your gonna need a lot of tables at the upcoming shows.

Ryan

[nicola_boulton]

this is making me so scared to breed know! If i lost flur i really don't know what i'd do, i'd just be so gutted. Think id die :(

[Vanan]

The best thing to do, if you really don't wanna lose a snake is not breed. Too many risks. It's a matter of weighing the pros and cons.

Thanks everyone, for your support. Didn't list out my losses for sympathy but in the hope to open some new herper eyes. Your kind words are appreciated regardless. Nice to know I'm not alone. :)

[gonesnakee]

The thing about choosing "not to breed" isn't always ours though Vanan. I've had girls lay slugs a few times before without ever being with a male & it seems more often than not that problems occur with infertile eggs involved. What I'm saying is no matter what we decide a female snake just might do what she's gonna do anyway, DOH. Back to the "Murphy" & "Mother Nature" factors LOL Mark

[Vanan]

True. Forgot about Murphy. lol! Adult females do throw slugs out of the blue, but I still believe a planned breeding which includes brumation, copulation, egg production and egglaying (fertile eggs seem to pass easier) takes more out of a female than a surprise clutch of slugs.

[Classic]

Mark: Outstanding, 5 clutches. Must have been a busy day and night for you.

Brian
hwh

[Stav.T]

Congrats Mark! Are you gonna take some pics soon?
Stav