Spilotes egg PIPPING!

[Tim and Julie B]

Man that is one of my favorite species! Congrads on the babies! TB

[LdyDrgn]

Thanks, Tim

[Pitviper]

Hi @all,

i´m keeping 1,2 spilotes and hope for mating and eggs by the next few months, as my male is very interrested in one of the females... ;o) I´ve seen your "care-sheet", isn´t the humidity a bit to poor? After all i´ve read about it, it should be about 80%. Oh well, your 60% worked after all as you prooved. At what temperatures did you incubate the clutch, an how long did it take? Did all eggs pip? The pipping-rates on spilotes are rather low as far as i know. I wish you luck and further success. I´d be glad for any additional information on keeping and breeding, as there is not much ´true-stuff´ on spilotes to read. Anyone interrested in the spilotes-article of the Cologne-Zoo (german language) ?
I´ve had several snakes before, but now im´m specialising on spilotes, it´s the most impressive colubrid i´ve ever seen.
Greets to Gurkee! Didn´t get my mail?

Spilotes rule!
Carsten

[LdyDrgn]

Pitviper, I sent you a PM with info.

They seem to do fine on the humidity. They get sprayed daily and more heavily when in blue. I get perfect sheds every time and they eat well. *shrug*

I would be interested in the article, however my German is rather rusty.

[gurkee]

Hi!

First of all, congratulations for the 100% hatch rate. It's always nice to have all of them come out.
From what I've heard Spilotes eggs have rather thick shells so it's always a good ideal to cut them open a bit that the babies don't drown.
But since I've got no experience, it's only what I've heard.

@LdyDrgn:
I can't wait for the paper you are working on. Does it come yoon

@Pitviper:
No, haven't got mail from you, sorry.
I have also good experience with humidity below 80% during the day. Sheds are good, expect on terrible shed of my male, but I think it had nothing to do with humidity.

greets,
gurkee

[LdyDrgn]

Gurkee, I am waiting for the second clutch to hatch so I can have more hard data. At that point I will just add the info to the caresheet on our site. I will share what I have at this moment with whoever wants it so long as it is understood that it is what worked for us. We aren't experts, LOL.

I also noticed the very thick shells, although the second clutch looks to be much thinner. After waiting 24 hours from the third snake to pip, we went ahead and manually pipped all the others.

[LdyDrgn]

Quick update on these babies. All have shed and 8 have taken f/t peach fuzzy mice already.

[gurkee]

Nice to hear.

When will the second clutch appr. hatch? Any idea?

greets, gurkee

[LdyDrgn]

The second clutch should hatch around the end of October, beginning of November.

11 of the 12 babies have eaten. 8 took the mouse of the tongs for me and I left the mice in with the other 4. One ate last night before I turned the lights out and 2 more ate in the middle of the night. The only one that didn't eat was the last one to hatch. I expect it will be ready to eat when I feed again in a few days.