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)

[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?