Cleo does me proud yet again

[dr del]

Hi,

Cleo laid 6 eggies and 3 slugs this morning.

















With my typical sense of timing I had been tweaking both the incubator temps and the egg tub setups last night under the illusion I had a week left before eggs were due.

I am once again trying substrateless but using a double layer of rigid mesh this time and the temps are currently holding at 89.4f.

She didn't coil most of the fertile eggs so four were arranged along the very front of the tub and may have got quite cool - and by the time I got the egg tub ready she was only coiling the three tiny slugs?!??

Once again though she acted like a true lady during the removal and cleaning process and didn't bite the big idiot once.

She is currently 1422g so I will be offering her a mouse tomorrow night to see if I can get her started recovering.

Oh and she was bred exclusively to the little black pastel male this year so fingers crossed for a little female black pastel with great contrast and a busy pattern.


dr del

[MikeV]

Congrats! I hope you get more than one black pastel lol!

Good luck!!!

[PghBall]

Congrats!!

[ThePaganJew]

Congrats! May the odds work in your favor and they all hatch out fat and sassy.

[dr del]

Thank you,

I'm surprised Cleo laid this year as it is the third year in a row she has done so.

I would have been happy to give her the year off but she stopped eating and started building so I figured she knew better than I did.


dr del

[dr del]

Update,

The male corn was shedding and decided he didn't want to eat.

So Cleo just ate 2 medium mice.


dr del

[shelliebear]

You have a snake named Cleo too
Awesome!
I have a question though, Derek:
How can you tell those 3 eggs are slugs, especially if the mother was coiling them? Do they show no veins when candled, and if so, is this a sure sign they are slugs?
Thanks a lot.
Congrats, too!
Shelliebear

[dr del]

Hi,

If you look at the first pic you can see the slugs next to the fertile eggs.

The slugs are a lot smaller than fertile eggs, have a different look in terms of colour because they are not shelled, have no veins and, in this case, had already started to harden so felt differently too.

You can get normal looking eggs that are infertile and have no veins ( I had one in my last clutch I think ) but you also get eggs that have very few veins so you would normally put a normal sized and shelled egg in the incubator anyway even if it has no veins you can see.

You then chew your fingernails down to the elbow candling it every few days hoping veins develop.

If you look at eggs one and five they have very few veins visible and you could miss them on occasion.

I'm hoping the veins spread as they develop.


dr del

[Stewart_Reptiles]

Congrats Derek and now comes the wait

Crossing all the crossable fingers for a heavy black pastel females clutch

[dr del]

Hi,

Just a candling update.

The two eggs that had the weak veins are coming along nicely.













And, to avoid the soggy egg bottom problem I ran into last time, I am using a double depth of grate. I am also gratefull to whomever originally showed the pictures of supporting eggs with clothes pegs - it works beautifully.



So far the incubator is holding around 89.8 - 90.1f. Fingers crossed it stays that way.


dr del