First-time breeder problems. :\ Hoping some of you more experienced herpers can help me figure this one out.

We have a 2011 Kingping female we've been breeding (Kingpin male, we're hoping for Lucies!) - she was 1780g when they started locking, and we believe this may be her first time. He's a proven breeder, and boy does he get the job done! Back in August we palpitated her, and although we're not very experienced, it felt like she had follicles building. We witnessed weekly locks between August 26 and December 27, and once more the last week of January.

She was still eating weekly until November 4th and then refused until December 8th, when she started eating weekly again until the end of January. She just ate again this week.

She was definitely glowing for a couple of weeks, she looked like an entirely different snake - both KPs looked like toffee when they were together before, and when her glow came on she looked like cereal in milk next to this "dark" boy. We thought she ovulated on March 2nd - everything online says "you can't miss it", and she did indeed look like she'd swallowed a football (unfortunately we didn't think to get a picture), so we were sure that was "it".

From what we've read, after ovulation it should be 10-16 days to the pre-lay shed. She started getting dark sometime last week, and is duller now but just starting to try and soak (which we assume is her getting ready to shed, since she is a notorious bath-baby during shed), but she is looking thinner and not doing "uncomfortable" things (wrapping her bowl, laying in tight coils, laying inverted, etc) and her shed has not come yet... 23 days after "ovy", which leads us to worry that:
  • maybe she didn't actually ovulate?
  • she may not be gravid?
  • she reabsorbed?


We are hesitant to palpitate her at this stage, since on the chance there are eggs, we don't want to hurt them. We ordered an ultrasound a couple weeks ago but it will not be here until early April, so we have no way of knowing what is going on in there... just watching and waiting and wondering.