Eating wile gravid plus other considerations..

[Python2000]

Hi!
My spider male bred 2 adult females since 24 dicember to 8 april. In 13 april i went out of home for 14 days so i could have missed ovulations even if a person was cleaning and monitoring my animals. When i returned back one of the females was beginning to be dark and soon she went in shed. It was a very long shed and she was soaking in the wather bowl even if the humidity was ok. She shed on may 11. After the shed she remained much darker than before, her spinal cord is quite evident and she became thinner in the neck and tail sections.Ok.. i was starting to think she's gravid but 3 days later while i was feeding other balls in the room she started to act like a very hungry ball... when i offered her a mouse she grabbed it immediatly and now she's always in S mode outside the hiding box... what you think? I know that time will tell but.... have you ever experienced something similar? I palpated her belly also and seems hard but i cannot feel eggs exactly.

Thank you for any help

Flavio

[Freakie_frog]

Its sounds like she might be gravid. Has she been eating regularly before the mouse

[Python2000]

She stopped eating for about two months before, last meal was in half of march, after 16 days from the supposed POS she ate again aggressively...

[MarkS]

Generally gravid snakes will go off feed, but thats not always the case. They go off feed because theres just no more room with all the developing eggs, but if it's a small meal they may take it. I've got one girl who never misses a meal. She's rather large but always has a medium sized clutch of eggs. Sometimes she'll miss the feeding right before laying, but this year she didn't even do that. She ate a small rat the week before laying and then had 7 nice eggs. So while going off feed is usually a good indicator, it doesn't always work that way.

Also, I'm not that great at palpating. I don't understand how people can feel their snakes bellies and be 100% certain they have eggs. Sometimes I can feel it and it's very obvious and can even count the number of eggs that will be laid, but other times I don't have a clue, couldn't tell you if I'm actually feeling anything or not and the snake goes on to lay eggs anyway.

Mark