pre lay shed!

[ADEE]

Ok, we felt follicles in Arian quite sometime ago.. she unlike my other female we have bred hasnt eaten in quite sometime either. (our other female eats constantly for us) I noticed a couple days ago she was getting dingy looking and last night she was for sure without a doubt "in blue" shed.... soooo aside from having incubator ready what else should we do? Ive read all the material found online, in our books, exc... im just doing the last minute nervous/excited/exc phase. Should I expect eggs in about 30days? We have tried palpating her to see what we can feel but im so scared to hurt the eggs I havnt done it very firmly to feel much.. there is alot of gas I can feel and a few lumps that im guessing are eggs but shes our first snake to ever go gravid for us

Wish us luck with her!!! If shes a go' were expecting Normals and Pastels

[frankykeno]

Congrats, hopefully you'll have eggs in around 30 days or so. Just make sure she has a nice warm spot to go to and so forth. Here's a wonderful link to help you see the steps along the way.....

http://www.ballpython.ca/gallery/breeding.html

Over the next month you should likely just do a lot of reading here and at other places on the net about getting the incubator ready, prepping your egg box and hatching substrate, etc. That way as you approach her expected lay date you'll feel as confident as possible (hard to do the first time up I know). Make sure you experiment with the incubator with the hatching box in there well ahead so if you have to tweak it you can before she lays.

[ADEE]

i LOVE that link!!! I have it stored as a favorite and have been refering back to it ALOT. I do plan on getting my incubator and everything ready.. in fact my BIL has my extra temp/hum. gauge and hes going to be bringing it back tonight As expected im a nervous wreck about her wanting to make sure everything is going to be fine, im not going to kill the clutch of eggs off like I did the first clutch of leo eggs... thankfully we did have one successful clutch of leos hatch and two more on the way so i have *some* confidence but the BPs are a totally new experience in terms of hatching.. its been the plan to breed them, we have done whats nessesary, exc it just is becoming real now that were actually *doing* this hahaha... We had been cooling one of our racks for the breeding girls, should i move her to the regular rack that is running at 92? The other one is actually around 87 for breeding.. I know I did read they seek heat and we have plenty of rack space for either way.

What kind of substrate do *you* personally use? Do you boost their humidity in the rack while they shed by using something other then newspaper, in the past i just spray the newspaper a little bit to raise humidity for normal shedding? (on the link it shows actual bedding) I would need to check at home because im drawing a blank but i believe our humidity is around 45% and we ALWAYS have perfect sheds...We have perilite right now that we mix with spagnum moss for the leo eggs (That we have hatched right out of the rack in a closed bin lol) because it kept drying out on us....I know there was a link here somewhere that showed step by step how they set-up their eggs too... talks about using the press n seal stuff, exc.. anyone know where that link went?

((bites nails)) I cant wait to get home lol..
Does the actual countdown begin when you notice shed or when they actually shed the skin off?

[ADEE]

anymore input?????

[Bruce Whitehead]

anymore input?????

28 days from the shed date is when she should lay (the skin coming off) that is the rule of thumb. But it can be tricky. I had one girl that did it all, but had all the steps out of order. Older female that was gravid for an ETERNITY!!!

As Jo said, prep, read, and research. And even with all that you'll probably go a bit crazy.

http://www.ballpython.ca/gallery/breeding.html

Is a good link in regards to watching... but you may have seen it already.

Bruce

I used a tight seal tupperware for my eggs, and Hatchrite incubation material. I ran the probe into the container (just nestled it slightly below the surface of the Hatchrite) and documented from outside (a windowless cooler as an incubator).

Popped the container every 2-3 days to give them a bit of air, wiped out the condensation... and *voila* baby snakes.

[ADEE]

thank you!!!!

Great post!