Pre Ov Soaking

I offer all my building females large water bowls. All of my girls soak right before ovulation.

This female Xena, has laid for me two years in a row the second week of Feburary. She has been soaking for 2 days now and looks she is right on schedule to ovulate the second week of Jan. She is not in shed, is off feed and is starting to glow.

http://i177.photobucket.com/albums/w...king010509.jpg

Has anyone else studied this behavior? I rarely see a slug and wonder if this helps with hydration of snake and/or egg development?

This is only my personel experience and is not backed by any scientific proof other than my own observations. I havent read anything on the topic either but thought I would share.

Thanks for the post! I have a cinny female I have been cycling and she had been soaking the last week or two, and she never use to soak. I just figured it was a shed issue, but she never shed? I may have to go throw her boyfriend in there now!! :)

So here is Xena again Ovulating after soaking on and off for almost two weeks.
http://i177.photobucket.com/albums/w...testopview.jpg


Now I have a spider girl who has been glowing since she shed on 1/7 and now has started her soaking and note she is not in shed.
http://i177.photobucket.com/albums/w...lowandsoak.jpg
http://i177.photobucket.com/albums/w...ndsoakside.jpg

I expect her to ovulate in the next couple of weeks. Hopefully I will capture it on camera.

Thanks for the info, Raul. That's something that I don't really recall hearing or reading about before. It'll be interesting to see if anyone else chimes in with similar observations. Maybe I'll have to throw some large bowls in with the girls I'm hoping will go this year and see if get the same kind of activity.

Here is another girl (Greta)who has been glowing for weeks, is off feed and has now starting soaking. I wonder if it is for hydration, cooling down or both.
I also expect her to ovulate in the next couple of weeks. It has become a sign for me that good things are on the way.
http://i177.photobucket.com/albums/w...andsoaking.jpg

Great pics...Best of luck...

I am not even going to attempt breeding until next season in order to be certain that my females are big enough not to be endangered but I have 2 females that started soaking almost day and night since about a week ago. I thought that it might be a pre shed issue as well.

So I have more soaking girls.
This first girl is so big we had to get a bigger water tub.
http://i177.photobucket.com/albums/w...ysoaking09.jpg

Here is a ghost female soaking and then begining her ovulation. She soaked for excatly three weeks and then ovulated.
http://i177.photobucket.com/albums/w...illsoaking.jpg
http://i177.photobucket.com/albums/w...s/kaspaov2.jpg

So far the first girl in this thread has laid 6 good eggs on 03/13 and the spider girl laid 6 good eggs today. No slugs:gj:

Those girls have been busy!

Nice :sweeet:

Quote:

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Originally Posted by West Coast Jungle

Here is another girl (Greta)who has been glowing for weeks, is off feed and has now starting soaking. I wonder if it is for hydration, cooling down or both.
I also expect her to ovulate in the next couple of weeks. It has become a sign for me that good things are on the way.

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Greta is one hot mama! This is really interesting. Where do you get your bowls? I have a big ceramic bowl in my biggest girl's tub (which is great because she can't tip it over, lol, not with a half inch thick bottom!) but while it's a dog bowl, she can't fit entirely inside it. Would you suggest I replace it with something larger? I've been seeing a lot of bowl wrapping and she's been locking up every time I put my male with her, for about a month, and one of my girls has been refusing him the last few times. Where would you suggest I find a bowl large enough? Or should I just buy a small kitty litter pan?

Thanks, and this is a really interesting thread. I didn't know they would soak so consistently!

I get most of my bowls from the 99cents store. For my bigger bowls I get small kitty litter pans from Walmart.

I noticed my largest pastel female soaking for roughly 3 weeks she promptly ovulated after she finished soaking.

Midway through her soaking days I asked on a different forum if anyone had noticed their females spending a ton of soaking right before ovulation. Unfortunately all that got me was a ton of advice on how to treat mites, and a lot of people pretty sure I had a snake that was either dehydrated, over heating, or infested with invisible mites...

Anyways, nice to find out that it is not just me and others have witnessed this same behavior.

Currently the pastel female is almost done with her pre-lay shed and has 7 eggs aching to come out.

I also noticed a recently acquired possible het-ghost female was spending a ton of time in her water dish. She is plenty big to breed, and had been cycled by her previous owner, so I assumed she had just not been ready. The soaking made me suspicious, so I threw one of my het ghost males in with her, and they hooked up and then she went back to soaking. Did that a couple more times and then my suspicions were confirmed. She ovulated 5 days ago. I am definitely going to make a habit of giving females I want to breed a bowl large enough to soak in.

Very interesting, I have noticed this, but my bowls are not big enough for most of my gals. But I see them crammed in anyway. I guess I will be off to the $1.00 store.

Any one in need of some large but not large enough bowls. lol:gj:

Very nice that spider and ghost are SMOKING!!!!!!!!!! hot!