What's next?

[Reesy]

Well, I palpated my female using a pillowcase over my hand and felt 7 follicles about marble size, advice from dreese88, thanks. Her enclosure stays about 75-80F right now with no heat on her. How long is the average time span from this stage until Ovulation? She has also been refusing to eat for 3 weeks now. I will try to feed her again on sunday, if she refuses again that will be 4 weeks without feeding.

[jaders.v]

at this point i dont think she'll eat at all, because she can be going into ovulation in a few weeks!
when was she first bred?

[ace_singapore]

I think you should raise the temp to 88' maybe that will get her to eat.

[dr del]

Hi,

I hope I am misunderstanding this.

Are you keeping her enclosure at 75-80f all the time?

And, if the follicles are only marble sized, you still have a long way to go until ovulation.


dr del

[Reesy]

No, the ambient temps in the snake roo go up to around 85 during the day. Is this wrong? A local breeder here told me to drop the temps down t the mid 70s-low 80s while she is building. I have also read where the male can have problems with sperm development if he is kept too warm. What would you all recomend for me. I have an 8 watt heat pad under her enclosure, but have not been using anykind of heat lamp on them.

[dr del]

Hi,

Most people who cool for breeding only do so at night as far as I know - not 24/7.

And even then I would keep the warm end around 85. 75-80f would be fine for the cool side but that's about as low as I would go.

But then I don't cool so I would rely on one of the big guys for better guidance on that. It's entirely possible I am lowering my trousers to talk.

I will say that the temps are almost certainly are contributing to her not eating and that I would be trying to get plenty of food into her for the upcoming egg development.

Have a search on cooling and breeding temps and see if that brings up any good threads.


dr del

[Reesy]

Thanks for the advice, I have been doing some research on here and I am a bit confused. Is it during the building period or after ovulation that you should reduce the size of the prey items in order to help prevent slugs? I have read on several threads that feeding large prey items, i.e., can cause the female to slug out. As soon as she started showing signs of building I dropped her from medium rats to smalls feeding her once per week as I usually do. I weighed her last week at 1695 grams at roughly 42 inches long.

[dr del]

Hi,

Most of mine stop eaing on their own before ovulation and none have ever eaten after it. That's why I was saying to get as much food into her as she will take at the moment ( within reason obviously - spherical snakes are bad m'kay ).

You could simply reduce the size of the prey items and increase the frequency as you already have and completely avoid any problems with large prey.

But, as I said, you have a fair bit of time before ovulation if the follicles are marble sized.


dr del

[Reesy]

Hey Derek,

When you say a while till ovulation, do you mean months,weeks? I have an incubator but not a rack system yet for the babies. I have all the 6.5 quart tubs that I will need with lids, but, I haven't built a rack for them yet. I still need to get the melimene boards. I want to be ready for anything that may come along.

[dr del]

Hi,

There really isn't a set timescale as they can pause development ( or at least slow it down enough to drive me nuts ) but definately weeks and probably closer to a couple of months.

But remember you need time to build the rack then run it in and get it adjusted etc.

No massive rush obviously given the 58 day cooking in the incubator but don't leave it to the last minute.


dr del