Can a Pastel BP lay a clutch almost 4 months after last breeding?

[Kelfster]

I do not have exact dates of last breeding latch with my male, he was sold easily 3 months ago because I wasn't receiving any signs that my female was ovulating. This is my try at breeding and bought a male solely for that purpose. After 6 months of intermittent meeting between the two, I gave up and didn't want to care for the male any longer because he was a very aggressive snake. So it has been between 3-4 months since last meeting and today my female laid 7 eggs... 6 of which are slugs and the other is appropriate size and white in color. I will remove eggs once I am sure she is finished laying them all. How do I find out if it is fertile and whether I should take the time and effort to incubate the sole egg... And is it even possible for her to ovulate for that amount of time, or is this egg a "dud"?

[Izzys Keeper]

Shine a flashlight (you can use the one on your phone) through the egg. If there are veins in it then its a good egg. No veins =bad egg

[Kelfster]

I haven't disturbed her yet, but I don't understand how it is possible for this amount of time to have past

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[dr del]

We have heard of snakes retaining sperm from the previous years breedings - it's just another example of how amazing these animals are.

[Kelfster]

Well I'm excited then to see if it is vascularized then! Just monitoring the temp of my incubator set up before I move mommy

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[tacticalveterinarian]

Yes, definitely! Snakes can retain sperm from previous breedings for quite a long time. Personally, I've had incidences of retained sperm from the previous season and this year a ball python female lay a fertile clutch of eggs 9+ months after the last exposure to a male!

[Kelfster]

It's a shame that only one in the whole clutch isn't a slug then :/ first time breeding though and I'm sure she was under weight

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[Kelfster]

One of 6, and it is vascularized!

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[ajmreptiles]

if you haven't already you should through the slugs away. no point in incubating them. just my observation from your last picture. if they start to deteriorate during the incubation period I hear the smell is pretty awful.

[Kelfster]

I wasn't sure if it would put the other egg into shock, and I am still trying to keep a stable temp in the incubator so I figured 5 warm eggs couldn't hurt until I have things figured out

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