Huge Eggs

[SnakeDepot]

Hi, everyone.

After years of owning and taking care of various snakes, we have decided to start breeding Ball Pythons.
Our first pair was a Female WT, with a Super Pastel male.

Everything was great until we noticed the female had huge bumps in the middle part of it body.
One night, the female lay out two big eggs. Both fertile. But we thought the female had another huge egg stuck.

We take her to the vet, and decided to do surgery, and then the vet removed another two more huge eggs.
Both were infertile.

We are from Mexico and we haven’t found anyone here who had been through the same. Hope someone can help us out with some information or something.


Also can some one tell me how to attach photos?
Thank you!

[AnnieHeart]

Hi!

I have never bred ball pythons and I'm very sorry I am not able to give any advice on this topic... I HOPE others here with the experience with not leave you hanging!!

Best of luck!

There is a button above where you start writing that you click and it says "insert image"

[Bogertophis]

Welcome, SnakeDepot...I'm not a breeder of ball pythons, but I've bred various other kinds of snakes in past years. Sorry your first try didn't end so
well...I'm assuming that after surgery, your BP is no longer recommended for or able to breed? Problems can happen in any kind of oviparous snakes.

One time one of my rat snakes actually had an ectopic pregnancy: I was fortunate then to be living near a really skilled vet who did surgery to remove
eggs & spay that snake, & she did fine afterwards. Breeding has never been important to me, she was a cherished pet whose survival meant far more.

I've bred bull snakes in the past, speaking of huge eggs...& one time had to help my female push the eggs out, as she became exhausted. They all came
out fine (they were good eggs) and my female was fine too. It was just that in the middle of laying the clutch, a really big one sapped her energy. It's
tricky to manually help a snake push out their eggs...you have to be gentle & not hurt the snake or break the eggs, & it sure helps if the snake knows &
trusts you. I've always enjoyed bull snakes for their intelligence & toughness...they're somewhat under-rated as pets, IMO.

I'm glad your vet was able to help: another thing that sometimes enables a snake to push out the eggs is an injection of "oxytocin" (arginine vasotocin)
to induce (or strengthen) contractions, but if the egg(s) is truly too big to pass, this method won't work. It has worked on one of my snakes in the past.

And even if you never breed a female snake, some of them produce infertile eggs anyway & can still suffer from dystocia (egg binding). I have 2 large
Florida rat snakes that produce 2 dozen+ infertile eggs EACH (usually with a much smaller second clutch too), & every year I worry about them...

Breeding snakes is fun & rewarding, but not always worth the risks to your pet, or the medical bills if it doesn't go well, & there's just no guarantees.
Wishing you better luck in the future, & hope the eggs you're incubating turn out great also.

[Bogertophis]

Here's a good overview-
https://www.petcoach.co/article/egg-...diagnosis-tre/

[dr del]

Hi,

Egg binding can certainly be a problem for some females.

Normally the fist thing we would look at was aspirating the egg causing the blockage - but this is wholy dependant on how many eggs of the same size are in the girl and whether the egg is stuck right at the vent or not.

In those cases I would focus more on getting the female to increase in size and give her a season off if she has trouble.

But, once a surgical intervention is called for the vet is the only person who's advice I would take regarding this.


dr del

[SnakeDepot]

The two fertile eggs.
The first stuck mega egg
The two stuck mega eggs
Size of the first mega egg
The female with the dystosia

The first fertile egg
The second fertile egg
The female after laying the first egg.

unfortunately the female did not survived
But her babies are in the incubator, 27 days until they born or we can make slits

[Bogertophis]

...unfortunately the female did not survived
But her babies are in the incubator, 27 days until they born or we can make slits

Oh no....I'm so sorry for your loss. That is a very difficult surgery: if your snake had survived, I think it would have been no more breeding anyway, but I was
really hoping she'd make it. so sorry...those eggs do look enormous, poor snake!

One of my UN-bred adult Florida rat snakes just laid 18 eggs (slugs) today, as she & her silly sister do every year. Neither has ever bred, both see themselves
as chickens...? I was worried about Tapanga, as she laid the first slug several days ago, then nothing. I palpated her, knew she had 12+ eggs, but none of
them were huge or seemed stuck...in fact they were well above the cloaca too. She's been in her nest box (moist moss & darkness) and I finally saw a lot of
motion all last night; today, later, I saw her soaking in her water bowl, & sure enough, when I checked her nest box, she had laid them all under the moss so
I couldn't see them until I actually got in there. I felt her over, made sure no eggs left inside, & she is back to soaking. Soon enough she'll let me know she is
ravenously hungry... and next it's her sister Lainey's turn to lay eggs. I wish there was an "off" switch...these sweet gals are just pets, & I always worry about
dystocia.