First eggs of the year, can small females breed?

[rabernet]

I'm going to move this to the Advanced Husbandry forum, because this is EXACTLY the type of topics we hoped to see discussed there! Maybe we drive more conversations there too! I love it!

[Patrick Long]

Damn thats pretty significant weight difference there!

[MarkS]

Congratulations on the eggs but (and please don't take this offensively - not my intent) but those eggs look horrible considering they've just been laid Are they fertile?

No problem Tosha, any question is fair game. The bottom egg I'm not sure about because it was kicked out of the coils, she was only wrapped around the top three. They are somewhat dessicated, they may have been laid a few days ago but I'm not sure about that I just found them today. I didn't have time to candle them this morning or I would have been even later for work then I already was. I plan on doing that tonight to see if they look fertile or not. I'll try to get pics, but judging from my past candling attempts the pics probably wont turn out. I'll also try to dig up that pic of the eggs I got out of the egg bound female last year, they looked really black and gnarly.

Mark

[MarkS]

Well, I candled the eggs tonight when I got home from work, all 4 of them had strong veins, even the one that wasn't coiled. I'm still wondering if it'll make it though it's pretty sunken in, but I've hatched worse looking eggs before so I guess I'll just keep my fingers crossed (and cover it with a damp paper towel).

I took over a dozen pics of candling the eggs and this is the only one that came out even somewhat recognizable as having veins. It's tough taking pics in the dark with only a flashlight for lighting.



I still haven't found the pic of the egg bound female from last year, I'll try to find it tomorrow. I know it's gotta be here somewhere.

Mark

[rabernet]

Congrats Mark! Fingers crossed on these!!!

[MarkS]

Thanks Robin, I'm pretty sure that they'll hatch OK, at least most of them.

Also heres that pic of the stuck eggs that I promised. These are eggs that I removed from a ball python last season when she became egg bound. They're pretty ugly looking eggs. I wish I had pics of her before I removed them, she really looked uncomfortable, but I didn't think of getting pics until they were already out of her.

CAUTION, These are pretty disgusting looking......





VVVVVVVVVVVV down there VVVVVVVVVVVVVV

[aaramire]

omg! she must have been in so much pain! how did you get the eggs out?? and was the female ok after???? yikes!

[rabernet]

I wonder what are the causes of being egg bound? Weak muscles? Hormones aren't released to induce "labor" (what do we call that in snakes?)?

Glad to see what it looks like, it looks like there was some blood involved as well - you say that she's recovered well though?

[SatanicIntention]

It's called dystocia, and it can be linked to a number of things. Poor body condition, low blood calcium that helps the muscles contract, etc. Sometimes giving an injection of calcium can help the eggs pass.

[MarkS]

Beckys right, there are a lot of different reasons for egg binding, you could also have a twisted oviduct, cloaca thats too narrow or eggs that are too big. I was able to get them out by palpating and massaging the eggs until I was able to push them out. I had a friend of mine who is a vet show me how to do it once when I took an egg bound corn snake in to see her. You have to take your time and have a good feel for whats going on inside the snake. Of course sometimes you're just going to need surgery, fortunately in this case it wasn't necessary. After the first one passed, the rest of them came right out. She recovered just fine, even eating less then a week after the eggs came out. One positive thing that came about was that she had been only a mouser before, but afterwards she had no problem taking rats. Like I said earlier, I'm not breeding her this year, I'll wait to see how she's doing until next year and then decide whether or not I want to try it again.