Slug Outs

[garweft]

I've seen slugs in clutches from all the top BP breeders in the US. Which tells me that no one really has an idea of any things we can change husbandry wise to reduce the chances and numbers of slugs.

The female could have a hard time retaining viable sperm long enough, the male could have low fertility, the timing of breeding could be off.... lots of stuff.

One thing I have seen is it seems much more likely to get slugs when breeding a male to multiple females. And in all reptiles I've worked with obese animals always have lower fertility.

[SlitherinSisters]

What about your tub size? Do you use 32 qts or 40 something quarts? I have been discussing this with a friend and he is having issues with slugs that he most definitely should not be having. He does everything exactly how it should be done, all his females are perfect weight, not fat, not thin, and his girls in the 32 qt have had a few slugs and his girls in the 40 something qts have had perfect eggs. I also kept my girl in a 32qt and had too eggs end up being too weak and dying on me. They seemed to have underdeveloped veins that eventually faded away by day 23.

Just a theory, I don't know if anyone else has had issues with the 32qt and slugs.

[Quiet Tempest]

This is only my second year doing this but I keep some of my females in 32qt tubs and two of them are brooding their eggs in those tubs. I had no slugs from ball pythons last year or this year. I think getting slugs has more to do with fertility of the parents than the dimensions of the enclosures they are kept in.

[SlitherinSisters]

This is only my second year doing this but I keep some of my females in 32qt tubs and two of them are brooding their eggs in those tubs. I had no slugs from ball pythons last year or this year. I think getting slugs has more to do with fertility of the parents than the dimensions of the enclosures they are kept in.

What about in my case? I assume they are still considered slugs? All of my eggs were great until day 18 when I noticed one starting to deflate and turn green and I could see the veins disintegrating on the second egg when I candled it. The second egg lasted till day 23, but I lost it too. They all had veins from day one, but those two eggs had much smaller/fewer veins. Do you think that was because of the parent's fertility?

We were thinking is was an issue with thermoregulating in the smaller tubs.

[Quiet Tempest]

What about in my case? I assume they are still considered slugs? All of my eggs were great until day 18 when I noticed one starting to deflate and turn green and I could see the veins disintegrating on the second egg when I candled it. The second egg lasted till day 23, but I lost it too. They all had veins from day one, but those two eggs had much smaller/fewer veins. Do you think that was because of the parent's fertility?

We were thinking is was an issue with thermoregulating in the smaller tubs.

Unless there was something wrong with the conditions the eggs were being kept in (high temperature spike, for example), it might go back to one or both of the parents. When I think of eggs dying early in incubation, I think of miscarriage. I know the process is very different, but there are similarities too and with miscarriage it often goes back to the fertility and reproductive health of the parents.

I use 4" flexwatt under the tubs in my rack and my thermostat is set at 91F. The temperature in the tubs is reading 89F at the warm end and at 78F at the cool end. Not sure if that gives any insight at all, but it's what I'm working with. I prefer keeping things a little cooler when I can because the room the rack is kept in can heat up quite a bit during the summer months if a certain someone in my household decides to be cost-conscious and turns the a/c off while we're away.

[donkiez]

Good stuff guys.

Just to clarify I am talking about dead/unfertilized little rock eggs not eggs that dont make it through the incubator.

During a season, what you consider keeping a male in with a female long enough? My breeding female to male ratio is roughly 1 male 3 females (more or less depending on what Im going for), I kept each male in with a female for a week or two then rotated the male. So off the top of my head I would say a total of 1.5weeks per month per female.

Another things that might be worth considering is my first cluth was in late march and had no slugs, and all 6 of my others have come within the last week. (busy week), so counting backwards does that mean they were all impregnated around Feb/March?

Im also using 4" flex watt, belly heat. Temps set to 91, hot spot measures around 88-91 almost year around.

Tub sizes are the 40gallon ones.