mother lost an egg

[parisjackson]

ok, I have a nice sized feeding tank that I can convert into a home for the mom for the duration of the pregnancy. I'm not planning on keeping the babies but will give them to the store where i get my feeders from if they hatch. I haven't candled the eggs but I wouldn't really know what to look for anyway.

Any tips on moving the mother and eggs?

[Homegrownscales]

Id suggest keeping one or the other in that tank for a permanent situation. You really don't have the knowledge or skills to keep two balls together. It takes a TON more than a big cage. Especially after egg laying girls need to resume eating again. And with the stress of the male and eggs I doubt that is going to happen. Everyone has given excellent advice and im happy that we were all calm doing it. We tend to get excitable when discussions like this come up. I know I have strong feelings when it comes to situations like this. Anyways I suggest you use the great advice given and make the best life for your balls. Keeping them together the way you are I dont consider that to be a good life and I hope you change it. These animals shouldn't have to compete with a cage mate or be stressed daily to breed.

[Snakydan]

From what i see, the easiest is u may remove the male to your new nice seize tank and just leave your female to incubate its eggs in her huge enclosure. But bear in mind on humidity.

If you would still prefer the female to be remove to another tank, unwrap the female from the eggs carefully, place those eggs in the new enclosure and put the female inside, it might know how to go back to her own eggs. Check on humidity as well. (I wouldn't recommend this method)

Or another easiest way is to set up a simple incubator with a ratio of 1kg vermiculite and 1kg of water in a toyogo box.

Something like that,



Safe, easy, accurate. Maintain it in a room temperature of 28 to 31 degrees

cheers

[Failshed]

Do you have the ability to post pictures of this "situation"?

Is the egg even fertile? Maybe she kicked it because it was a bad egg...

Why not just move the male...?

[stratus_020202]

I would candle them. There is no use in her holding on to a bad clutch. She will not eat, or settle down until the eggs hatch. It's very stressful on them.

All you have to do is hold a flashlight up against them in a dark room. If you see veins (just like blood veins), they are fertile. The ones that aren't can be pitched. In this situation, there might not be any fertile ones, and you don't have to worry about them. Then we can work on the husbandry issues, and get them into a better environment.

If there are fertile eggs, you can watch them to see if they are ok. If the veins start to shrink, or fade, the egg is dieing. This is info you need to watch. If one dies, we can help you make changes for the rest of the clutch.

[Jay_Bunny]

I would also recommend moving the male instead of moving the female. She has her nest and she is as comfortable as she can be in this situation. Moving her and the eggs is just more stress. Get yourself a flashlight and if you need to, put a piece of cardboard (or a book, or whatever will shield you from a bite) and place the flashlight's lit end directly on the surface of the egg. GENTLY of course. If the egg has a yellow or orange color to it and you don't see veins running through it, it is infertile. You can put it back with the mom if you wish, but it likely will not hatch. If it has a pink color to it, and you can clearly see veins, it is still good and you should definitely put it back with the mother.

The only thing about letting the babies hatch is that you will want to house them long enough to let them shed and at least have a meal before they leave you. Not to knock a pet store you frequent, but many people on here have not had very good experiences with the husbandry pet stores provide to their reptiles. The chances of newly hatched ball python babies surviving at a pet store are not very good. Make arrangements to house them if you decide to let them hatch.

[Quiet Tempest]

A brooding mom will eat while on her clutch, but from the sound of it you remove your snakes in order to feed them in a separate enclosure..? Once you have these snakes in individual enclosures, they can be fed in their enclosure. It's easier for the snakes (and the keeper) to feed snakes in their enclosures. In the case of your female, you'd want to offer a smaller than usual meal. My snakes usually eat medium sized rats so a brooding female here if offered rat pups or small sized rats on a weekly basis.

[parisjackson]

I was going off the post that said
" Move the eggs and mother into a more controlled environment - I suggest getting a Sterilite container like this. Put it on a heat pad that is run through a thermostat. Line it with 3 layers of newspaper and put a water bowl in it. Adjust the temperature so it's at 88-90F, humidity should be between 70-80%. Put mom and eggs in there and leave daddy in the big enclosure."

That seemed reasonable since it could be hard to keep the big one as humid as needed.

[stratus_020202]

A brooding mom will eat while on her clutch, but from the sound of it you remove your snakes in order to feed them in a separate enclosure..? Once you have these snakes in individual enclosures, they can be fed in their enclosure. It's easier for the snakes (and the keeper) to feed snakes in their enclosures. In the case of your female, you'd want to offer a smaller than usual meal. My snakes usually eat medium sized rats so a brooding female here if offered rat pups or small sized rats on a weekly basis.

Really? I thought that's why we had to bathe them. They wouldn't eat if they could still smell thier eggs. Still learning about maternal incubation.

Paris, I would message this woman. She has more knowledge on maternal incubation than anyone here. She could also give you pointers on heat and humidity. It's easier to do it with an incubator, but with the right teacher not too difficult.

Good luck with them.

[Quiet Tempest]

Really? I thought that's why we had to bathe them. They wouldn't eat if they could still smell thier eggs. Still learning about maternal incubation.

Paris, I would message this woman. She has more knowledge on maternal incubation than anyone here. She could also give you pointers on heat and humidity. It's easier to do it with an incubator, but with the right teacher not too difficult.

Good luck with them.

If you're maternally incubating there's no need to bathe them. I suppose if you're artificially incubating that bathing would be wise, though, because she'd probably focus on finding her missing eggs rather than eating.

Oh, and thanks for the praise but I'm still learning as I go, too.