Breeding question

[Spiritserpents]

The general guideline is 3 years, 3 feet long, and 300 grams. But as before, you want that to be a healthy, *muscular* 300 grams, not just fat. If that means waiting until she's 4 to breed her, so be it. Slow growing is better.

Breeding season starts in early spring if you don't brumate (brumation is not required and I've not seen any difference in fertility.) A couple days after the female sheds, put the male in with her. If she freaks out and runs or bucks him off, she is unreceptive. Pull the male and wait another week. Repeat until copulation is observed. This may take another shed (we are looking for the pre-ovulation shed). When she is interested, she will hold relatively still and both snakes will do the 'herky-jerky dance' with lots of twitching. She will also flag her tail. Usually if the female is receptive, copulation occurs within 5 minutes, often sooner.

From first copulation to laying can be anywhere from 21 to 60 days, which is obnoxious as one of my girls goes that full two months. Many females will also stop eating a couple weeks before they lay. The females will have a pre-lay shed, and usually lay within 7 to 10 after that. Provide a lay box in the form of a plastic shoebox filled with damp sphagnum moss. I soak the moss and then take handfuls and squeeze until I can get out no more water, then fluff it up in the box. Cut a hole in the lid big enough for the female to get through. She'll be going in an out a lot the first few days before settling in to the box. I know laying is imminent with my girls when they also clear an area of the laybox by pushing all the moss aside in a big circle. Do not check the lay box more than once a day (lift it up and look at the bottom) so as to prevent stress. Once you see the start of eggs, wait another day before opening the box and uncovering them. The female is usually loosely wrapped around them. Pull her off the eggs (don't worry too much if they roll at this stage) and palpate her to make sure no eggs remain. If she has eggs still to lay, remove the eggs currently in the box and replace her and wait another day. If she doesn't lay then it's time to start dealing with eggbinding and one of the easiest methods is shoving a bunch of food into her. The females are usually starving after laying anyway, so offering a small meal right away is advised. Leave the egg-free laybox with her, as it will provide a humid hide to help her with her post-lay shed.


Incubation period lasts from 55 days (at a steady 85 degrees) up to 90 days (at 78 degrees). Average is 60 to 65 though, as most people try to keep the eggs around 80 to 82 degrees. Heat spikes much past 85 and you can get kinking and other developmental abnormalities, or even outright kill the eggs. So no, they can't go with your BP eggs.

The average number of eggs in a clutch varies wildly. Average is around 10 to 15, but you can have fewer than that, or significantly more. My girls average in the 15 to 20 range, but one only gave 5 'torpedo' eggs. She could have fit 10, but makes huge, long eggs instead. Some females in their prime (around age 8, 9) have laid well over 30 eggs. Corn snakes also often double clutch, so it is important to feed her a lot both before, and after the first clutch. In full swing of the season, my girls are getting two large adult mice a *week*... and none of them are fat. The second clutch is usually smaller, and with poorer fertility.

Do not try to separate the eggs. A good fertile clutch will look like this: dry, puffy, firm marshmallows with a papery feel to the shell.




Slugs on the other hand are usually smaller, often oddly shaped and yellow with a 'tacky' feel.





They also act like stress balls when squeezed. If you can do this, they're probably slugs: