Quote Originally Posted by Paul's Pieds View Post
Alicia can you give more info please. I do not know anyone who has done MI and I have only read one article on it. I would love to know more from someone who has successfully achieved this.
Sure thing. I'll make this kinda quick, so I don't totally hijack the thread, but, in general . . .

The snake I tried MI with was a second-time mom. She had refused to eat in a tub, so, at this time, she was separate from the other snakes in a 20gal long that was entirely blacked out, insulated, and had foil on the top. I switched her normal substrate of paper towels to a mix of sphagnum moss on the warm end, cypress on the cool end. The pad ran ~87 F and she laid at one end of it. Ambient temps ranged quite low, down into the 70s at least. Following the advice of Quiet Tempest in the MI sticky, I was tried to maintain a humidity inside her cage of ~77%. If the program is running correctly, the female will coil the eggs and slow the loss of humidity. I never, ever, applied water directly around the nest. When I added water, I gave a gentle spritz to the opposite end of the cage, where her water bowl was.

I did not offer Dahlia food. I know this snake, so I didn't even bother. Because my temp/hygro were on a prob, I was able to keep tabs on the baseline stuff without harassing her and left her to do her thing as much as possible, checking in on her visually late in the day, even skipping a few days during the middle of the incubation. I changed her water every 3 days, although I saw no indication that she passed urates. She did not defecate.

Pipping occurred naturally ~Day 63, only a day or two later than what I get in the incubator. There were 8 eggs. One egg died at the end of incubation -- it was underneath the others and later. The bacteria that show up whenever a egg opens colonized the outside of the shell and appeared to have gotten inside, killing the baby. All other babies hatched successfully and ate quickly. Dahlia assumed the "where's my rat?" position as most of her babies left their eggs. Interestingly, she attempted to nudge the first two babies to emerge back into the pile, using the same motions as a mother snake rolling her eggs into a pile.

I don't seem to have had a thread on the in-progress -- this, though, is on the results:
http://ball-pythons.net/forums/showt...062-MI-Piggage!

I moved Dahlia into a V-70 tub as soon as the first 6 babies were out of her cage. I did not offer her food that night, but I broke out a weanling rat for her the next night and she took it aggressively. I offered her food on the normal schedule and even so, she put weight back on beautifully. I'm not comfortably breeding my personal females yearly anyway, so, no rush for me there.

That's all I can recall of the top of my head. If I had the notes in front of me, I might be able to give more details, but those are the main points. It was very neat process and I got to watch a responsible snake do something innate, albeit in a less-than-natural situation. I will certainly do it again, and definitely with Dahlia when I decide to pair her again.