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Posted by tvandeventer on March 14, 2003 at 11:12:02:
In Reply to: Follow up on laying female eastern indigo... posted by Rob Carmichael on March 14, 2003 at 07:09:53:
Rob,
In reference to a question I posed earlier, is the egg that was responsible for the problem an infertile one or is it good? In my experience it has never been a fertile egg that gets stuck. Your male may be producing a low sperm count, resulting in a lower number of good eggs. And of course, we always tend to blame the male. We need to remember that snakes also have "female problems." When this stuff becomes an exact science, resulting in 100% fertility and hatch (as it virtually always does in nature), somebody email me and let me know the good news! LOL.
Over my career I have found countless dozens of wild snake nests and collected hundreds of wild gravid females. Provided the female was not collected too early in the year, I have never seen an infertile egg. For all practical puposes, I think that infertile slugs is not a phenomenon commonly, if ever, found in nature, but rather, an artifact of captivity. My friend in Peru breeds all of his boas (live bearers) in outside, fenced-in naturalistic plots in full sun. Basically fenced-in chunks of rainforest. Catches up his pregnant females when they begin to bask and takes them to birthing cages. He didn't know what a slug was until I told him!
Just looking for a little feedback. Cheers, Terry
:So far, looks like nine good eggs but I celebrated too early as my prized female became egg bound. I was concerned in that there was one egg that was still well anterior of the cloaca (nearly 8 inches). I thought for sure she was going in for surgery but last night, I soaked her in tepid/lukewarm water for 45 minutes to see if I could relax her a bit. I then just started to gently massage her putting VERY gentle but constant pressure on the anterior side of where the egg was to see if I could push the egg towards the cloaca and using gravity to my advantage. After two hours (which seemed like days....my wife was very jealous for all of the attention that this other "girl" was getting), I was able to move the egg very near the cloaca. The entire two hours, the female just laid motionless (what a great patient!) and was even trying to contract her muscles to help out (but she was dead tired and didn't have much left in her). I put her back in a high humid, slightly damp nest box overnight, and this morning....SUCCESS. She was able to get that last egg out. She is now resting comfortably and I hope to have a complete recovery. This female may be going into retirement as this is her second clutch (out of three) that she has produced in which she has become egg bound. Any thoughts out there?...haven't had this problem with my other females. I'd hate to see this happen again to her. She will get at least a couple of seasons off before I breed her again (if I go this route).
