Aussie Pythons & Snakes Forum

Help Support Aussie Pythons & Snakes Forum:

This site may earn a commission from merchant affiliate links, including eBay, Amazon, and others.
Status
Not open for further replies.

deebo

Very Well-Known Member
Joined
Jul 2, 2007
Messages
2,428
Reaction score
3
Hi All,

I was a bit hesitant to post a thread like this for fear as coming across as an idiot who didn’t know what he was doing, but I thought it might be important to share some information like this, especially with some of the new aspiring herp keepers.

We often hear about people’s success but very rarely hear about the downsides of keeping and breeding reptiles. While I cannot claim to be an expert or an incredibly experienced keeper I have been keeping snakes for about six years now and have bred them for the past three years and in that time, especially with breeding, have had both successes and failures.

Some of you may have read/seen about the success I have recently had with a clutch of RSP that hatched this year; but even within that clutch there has been some disappointment. I had 12 fertile eggs and one slug laid, one egg went mouldy about 6 weeks into incubation and later died, and the other 11 hatched and all seemed fine. I was checking on the hatchies earlier this week and found one with its body all tensed up and lying with its mouth gaping open. I thought it was dead but when I picked it up it started to writhe around and then about 20 seconds later it literally died in my hands. Upon closer inspection I found its body was a bit swollen around where I think its heart would be and also seemed a bit darkened and black when looking from the underside. I am not sure exactly what happened to it but assume it was some sort of defect that took a while to show any problems.

In previous years I have had near 100% hatch rates with jungles, BHPs and womas. This season I would be lucky to be pushing 40% success.

I also had 100% success with two clutches of jungles this year but lost a clutch of six patternless childreni eggs about one week into incubation.

I also had six eggs laid from a woma this year that all seemed fine until hatching day came around. Two womas made it out of the egg but were tied to the egg via their umbilical to large unabsorbed yolk masses that were still connected to the outer egg shell. I managed to the tie their umbilical off and cut them free. Of the remaining four eggs one drowned in the egg as it was unable to cut its way out, another died full term for some reason, one egg was full of a clear jelly-type liquid with a fully formed snake inside and the other egg had a tiny woma in it which was alive when I pipped it but died shortly afterwards. All the eggs when cut open were found to have large hard unabsorbed yolk in them. The two hatchies that did emerge from their eggs died earlier this week. They were very weak and small and I was dubious as to whether they would go the distance. The same female produced some lovely healthy babies last year that were fantastic feeders and the two I held back are powering along.

I guess what I am trying to share is that it is not as simple as buying a pair of snakes, throwing them together, getting eggs, incubating them and getting hatchies. Reproducing would probably have to be one of the most risky things that nature has in store for us and we should realise that it is inevitable that things will go wrong in the process. Compared to my previous years at breeding snakes, this year has been a real eye-opener for me.

I don’t believe there is anything shameful in posting information like this and I hope that it might help some people in some way. I know other people who have had pretty poor seasons. I’ve seen how they keep and treat their animals and having poor success at breeding is not always a reflection of one’s ability to keep and look after their animals, but the idea that a reputation will be potentially damaged by posting such information stops them from doing so.

I don’t think we should stop sharing our successes, as these are what make it all worthwhile, but whenever we are working with animals there are bound to be some failures and it is from these that we probably learn the most. I have learnt a great deal this season and will go into the next season with a bit more experience and more grounded attitude as to what may come out the other end of it.

I’d be happy to see other people post about their successes and their disappointments; however let’s keep it to information sharing and not personal attacks.

Thanks,
Dave
 
Dave

This is my first year producing and have maternally incubated 1 clutch of spotted's and all seem healthy, I have a 2nd clutch of spotted's from a smaller female and will be pushing to keep any of these eggs, they are 4 days shy of hatching. I also had a clutch of jungle eggs there werre 13 laid 4 slugs and 6 dies 3 weeks in. I think in the jungles case it was the male was a little under weight as he has been a pain in the tail to eat rats. One thing I noticed was that all my snakes except the female jungle went off eating in Feb last year ( Female went off in May) I tried adjusting heat on them slightly but to no avail. I think you learn more from failures than success.
 
Well said Dave, like you said, we hear all about the success but little of the failures.

You know all too well about my year! Like you great first few years of breeding, last year got average, this year was just horrid.

From 30+ eggs from three clutches, i got one hatchling (all 2g of it lol). My favourite sire (and fav snake as he was the first i ever got), who sired many good clutches decided he was now sterile and i got two clutches of slugs from females with a great breeding records.

only one patternless egg hatched, and is pretty much patterned, though could be RP, we'll see in a shed or two.

womas didn't go for me which was a real kick in the rear end as i really was looking forward to getting hatchies from them.

i was almost going to pack it all in this year bar a few snakes i am too attached too (not for the above reasons- more to do with family and just having a break for a year two).However I refuse to go out on a low point, i am moving some on, bringing in new blood and determined to crack these bloody WA womas!

Definitely not always as easy as just throwing two snakes together and getting great results.
 
One of my more worrying and hands on experiences this year was a woma that had some problems in the process of laying her eggs. Her oviducts prolapsed and I was able to free 2 eggs that had come out with her oviducts, she then managed to lay the next 2 by herself but struggled with the rest. I assisted her to free 2 more eggs but 1 did not want to budge and for fear of pushing her oviducts out again I had to leave it in her. This all happened at about 11:30 one night so luckily for me a very experienced mate was up for a phone call and gave me some advice. She has been shedding, feeding, defecating fine and the retained egg is slowly decreasing in size and with time I hope she will pass it. So far she appears fine and she has been getting warm baths and gentle massaging around the egg in an attempt to loosen it and enable her to pass it or for me to massage it free.

Fingers crossed for a more stress free season this year!
 
Great thread.......

I've bred all the Bluey Morphs (Black, Albino & Hypo Northerns) & a good portion of the locales along with Albino Darwins, Womas, Bredli & Geckos (you get the picture)........

I have also lost a chunk of stuff...... I cooked an entire clutch of Albino Darwins (when they were worth a quid also lol).... a couple of Woma clutches (they seem real easy to kill during incubation)...... Had to put down an adult Golden line BHP through ill health etc...... so not all rosy in the rose garden......


I don't think this thread needs key-board know it alls asking how clutches/animals were lost & offering their infinite wisdom either..... I just think as Dave said is more indicative of the flip-side......... & is usefull for aspiring Herpers......

I got 3 clutches of Iguana eggs as a young kid in the UK which also never hatched...... not until the 4th clutch that I cracked it......... so the idea of instant success whilst it is possible is often a Pink Elephant...... an animal which I still continue to chase !!!!!!!!
 
I count my self very lucky as my early python breeding attemps were 100% successful resulting in live healthy greedy eager feeders. So happy :)

BUT down the track I lost half a clutch (12) of bredli, nothing was more heartbreaking than to see 12 little babies cruising around

and the other 12 fully formed not moving in the egg. What went wrong I will never know, sometimes I think it was because the shells of the eggs were too thick for the hatchlings to break through, from that day on I always slit the eggs at 60 days.

More recently (when I considered my self a clever reptile breeder) my favourite female bredli retained a few eggs, a phone call to "The Wizard" for advice, a cropping needle and ky -
another friend and I sucessfully removed the last 4 eggs. It is funny now when I look back, the operation was on the kitchen table at night when it was above 30 degrees and the girll was in full shed....We were covered in sweat, ky and bits of shed. But so happy my beautiful girl made it. She knew we were helping her :)

My old mother blue tongue is a teenager now and had always had her babies before xmas....she surprised me last year and had them on Valentines Day...I had given up hope thinking she was too old (she lives with her mate all year round).......today she is nearly busting full of babies.....so who knows when she will drop.

I've had water dragon eggs hatch at 42 days when the weather was extremely hot, thriving little darlings they were too

Someone (who shall remain nameless) turned the power off the incubator overnight and didn't tell me till after my vitticeps had hatched weeks later....that night the temp. got down to 12
Later on when I was more "expert" lol... my favourite female bredli retained a few eggs....a phone call to the "wizard" for advice, a cropping needle and ky - another friend an
Other interesting stuff has happened but I will quit rambling for now :)

Cheers
Sandee :)
 
Last edited:
What an excellent thread. Thank you so much for sharing. It certainly opens my eyes that breeding snakes is every bit as hard if not harder than having a litter of pups. I know I will be searching out a good reptile vet when I am ready to breed my girls and having them on standby when we expect eggs to be laid just the same as I did when my girls were about to drop their pups. I found having the vet there to phone was always a recipe for things to run smoothly.
 
This was my first year breading and I had mixed results. I was lucky enough to get two healthy looking clutches of jungle eggs, both candled well with strong veins. During the incubation I got one day about five weeks in when the temps spiked and I lost one entire clutch. I opened a number of the eggs to find pretty well formed embryos. In the last week of the incubation I lost power for about 18 hours while I was at work but was lucky enough to still get 11 of 12 eggs hatch. The final one pipped but never left the egg.

Even though the loss was disappointing I think I learnt a huge amount through the process. I think as a result I am now more aware of the subtle changes in my snakes behaviour, but it showed me how little I actually know.

Cheers,
Paul
 
A good thread. Please keep the stories coming.
 
Im sure there wouldn't be an experienced breeder out there that has had 100% success rate every clutch every year.
 
Hey Dave,
Great thread:)
Yes I had a very stressful breeding season, with my female Stimson, becoming egg bound, I had to deflate the first egg with a needle and syringe and then with lots of KY around the egg she managaed to pass it on her own. After x-raying her I established there was still another seven eggs to go....she passed two more on her own which were both slugs:-(
The next egg I had to do the same as the first, then more slugs, the last egg took another six weeks to pass, it was the most stressful time, she passed it just in time, as I was about to take her in to get it surgically removed.
I also was lucky to have the supoort of some more experienced breeders and reptile vets who helped calm a very worried mum;-)
She is my fav snake and also my first ever snake, I think the problem was a dud male as I put two across her this year instead of just the one from last year. That male has now moved on to become a pet for someone and my baby will not be breed again.
On the flip side I got 10 strong jungle bubs, I only have one feeding at the moment, but fingers crossed.
It does make you think what can happen and I certainly learnt more about snake behaviour.
We are human and all make mistakes, as long as we learn from them and don't make them again.
Again thanks for a great thread.
 
One of the dumbest thing I've done,

I've bred Varanus mitchelli a few times and one of the years I bred them I got slack..

They breed at an unusual time of the year and incubate through winter. I was checking the critters out in the 'facility' late one night and decided to look at the monitor eggs. Something caught my eye and I got distracted enough to walk away from the incubator - leaving it open overnight..

An entire clutch died as we had one of the coldest nights in Brisbane. The eggs were toast only a few weeks away from hatching after a long incubation stint. I instantly had a crap morning seeing that incubator wide open.

Big wait for a big heartache.

Nothing to learn besides - being human = making mistakes.

Good thing I'm no longer 100% human lol!

Here is one that worked when the incubator stayed shut.
 

Attachments

  • V. mitchelli juv sml.JPG
    V. mitchelli juv sml.JPG
    90.9 KB · Views: 106
My most heartbreaking experience was a spotted girl (who we still have) who I did not realise was gravid as she had barely eaten and hidden constantly for the whole twelve months we had had her. We had her housed with the male. She went missing and I found her buried under the substrate on eggs. Being totally inexperienced with breeding we let her, on advise, maternally incubate the clutch. All nine hatched and we had lovely, what appeared to be healthy, little spotted babies. Not one of them ate, we tried to get help of the person we purchased them off but she wasn't interested. We got advise from various people we found numbers for online and the vet at Karingal and followed it all to the tee. Sadly they all died one by one. I nearly gave up keeping completely at that point. I was so devastated. Every day another little one dead. I swore I would never breed anything ever again. I was told by numerous people it wasn't my fault and the mother was to out of condition to give the little ones the best start but I still felt terrible. I'm over it now and have a lot more knowledge and support but it is a terrible thing to go through your first time and I doubt I will ever put the spotteds back together again..
 
Great thread & great stories.
Now I don't know any one that is about to admit that they _uck-- up, But I have not & all off my stories are good.

Except all the bites That I have had are for the learning experience of the Python.
The failed incubation methods are due to the weather.
& all the learning experiences talking to you guys can only make me wiser.

Cheers
Ian
 
Great thread Dave.. You know my luck. BHP mating constantly getting me all excited then nothing this year. My woma girl getting RI in the middle of ovulation so lost clutch there just some slugs passed out over a few days. That stressed me thinking there was something wrong with my husbandry. i have since found outtalking to a few people it is commonly bought on by stress and the stress of mating and ovulating brought it on and a few other people have had the same thing happen over the years. Oh well always next year for us all.
 
I lost 2 whole clutches of keelbacks once. First lot i killed by incubating them like python eggs. The second clutch hatched and died over about 2 weeks because i treated them like python hatchlings.
 
Awesome thread. Learning lots and really nice to see no criticism from the keyboard cowboys.
 
i stuffed up a few amyae eggs last year, first the substrate was too wet, and 2 eggs from seperate clutches died at 6 weeks in.

so next i went with 60:40 instead of 50:50 and dropped the temps,....

at first my temps were 31, which i dropped to 28 since i noticed most gecko eggs were cooked a bit cooler, without thinking of the damage that might do to the eggs that had started off at 31C.
The pair that was at day 12 of incubation when i turned down the temps actually hatched out big healthy looking babies, which slowed down and died after 24 and 48 hours,....
i was pointed towards some info that said temps between days 7 and 14 are critical cos thats when all the important bits are developing,...i cant think of what else could have happened if anyone has a better answer,...

at least i learnt something from my mutlitude of stuffups, this year everything has been hatching perfectly,...

another major stuff up was an 8 month old amyae (one of my 2 survivors from my first season), it loved its egg carton hide which leached out any moisture from its skin, so when it shed its body, its belly was a hard plate of very uncomfortable skin,..

after 7 days of soaking in water 1 hours morning and night with no results, other than a miserable uncomfy looking gecko, i added 1 small drop of olive oil to the bath water, swished it thru, then put the gecko in,..i knew in an instant it was a bad move,.....it was like oil on paper, just soaked right in,..

the next day it shed perfectly, i thought id freaked out over nothing,..but sure enough a day later it was dead.

NEVER ADD OIL TO A GECKOS BATHWATER!!, (my suspicions on it being the oil have been confirmed by an experienced gecko person)

another terrible experience for me was a freshly hatched ackie with alot of vermiculite crusted around its umbilical cord area,....i picked it up late one night and left it in its chinese food container sharing a heat mat at snake temps till after work the next day,....when i got home i set up a tub, get the temps to 58C, lined it with papertowel and a couple of hides, then popped it in to watch it explore its territory. i walked away, 10 mins later came back to find the belly scab had snagged on something (really could only have been the paper towel) and torn its stomach open,...and all its intestines were poking out more by the minute,...there was nothing i could do except end its suffering as quickly as possible,....it only i hadnt moved it to a better setup,... :(
i guess if i ever have anythin with belly scabs, it will have a completely substrate free smooth plastic tub till the scab comes off,...
 
Awesome thread. Learning lots and really nice to see no criticism from the keyboard cowboys.

Mate some are probably not game to say.
But hey we all make mistakes & learn from them & also other peoples.
This is what it is all about & let us share peacefully.

Cheers
Ian
 
I am keen on exploring with temp manipulation all my spotted clutches have been maternally incubated and I even took out the thermostat as it was being unreliable, one clutch turned out 100% and I mirrored the process for the 2nd lot and not sure how many will survive..
 
Status
Not open for further replies.

Latest posts

Back
Top