Reptile & Amphibian Forums

.....were found on October 4th and 5th, 2007!

In my incubator:

Five baby alterna arrived on October 4th – 6th, 2007……

As most of you remember from an earlier post, this pair of adult alterna were found copulating in the wild on June 14th.

The female:

The male:

In late June/early July, the female starting developing a very swollen lower abdomen:

The female laid five perfect eggs on July 17th, 2007. The weight of the clutch was 46.8 grams; the weight of the female right after oviposition, 83.5 grams. In other words, the eggs were 56% of the total mass of the female!

The eggs looked like this on October 4th, 2007:

There is a huge debate by many on this forum and elsewhere about proper incubation of alterna eggs. I maintain that there is something that keepers of these snakes are not doing with their ADULTS which make for less hardy offspring. These eggs were maintained at room temperature (72 °F to 80 °F) for the first six weeks of incubation and at 82 °F constant temperature for the last weeks of incubation. Nothing in particular was done with these eggs: perlite was used (it was handy), no dampened paper towels on the top of the eggs one to two weeks before hatching, and as noted above, no concern was given for the incubation temperatures. The room stayed fairly warm during the first part of incubation; it got much cooler due to an early fall and hence, we started incubating the eggs in an incubator. The eggs all started hatching within 48 hours: Note the number of slits…all yolk sacs were absorbed and no dead babies in the shell, the latter both being problems with eggs resulting from animals bred in captivity. The babies also averaged one gram greater in mass than my earlier captive-bred baby gray-banded kingsnakes. What exactly is going on is difficult to ascertain at this time without further experimentation. A ton of people, myself included, have discussed a lot of different anecdotal information regarding ways of increasing hatch success in alterna. I know this discussion will continue for years to come!

The babies looked like this:

the above was the only male!

These five babies ranged in weight from 7 to 8 grams, fully one gram more on average than my captive bred babies in past years.

Jerry your captive babies had all the liquid boiled out of them, of course they weighed less on average.

A raisin always weighs less than a grape lol.

Jeff

are you all familiar with steve hammocks (HISS) study with egg incubation and hatchling size based on moisture levels? I saw him deliver the talk at the 1991 symposium in Seattle. his control groups were texas ratsnakes. I don't know if he did further studies with other types of snakes. in case you are familiar with it i wont go into detail except to say that lower moisture levels lead to larger hatchlings. i applied it to all of my colubrid egg incubation including alterna with excellent hatch rates. i haven't worked with alterna for years, but almost every egg i ever had that appeared fertile at laying hatched without incident (well over 100 babies in three years). the symposium article shouldn't be too difficult to find if anyone is interested. rusty

see (listen to) the 7/27/2000 Hammack kingsnake radio link on this page
www.kingsnake.com/radio/
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http://www.hcu-tx.org

Very interesting stuff... I wonder if a natural diet had to do with your success (and hatch size) with that clutch of 5?? I am starting to believe that the lizard diet may be an important attribute..

This year I kept my incubation substrate drier than usual and I put a small glass of water my incubation boxes to keep the air humidity a bit higher.. I lost very few eggs and only 4 babies were fully formed but dead in their eggs.. Which was really not that bad considering how many eggs I hatched out this year..

What i am going to change next year is my incubation temps. This year I incubated at 82 and eggs hatched in 54-62 days.. Next year I am going to drop the temp a few degrees.

~ Mike Russo

82 is a little hot, I have used 75 numerous times. I think it is a better temp(more natural) it takes 85-90 days at that. I too like to use a water source such as a bowl. I use dry vermiculite and put a water source in there. It will hydrate the substrate for you, I open the top daily to check on the eggs and they seem to breath that way. I start this whole system about 30 days before the snakes are to lay. I have hatched all my eggs at 75 (hondo's, mexican milks, pyros, alterans etc) it woks well but not for someone in a hurry.I never use a heater, this cuts down on the raisin factor.

Great looking babies Merk,

Shannon

"The female laid five perfect eggs on July 17th, 2007. The weight of the clutch was 46.8 grams; the weight of the female right after oviposition, 83.5 grams. In other words, the eggs were 56% of the total mass of the female! "

If her weight after oviposition was 83.5, then her total weigh before oviposition was 130.3. If the weight of the eggs was 46.8, then the eggs made up 36% of her weight, as 46.8/130.3=.359.

Still the eggs made up over 1/3 of her body weight.
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South Texas Herps

Mike: There are two ways to view that statistic...I believe taking the weight of the eggs and dividing by the weight of the female is a more accurate representation, although, some people prefer to present the data using your formula...either way, it is impressive....gmerker

yes, very impressive.

I like doing it my way, as it compares the weight of the eggs to the weight of the animal before laying them.

perhaps if we had the weight before she was breed, before laying, and after laying, as well as the weight of the eggs, and compared them all, that would be better.

it doesnt really matter. the animals all hatched and look great. did you ever find a juno male (i meet you out there in 06, I picked up a s-curve female then)

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South Texas Herps

In my limited experience with alterna clutches, I have noted that wild caught adult female alterna usually produce 5 - 7 eggs. The eggs are usually larger than the eggs that come from captive females that may produce 9 - 11 eggs. Usually larger eggs produce larger babies. I noted that this female was a wild snake and only laid 5 eggs. I suspect they were large eggs and made larger babies. Am I correct???? Next year after a year in captivity she may produce more eggs that will probably be smaller and make smaller babies.

ECTimaeus

Those are awesome, love the dad, and #1 is great! All in all, a great clutch and I bet we never duplicate the wild in our snake rooms, no matter how we try. I agree, the parents are very healthy with tons of bugs and grains in their preferred prey choices.
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Todd Hughes

Interesting data and great looking young. I remember how excited you were the night you found them! What a rush .Thanks (Tom)