Excellent points, Seth.

To add to that, of thousands of snake breedings I've produced over forty years, I've certainly had my share of retained eggs. Not once has the offending egg been a fertile one. Always an infertile egg. The eggs before it may or may not have been good, and the same goes for those following eggs, but the one causing the problem is always a dud.

Likewise, I have had hundreds of wild caught snakes deposit eggs in captivity (and provided they were collected late enouigh in the spring to have allowed for wild mating) and have never seen a single infertile egg. And I have never seen egg-binding in a wild caught snake.

We as snake breeders simply have not yet figured out all of the nuances involved in the reproductive biology of these organisms. A captive induced clutch of fertile Cornsnake eggs (the easiest of all snakes to breed)in which *every single egg hatches successfully,* is still the exception rather the rule. We are lacking somewhere in our husbandry techniques. This may include utilizing outdoor enclosures, vitamin/mineral supliments, normal brumation, varied diets, and something I believe might be very important, the fighting of males to increase testosterone and sperm levels.

This is generally not possible in an urban setting. And with Indigos, I would personally have a lot of trouble watching my scale-perfect males shred themselves mercilessly every December.

Cheers,

Terry Vandeventer

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