Posted by:
Bob H
at Mon Sep 10 08:24:08 2007 [ Email Message ] [ Show All Posts by Bob H ]
I just thought I would drop a note on my recent experiences with incubating Texas indigo eggs. Over the last three years, I have experienced mostly failures in incubating eggs from my single pair of T. indigos. The first year I bred them I did mangage to get 5 hatchlings. The next two years were total failures, one that I allude to here earlier was the lay box was too wet and she laid them behind her hide box and they were all to descicated to make it. This year I decide to try the lower temperature incubation that had been mentioned here. Twelve eggs were laid on May 5th. They were placed half buried in vermiculite in my living room. It is cooled by a room air conditioner that was set on 75F. There were a few hours here and there that the temperature was as cool as 73F and as high as 80F, but all in all they were kept within a 74-76 F temperature range. Two of the eggs went bad (one unfertile and one fertile but stopped developing early). On Monday August 27 one egg appeared to have pipped but was a very tiny hole. The next day a second egg pipped (again only a small slit). There was no additional action for a full two days and by that time I had slightly enlarge the opening on the initial two eggs. On days 4,5 and 6 an additional 6 eggs pipped. I had seen a head or two during this time frame but still no whole snake. Finally on days 7 and 8 snakes began to emerge. That left 2 eggs un-pipped after over a week since the first. I went ahead and made a small incision in both eggs. The fluid pressure inside the eggs was tremendous and at least 20-30 milliliter of fluid poored out. It took and additional two days but these snakes finally emerged. So I am happy to say I am the proud poppa of 10 texas indigos!! One snake has maybe the last 1/4 inch of its tail kinked and at some point I will remove the tiny kinked tip.
I just wanted to relay my experience with this. In the past I would have probably been opening the eggs at only 1-2 days after the first pip, but I am glad I held off this time. I will try and get some pictures up soon.
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 Incubation Experience - Bob H, Mon Sep 10 08:24:08 2007
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