Hi Folks,

Thanks for all the support during this interesting episode. I have bred lots of corn snakes, cal kings, and Honduran milks in the past, but this is my first experience with thayeri.

Our neighbor is a vet tech, and when I told her what was going on, she offered to take a look. As she was gently feeling the bulge in the snake, she asked if she could try gently expressing the egg - and less than a minute later, after applying gentle but steady pressure, out popped the biggest momma egg of the clutch (about 50% larger than the others) It looks good, so it's in the incubator with the others now.

Then I noticed the snake had one pressure more egg about three inches up from her vent. I applied the same technique -- gentle, but steady pressure, watching her scales move and contract behind the egg, and one minute later I had the second egg in my hand. Best of all, there was no evidence of any blood or any tissue adhered to the eggs, so I am hopeful that not internal tearing of the oviduct occurred. The snake now seems thoroughly exhausted, so she's holed up back in the nesting box. In a day or two I will tempt her with a small fuzzy and try get her back on feed. After this first ordeal, I won't try to breed her again this season. This was her first year. and she deserves a break.

I don't know if she would have passed those eggs herself, but I thought I'd give it a try, taking my cues from the snakes's reaction. Slow, gentle, and steady seemed to do the trick. By the way, the total number of viable-looking eggs is 16. With some good luck, in 65-75 days I MIGHT be presented with the proverbial Whitman's Sampler of thayeri babies. But who's counting chickens? Not me - I've been involved with this hobby for a long time and know that nothing is a sure thing when it comes to dealing with captive reptiles.

Tom

Tom

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