Reptile & Amphibian Forums

hello from canada!!

It's been awhile since my last visit to this forum.
but that's beside the point... I have a few question's about gravid burm's. this is my first attempt at breeding my burm's. my female is anormal looking double het green/granite about 3year's old and just shy of 13feet. (she's a real teddy bear, never even hissed as a hatchling.) the male is friendly normal burm 8 feet long with a ladder back pattern (every patch on his back lines up with the rest). he was my first burm. ok so now for the questions...

1) how long does internal gestation (carrying the egg's inside the body) usualy last?

2) has any of you ever noticed the female gathering substrate into piles to hide in while gravid? (I gave her a nice hide box but she seem's to wanna dig)

3) since this is my female's first clutch. should I be overlly conserned about her becoming egg bound?

4)and finaly if she want's to bury herself would bamboo leaves be a good choice for cover? (I have an over abundance of clean bamboo and I can cut leaves as needed)

well I think that's about it.
any help would be greatly appreciated!
thank's for your time

If she is burrowing and attempting to hide and build a nesting spot she is probably within a week or so of laying. They usually lay late at night and into the following A.M. (mine do, anyway). So if you want to gather them egg by egg so as to not find a 40 pound clump of eggs stuck together you'll have to stay up with her on the night she lays and collect them from her one by one. This is the best way to candle them and seperate those that may look good but are not fertile, and certainly to seperate the few duds one almost always gets in every clutch. By seperating out the non-fertile yet good looking eggs you elliminate a lot of problems later by not having any eggs in the "good batch" that will turn green and get all slimy. This usually does not threaten the adjacent ggod eggs but I have yet to meet a breeder that likes these in with their good eggs. lol

I have two females right now that are in position and I expect them to lay any night now. I just set my alarm to awaken me every 2 hours to go over and look in on them.
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David Beauchemin
High End Herps.Inc
http://HighEndHerps.com

thank's for the help. I greatly appreciate it. If all goes well my next post will be with pic's of the egg's.

thank's again