Reptile & Amphibian Forums

Here is an xray of my honduran who has chosen to stop laying and retain a few eggs for a while. I guess she got a little lazy . She laid one infertile one 4 days post shed, then 3 days later she laid two good ones and one more infertile one, now for 4 days she has done nothing. You will see that one egg has moved closer to her vent. but the others are several inches away from that egg. she has a total of 3 more still in her.

If an infertile egg came out after the 2 'good eggs', you can pretty much be assured that the remaining eggs are infertile as well. You have a couple of options...

Leave her alone in the nestbox and let her continue to try to work them out herself. You can try increasing the temp in her cage to mid 80s or so, and/or letting her soak in shallow water for a couple hours a day.

You can try to *gently* express the eggs out, starting with the one closest to the vent. Sometimes they will come out fairly easily, sometimes not. I've killed a female trying to do this, but I've also done it successfully on a couple of others.

You can asperate the eggs using a needle. This works for some people, but I've never had much luck with it.

You can have a vet surgically remove them. This can be somewhat expensive unless you are good friends with a vet. The snake may or may not be able to breed again.

My personal rule of thumb is to go with option number one and just let nature take it's course. I'm sure there are some that will not agree with me here, but I've had better luck by NOT intervening than I have with trying to assist getting the eggs out. I had one snake re-absorb her last remaining egg and then successfully breed the following year. I also had a black milk with 3 or 4 eggs very far from the vent (like yours) that delivered her remaining slugs over the course of 2 months! Then again, I also had another milk that delivered one slug and then died eggbound. I guess what I am saying is that my snakes have done better overall when I just left them alone than when I intervened.

Can I ask if you disturbed your snake much during the course of her egglaying? From my experience, it seems that disturbing them can make some females stop in the middle of laying their eggs, especially when there are slugs involved.

Good luck!
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Paul Weaver
Carolina Herps

I dont know if the slug second slug came before the two good eggs or after them. I just happened to find them all in the lay box. There was in interuption by my not knowing she was laying and opening up her drawer which is when I found the 3, Then a further bother to her when I checked the next day to see if she had passed the rest. I dont know if that stopped her or not but I will fully assume that for whatever reason she stopped, it must be something that is my fault. That is just how i think of these things. I think If we take them in and create their world around them, then when things go bad we have be held responsible

These remaining eggs in her, especcially the one around the vent is huge. I massaged that one down some for her but the other two are still pretty high up and smaller in size. I hope its not a slug of course..but time will tell. We have given her a dose of calcium and a shot of oxytocin to help with some contractions. She is back in her lay box now and I will leave her alone for the next few days then check on her.

This is her first year breeding for me. I hope it all works out smoothly from this point on with her. The good eggs she laid were huge and pearly white!

When I asked if you disturbed her much I was thinking more along the lines of checking on her every hour or two. I wouldn't blame myself if I were you. My guess is that the remaining ones are slugs and that she just plain ran out of energy trying to push them out. Slugs are more difficult for them to pass than fertilized eggs.

I have heard of vets giving oxytocin but I've never heard of a case where it worked on a snake. In any event, if you are able to make progress on the one near the vent that's good. Just be gentle with it. It's fairly easy to tear the oviduct doing this. If it doesn't come out after a couple of days and doesn't seem to be making progress towards the vent, you might have the vet aspirate the egg. If it's really large like you described it may help her to pass it.

As far as the two that are not near the vent, I wouldn't try to massage them down or aspirate them. Personally, I would leave them and she if she eventually pushes them out or re-absorbes them. But that's just my opinion.

How long has it been since she passed the last egg? If it's been a couple of days you might try feeding her a small meal. If she takes it, it might help boost her energy enough to allow her to pass the rest. She may not eat though...
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Paul Weaver
Carolina Herps

Hi Paul,

thanks for your input. She layed thursday morning and then stopped so On saturday I let her have as many live fuzzies as she would keep grabbing when offered. She took 5 of them excitedly. I figured the food would help push out the eggs a bit. There has been some movement of the eggs since then , but not alot. I hope the oxytocin works with her. I know of other snakes that it has helped along by activating contractions. If it doesnt work then I agree with you, on getting out the bottom egg carefully but not messing with the upper two and letting them move down on their own.

This is her first year breeding. I want to be very careful with her so she can be a happy healthy breeder next year!

>>I dont know if the slug second slug came before the two good eggs or after them. I just happened to find them all in the lay box. There was in interuption by my not knowing she was laying and opening up her drawer which is when I found the 3, Then a further bother to her when I checked the next day to see if she had passed the rest. I dont know if that stopped her or not but I will fully assume that for whatever reason she stopped, it must be something that is my fault. That is just how i think of these things. I think If we take them in and create their world around them, then when things go bad we have be held responsible
>>
>>These remaining eggs in her, especcially the one around the vent is huge. I massaged that one down some for her but the other two are still pretty high up and smaller in size. I hope its not a slug of course..but time will tell. We have given her a dose of calcium and a shot of oxytocin to help with some contractions. She is back in her lay box now and I will leave her alone for the next few days then check on her.
>>
>>This is her first year breeding for me. I hope it all works out smoothly from this point on with her. The good eggs she laid were huge and pearly white!

She is kept in a rack system with 48 quart drawers. I feel that is a decent amount of space for her. However, I do take out the gravid snakes more often to help keep them active because I dont think they move around as much in those rack systems as they do in open caging. I worry that lack of exercise will cause them to lose muscle tone which makes breeding issues more likely. As they get to their latter stages though I dont want to bug them too much. The last few weeks of course she is spending all her time just laying in her lay box.

In your opinion, DO you think her housing is an issue?

I listen alot to peoples take on the subject, from excercise/muscle tone to diet and caging. I suspect that possibly some folks who have never dealt with it are more lucky than knowledgable(no insult meant to anyone). In the eighties I had a number of animals that were egg bound. REALLY discouraging to raise up hatchlings to adults, breed them and get eggbound. I never once saw Oxcytocin work on any of my anmals. If I'm not mistaken the Loves write about their experience with binding improving with larger caging and that they use the syringe method with little problem in their Corn snake book. The vet surgery to remove them is pretty costly here. I once left an E.King on her own to pass them and she died in a weeks time. My last surgery was $500.00 for a very large leucistic Black rat. I really care about my animals but I have a family to take care of and that is cost prohibitive for me.Breeding is not my priority hobbywise these days because of it. Too much of a heart break.(though I do aquire animals in pairs just in case I change my mind) Good luck.

It is disheartening to deal with this, and feel responsible for it I might add. I will spend whatever I must to try and see her through this and keep her health, but it bugs the crap out of me. Raising these snakes are my hobby and passion, breeding them is not a full focus with me, but I do want to breed some of my special pairs. I just don't know if i have the heart to deal with repeated failures before I would decided it's not worth it though. I love my animals. I hate to see them suffer in any way. Lend her your prayers..I will update you guys soon.

I was "lucky" enough to have a female retain 3 eggs a couple years back. The snake in question was an over weight female hondo. I aspriated two of the eggs in the lower body with ease and she passed them within 12 hours. I was a little aprehensive about the egg that was high up in the body and felt i would let her pass it on her own or maybe absorb it. She eventually was put down by the owner, she was a breeding loan.

Personally, I feel that egg binding is a result of two major things (and of course there are exceptions) both of which have already been mentioned in this thread. I think that most of our snakes are overweight/out of shape. And I think that people frequently miss the boat on the conditions that a female needs to feel secure while laying.

I have done a fair share of herping, and I have asked this question to MANY MANY other herpers. "have you ever found a dead female in the wild, with eggs in her, and no other obvious cause of death?" The answer has always been NOPE. Considering how common of a problem it is I would say its safe to say that it is caused by something we as keepers are doing. (I'm like you and tend to blame myself for my animals failures)

Years ago (in my third year producing colubrids) I had two 1st time female kings become eggbound at once. One of them passed the remaining eggs after a week. The other I aspirated the only egg left and she passed it that night. After this I did two things.

First of all I started swimming my snakes (swim not soak). When ever I clean cages I fill up a large (about 4x2) rubbermaid with luke warm water and I let the snakes swim for 10 or 20 minutes. Excersize is important but I wouldn't do it with a gravid snake like you said. Your snakes should be in shape before they get gravid so that you can leave them alone while they are gravid.

The other thing was that I changed my laying boxes. They should be SOLID colored not clear (duct tape over clear boxes works great) and they should be filled to the top with laying media.

I'm not saying that these are definite miracle cures but I have never had an eggbound female since. I gues it could be luck but thats just my .02

The eggs still in her will definetly not be fertile at this point even if they wernt slugs. Sorry.

Please keep us posted. Good luck.

First, I hope your snake pulls through. Some do!

About egg binding.. do I think larger cages prevent it? Not by themselves. My guess is that the females need a nest spot that they feel is adequate enough. That is much easier to provide in a larger cage. So is a nice temperature gradient. And the snake is able to crawl around more=more exercise. I think all of the above helps to reduce the chances.

When I bred lots of kings and milks, I had some of the larger animals become eggbound when I went to racks with smaller boxes (28qt). Before that I used larger tanks and never had eggbound females. That was it for me. Nothing against racks persay, but I hate to see 4ft kings in 14x20 boxes.

Of course, 48qt boxes that you mentioned sound quite large. Maybe you should try to provide a few nest sites and see what happens next year? Good luck.