Reptile & Amphibian Forums

Hi all! I'm new here, i am owner of two couples of granite burms that will be ready for to try breeding next year and i have some questions regarding eggs and hatching. Some people said to leave the eggs with the female coiled around and to keep temperature around 28-29 C and humidity at around 85% setting the cage with lighty moistened vermiculite few time before time of egg laying is expected. Some others suggested me to use incubator with stable temperature of 30 C putting the eggs in lighty moistened vermiculite and keeping air humidity at around 85-90%. Can you tell me your experience and witch of these methods you believe it's more sure for have good hatching rate?
Thank you in advice

Flavio Becherini

Hi Flavio -

I don't breed Burmese pythons any longer, but I have used both methods in the past with them. The incubator method you describe is far easier for a keeper to provide, and if you get fertile eggs, your hatch rate should be close to 100 per cent.

The method you describe for letting the female incubate her own eggs SHOULD produce an equally high hatch rate, but it is harder for the keeper to provide these conditions. When you think about it, what you are describing is just an extra-large incubator with not only the eggs but the female inside! Of course, it is somewhat more forgiving since the female will attempt to compensate for fluctuations in temperature and humidity.

With snakes like Burmese which produce extra heat during egg incubation, I've always felt that everyone should try the maternal incubation method at least once if they are able to provide reasonably good temperatures and humidities. It is really interesting to watch the mother do her thing.

-Joan

Joan is quite correct, if set up properly, maternal incubation will easily give hatch rates as good as artificial incubation. The key is proper cage setup. Your best substrate for maternal incubation is damp, long fiber spagnum. The only correction I can see to your information is that 30 C for artificial incubation is way too low for burmese eggs. The correct incubation temp for them is between 32 and 33 C.

Kelly

Whoops. Yes, 30 degrees C would be too low. I aim for 89 F, with a maximum of 90 degrees F (so around 32 C) with artificial incubation.

More on maternal incubation:

The larger the cage, the harder it may be to maintain proper conditions. Also, at least in the northern hemisphere, keeping the humidity up can be difficult with the heat cranked up in the winter. I always felt maintaining the humidity was the most difficult part of the equation in a cage. Consequently, I felt more tied to not being able to go away for the two months or so than I did with the eggs in an incubator.

The long fiber sphagnum Kelly mentioned is nice because it holds water well. Whatever media you use, the female will fashion her egg deposition site such that everything is pushed into a circle around her and she will lay the eggs on the plain surface which she has scraped bare. So, since you usually do not want to spray the eggs directly, you can keep the surrounding media damp without fear of hurting the eggs.

-Joan

... ok, so for artificial incubation is needed a bit higher temp than what i sayed, but for mathernal incubation it is ok 29-30 C? I have one 4x3x2h cage that is keeping temperature with no more that 1,5 C variation (due to the switching on/off the hating system). The female i want to breed next year for sure (the other i'm undecided yet..) is 12ft and i'm thinking to put her in that cage before egg laying. Smaller cage is better i think because will allow me to control humidity and temperature in more stright way. For the humidity i tryed to set up the empty cage for to try and it worked well putting water bowl near the heating system. There is one wooden box i built under the heating system (that is on the top) where i can put one water container with water about 6cm high and one hole on the top of the cage that i can open for to put warm water when it is going to finish. air holes can be regulated also. I kept the cage switched on for 15 days and humidity in the air was always between 88 and 92% at 29/30C temp. What you think, can i try so expecting good hatch rate? The female is a bit agitated usually in the cage is not very friendly and if disturbed she is hissing and moving fast, i've fear the in the attempt of removing the eggs for to put in the incubator she will go mad and damage them. I'm interested also to see her doing her work more naturally.

Thank you really much for your help and time.

Flavio

another question, and this is just out of curiosity, but while she is nesting her eggs won't she stop eating? You said two months so I'm presuming that she'll be nesting with her eggs for that long. I'm just curious here, but she's a pet not a burm living in wild conditions, so wouldn't it be better in the long run to remove the eggs and incubate them seperately? Would she just naturally go back to living normally after the eggs are removed?

I used maternal incubation probably 95% of the time when I was producing burmese many years ago. If set up properly, I believe maternal incubation with this species is superior to artificial incubation. The key phrase being “proper setup”. Take care if heating from under the cage floor to ensure that the floor temps. under the nest box do not become excessive. If using a thermostat with probe, place the probe under the substrate along an inside edge within the nest box. If you are heating the air, then have the probe on the upper edge of the nest box. Maintain the cage temperature around the nest box in the 30 to 31 C (86 to 88 F) range at all times. If the temperature drops too low, the female will expend an inordinate amount of energy keeping the egg mass at the maternal incubation temperature of 33 C (92 F) and you want to avoid this. One way to roughly gauge the cage temp. visually, is to watch the incubating females rate of contractions. If they are less than 5 per minute, the cage temp. is probably too high; if greater than about 15 per minute, the cage temp. is probably too low. But, always monitor the ambient temp at the upper edge of the nest box as a safety measure. Don't let the cage temp. get too high as she can always raise the egg mass temp., but there is no way for her to lower it if it gets above 92F.

Seal the cage as well as possible to keep the humidity up. I always had a nest box surrounded by containers of water with paper towels sticking out of the water surface. These acted as wicks to increase the evaporative surface and increase humidity. The humidity needs to be maintained above 85%. Every other day I would mist heavily across the top of the female and let it run down on the eggs, but don’t over do it. This will help keep the micro-climate around the eggs moist. In their natural environment, the female on the eggs is exposed to rain events and decaying vegetation so this is not an issue for the eggs. You just don’t want the eggs setting directly in standing water.

Drawbacks that bother some breeders are the female comes off the eggs at hatching with a significant loss of body weight. For this reason, females should have good body weight before allowing maternal incubation. She will not feed or drink for the duration of the 56 day incubation period. This puts a temporary drain on her physically and so maternally incubating pythons typically are best bred only every other year. I personally never had a problem with that. Also, a few infertile eggs are not an issue, as I have never had a viable egg die from contact with a decaying one, however a large number of infertile ones could be a problem. Good luck and let us know how it goes.

Kelly

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