Reptile & Amphibian Forums

hi all first time posting on this forum.

i have a pair of adult hypo brooks. they have bred for me both years, but each year the eggs went bad. not sure what im doing wrong.

any ideas on what i can do?

thanks for the help in advance

If you don't give any details about what you have done, then no one can help you. So try posting again and provide some details about what you did with the eggs. How did you attempt to incubate them? Substrate? Temp? These things will help us find out what you did wrong.
Good luck,
Jason
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"Relax, Don't Worry, Have a Homebrew!" Charlie Papazian

Did the eggs look fertile when they were first deposited? If so you need to work on your incubation. If the eggs looked infertile from the get go try keeping your male a lot coooler than you have in previous years. Please post pics and details
Tom Stevens
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TomsSnakes.com

Brooksi king (aka Florida kings) are pretty bullet proof when breeding and incubating eggs. So I would first take a close look at the male. I know of some people who bred their males after they sat on the heat tape from mid feb until April or may when they finally bred. Sometimes a male sitting on heat tape so long to can damage the sperm. This is all under the assumption that the eggs were not fertile to begin with.

Wihen incubating the eggs I would just put them on perlite and stick them in a closet. If it is cold then run a little heat tape on one end the the shoboxes the eggs are in. I still hatch out eggs even if they are kept cool however. It just takes longer. I have known more people who use colubrid incubators with fertility problems than people who do not use them.

So as I mentioned, The eggs are pretty bullet proof. They can take rough handling, movement and a wide variety of temps. Problem probably lies with you male and you have to figure what you are doing wrong.

One way to do that is to try is to try and use another male on that female hypo. If you do not have another male see if you can get one from somehwere as a backup. You can get a male florida king pretty cheap because lone males are sold for less and you can bargain a bit if the price is to high since most people want to purchase lone females... Or maybe you can borrow one from a friend. You want to prove if you male is the one with the problem. Then if your female lays viable eggs after she has been with your backup male (*see below), this will prove your original male is no good or you did something wrong with your temps.

Its worth a try. *If you get a axanthic, lavender or normal male florida king you will know which male fertilized your eggs when they hatch as the babies will be normal and not hypos.

brooksi Peanut Butters hatching

thanks for the help everyone.

sorry for the poor detail. i actually live in south florida and keep my snakes at about 82-84 degrees( i have them in an insulated shed with a/c and fans running 24/7. everthing else i have(rats snakes and milks) has bred and laid fertile eggs. the eggs the hypo brooks laid were no good from the start. i've tried to cool them in the past but am not able to get the temp. in the shed to go any lower than 67-68 degrees in the winter.