Reptile & Amphibian Forums

as we all know that the breeding season is coming soon... and i need to go and buy some bags of vermiculite for the eggs incubation. my question is are there any specific vermiculite that i need to get? should it be coarse? also for a egg laying nest box should i use a 15 qt tub size? or so. my female snakes are kept in a 32qt tub of their own. in case you are wondering what snakes i am talking about here is corn and brooks kingsnake. thanks.

i like perlite for incub.

can you explain me why? i have seen/heard that some will use either as what you use or vemiculite. i assume that they both can work well?.

Gravity is one reason, a thick layer of Perlite will not be real wet up on the egg due to the weight of the water, i have heard that some people actually have liquid on the bottom of the incub. containers of perlite,where vermiculite would be soup

that makes sense, using perlite it would be easier to control water/moistures than vermiculite? i think i will try using both one at a time and see which works for me and experince it. thanks.

And I guess you don't have to be concerned about breathing in the dust of vermiculite?

what do you mean? is there something not good about them?

>>what do you mean? is there something not good about them?

well, breathing in any dust is less than beneficial.i have heard some people say that asbestos has been found in vermiculite but i cannot confirm that.
daveb

gothca, thanks dave.

>>Gravity is one reason, a thick layer of Perlite will not be real wet up on the egg due to the weight of the water, i have heard that some people actually have liquid on the bottom of the incub. containers of perlite,where vermiculite would be soup

vermiculite is a clay and bonds well to water/ retains water well in small pore spaces. if there is soup in the bottom of an incubation container, then too much water has been added.
i never used perlite but i hear the methods it is used in work well. right now most of my eggs are incubated in sphagnum moss.
daveb

daveb, you got some eggs incubating right now already?! you must have bred eariler this year. if you don't mind telling me what you are incubating this year? thanks and good luck.

I guess I didn't state that properly. What I mean is my current practice as in when I DO have eggs, hahaha. Only FR would have eggs incubating this time of year. I am too much of a rookie.
I used to have every shade and color of brooksi, including hatching out two white side hypos last summer. Due to time issues I decided to reduce my collection down to about four kings and some pine snakes.

daveb

oh yes i forgot all bout hypo whiteside. i have never seen pics of them or in person. if you do have a pic could you post of them? anyway since you live close to me maybe i could check out your collection after they have hatched out and i might want to get a pair of something?

I have tried to be responsible and downsized too, but it's sure hard to be around all these good threads and great pics and keep the strength to not "aquire" more animals isn't it?. lol

I don't know how long it is going to last before numbers start growing again. I may just have to acquire a USDA permit and become a zoo. A zoo always needs new acquisitions and exhibits, hahaha...

daveb

i use the spagnum for lay boxes and have in the past simply put the ziploc lid on the egg tight/laybox and all hatched though needed water along the way.
i had a Honduran (gravid) die in the vermiculite lay box,she had her mouth and throat? full of vermiculite.i believe the water bowl had just been removed ,because eggs were due,with water she might have been able to rinse????cause unknown?

chrisd, i am sorry about your loss of a hounduran milk. aloso thanks for the head up on your reply.

How many clutches is that? Different Derek

I switched to perlite many years ago because iseemed to be more forgiving of my errors, such as too much/little water in the mix. Vermiculite actively absorbs moisture and in dry conditions it takes from the eggs and wet conditions saturates the eggs. With perlite, the eggs are kept very humid, but since the perlite does not actively absorb water, the eggs have less of a chance of being wet (bad). As stated by Chris, the moisture seems to find its way to the bottom with the help of gravity and only the humid air contacts the eggs. Both have obviously worked very well for decades, but perlite allows me fewer chances to f*@k up my eggs.

Will

as we all know that the breeding season is coming soon... and i need to go and buy some bags of vermiculite for the eggs incubation. my question is are there any specific vermiculite that i need to get? should it be coarse? also for a egg laying nest box should i use a 15 qt tub size? or so. my female snakes are kept in a 32qt tub of their own. in case you are wondering what snakes i am talking about here is corn and brooks kingsnake. thanks.

Derek. I use both and think they're both fine. The thing is here locally I don't know of any place to buy vermiculite, so I order some from Big Apple every year.It is not cheap, and Perlite is and I can score Perlite at Wal Mart easily. I actually have mixed the two together many times, and if I could I would use it my favorite way every time. That is I put about an inch of perlite on the bottom of a container, and flood it til water sits on top. I then add either a mix of perlite and vermiculite or just vermiculite on top of it moistened to the degree I like it.

If I use only Perlite, I do the same thing with flooded bottom, but it is just not as easy to get the Perlite above to stay moist,but if there's a soaking wet bottom the humididy is there so it really doesn't matter.

I keep most of my females in larger containers than you do, and I do prefer to use 15 quart boxes for egg laying sites. For my largest Pits I use 27 qt nest boxes since their eggs are huge LOL! I have seen snakes that were quite large lay in 6 qt boxes, but I prefer them larger.

I have also seen snakes have their own preferences. Sometimes a large female will prefer a tight spot like a 6 qt box to lay and won't lay eggs in a large box. Other times they seem to prefer the large boxes. I use sphagnum and peat moss for the boxes and have often not even used a lid on them. Other times I need a lid and have to pack it so tight with moss you'd wonder how the snake could squeeze in there but they do and they construct a nest.

My advice to you is have a few size boxes ready in case it seems your females are not happy with the ones you've provided. Also if this is your first year breeding snakes you can pretty much expect your snake to go in and out of the box often before she lays, it is pretty typical. But usually, I see here the females completely bury themselves to the very bottom of the box and sit for a long time like that the night before they lay. Good luck!
Tom Stevens
-----
TomsSnakes.com

thanks tom. i will be trying few of different things until things works out for me and my snakes then i will just go from there. your info gave me extra help that i would not have thought of like nest box sizes and set ups. thanks. by the way you said that you don't know where to get vemiculite, well you can get some from agway i have bought some there before for my rose hair transulas that i used to have.

I have always had the best results using smaller boxes. But the key no mater what size the box is, like you said, FILL it with spagnum. And larger boxes are just more expensive to fill.

Tom, last year I had a female pine that would not lay her eggs in any "nest box" so I cleared out her cage (4') and I put a 2' neodesha enclosure stuffed to the gills with sphagnum inside there. apparently that was satisfactory, the wandering ended immediately and eggs were laid shortly thereafter in the very bottom of the moss.

daveb

I have been lucky to date with snakes using what I provide for them but my friend was telling me about one type of north american milk[forget which one] that have to have a nest box so jam packed with moss they have to squish themselves in and really work to make their nest. It is a good thing to remember, I honestly may not have thought of trying it myself until he told me about it. Some snakes here at my place are just so easy to deal with. Check out this picture, as you can see she needed nothing special to lay her clutches in LOL! Tom Stevens


-----
TomsSnakes.com