Reptile & Amphibian Forums

She ate half a dozen eggs and here are some of the pics.

Here she is biting, swallowing, and breaking an egg. I actually heard a loud crack when she wiggled her body to break the egg.

Dan

Draining, and regurging the egg shell.

Dan

More about why those photos are amazing:

That's a Dasypeltis medici; D. scabra is the more commonly-imported and the easier to feed. I've only seen one report of D. medici eating anything but eggs from birds that nest in trees (finches, doves, pigeons, parrots, etc.). D. medici apparently have shorter vertebral extensions to saw open eggs, so they can usually only eat the eggs of tree-nesting birds with the thinner shells (eggs of birds like quail and chickens that nest on the ground generally have thicker shells). After much research when I had a couple of small D. medici (which took finch, lovebird, cockatiel, and dove eggs readily but never quail eggs), I learned that one guy in Germany had a big adult female that would eat button quail eggs - apparently for the biggest D. medici the shells don't pose a problem.

Fabulous pics,
Billy

Phillyherping

Great snakes I love them. I was lucky enough to get called by a farmer who had to clear 20 acers land for agriculture, He knew there were snakes in the termite mounds and didn't wan't to kill them, He loned my friend and I a tractor to filp rocks and tip the mounds,We bagged hundres of reptiles of all sorts My friend and I kept a few animals, and released the rest, on a rocky part of his farm. My friend found a big Egg Eater,with a strang zig zag pattern, The snake was sold 6 times before I finaly got her, she was a legend, every one who kept snakes in the part of SA I lived knew about her. She would take small store baught chicken eggs. I ended up swapping her for a pair of hatchling bull snakes, wich were worth quite a lot of money at the time in SA. I know she ended up in Germany.
Dan your sankes are a good size, with WC Egg eaters the bigger the better, small ones are a real pain, I see you have some eggs so small ones are comming. Try get Gecko eggs for the first few meals, Finch eggs are often too big.
Good luck with your friendly vipers.

Dan,.......I've been in the "snake game" for forty years now, and have had thousands of snakes, but I'm here to tell you that those little guys are some of the neatest snakes I've ever seen in my entire life!!!!,...........I think I will get involved with those little dudes down the road soon!!.....Sure, I've seen and read about them in some of the many books that I own, but seeing those cool progression shots you posted really won me over!!!!......that was good thinking on your part to capture the "process" like that!!...............here's just a few of mine........best regards,.................................Doug

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Better to be silent and thought a fool, than to open mouth and remove any doubt!