Reptile & Amphibian Forums

The red-throat female that laid these eggs is consistently the first of my females to lay her eggs. I have fifteen mated females this year. This clutch of thirteen good eggs was laid on March 7, 2007. Since that time, one of the eggs has developed mold at an imperfect site underneath the egg, and is probably dead (has begun to collapse). The rest look OK, seven weeks into incubation.

One or two of the eggs are a little small (golf ball size) but I have had hatchlings from eggs of this size. I am sorry but I didn't include any size markers in any of my pictures this year.

In my hands, hatching for Eastern Indigo eggs usually occurs between 96 to 98 days after laying. From my experience, most of the mortality in Eastern Indigo eggs occurs in the first half of the incubation. The remaining twelve eggs are now in the second half of the incubation period.

Robert

The egg at the bottom to the right is the golf ball sized one.

It might be my computer but I got no Pic.
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"Life without risk is to merely exist."

This forum seems to be set up to use a URL from an outside photo host, and I can see the picture on the forum post using my computer, but no one else can. Funny.

Here is the same pic but loaded onto the KS members'photo gallery.

They look great. Good luck with them.

CONGRATS!!! Do you incubate them using the moss?

I am partly repeating here what I learned years ago from a friend of mine, Bill Corwin.

Apparently, years ago people used green moss for the incubation medium as well as for laying. When the use of vermiculite as an incubation medium was first published, the success rate at getting eggs to make it all the way to hatching went way up. On moss, the mold problem is too high, for one reason.

I have never found or heard of any incubation medium that works better than vermiculite for indigo eggs. Vermiculite holds a large amount of water, but if you feel it, it seems dry. Part of the key to the virtue of vermiculite is that it can hold the humidity high, and pass moisture to the eggs, without the eggs getting physically wet. When the eggs get wet, their chances of making it to hatch go way down.

I usually use the long-standing 1:1 vermiculite:water mixture (weight to weight ratios). I have found however that 1:0.5 works better for the first half of the incubation (less swelling and rupturing of the eggs as well as mold). The problem with this is that the eggs will start to dehydrate in the second half of the incubation and dimple

I have planned on trying to incubate the eggs on 1:0.5 for the first half and then switch to 1:1 for the second half. This year however I am trying a new technique that I have experimented with in previous years. I will post about that method soon.

Robert.

I have always used Vermic to incubate eggs of all kinds and was always curious about other types of incubation materials being used by others such as paper towels, cloth, moss, etc.
I like the "stability" of the Vermic.
Thanks for the response Robert.

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>>I have planned on trying to incubate the eggs on 1:0.5 for the first half and then switch to 1:1 for the second half. This year however I am trying a new technique that I have experimented with in previous years. I will post about that method soon.
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well, it would be interesting to compare what you propose to what happens in the ecosystem. most of their territory is within well drained soil/upland regions, and I would expect eggs to be laid in moderately/well drained soils as well. when are eggs laid, and when do they hatch? how does this correlate to the seasonal rainfall? maybe in the first part of development it is dry and the seasonal storms kick in towards the later stages of development. A larger embryo would probably need more water. I don't know, I am still a dry wannabe...
daveb

couldn't see the pics though...
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Paul Weaver
Carolina Herps

Robert,
congratulations on the eggs. I am curious, aside from infertility, what are the leading causes of egg failure with drymarchon eggs?
thanks,
Dave Boyle

Incubating too warm and/or too wet would be high on that list.

Have you ever noticed that hatching eggs layed by wild gravid females always seem to hatch. Obviously I am not referring to Indigo but in my 30 or so years of doing this I have yet to see a clutch of eggs layed by a snake from a wild snake fail. Why is this? My hunch is #1 wild diet has more vitamins and vitamins that are of a higher quality. #2 natural sun, again a vitamin/hormone. #3 a female in the wild might gestate at a higher or lower temprature that we offer in a captive setting. As with birds if you lack certain vitamins you end up with a chick that might not pip or be weak and sickly as some runt hatchling snakes I have seen. MY HUNCH is that if an egg is perfect in respect to a females ability to make a perfect egg it will tolerate incubation inconsistencies where as an egg that has baggage from the start might not make it even under ideal conditions.

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"Life without risk is to merely exist."

Bill, I have noticed the same thing, but I can't necessarily correlate it to Indigo Snakes because I don't know if wild Indigo eggs suffer from any significant infertility. I suspect that wild Indigo eggs have a higher fertility percent than we are getting in captivity.

A friend of mine caught a gravid Gopher snake last year and it laid 13 good eggs, not a single slug. Many of my Indigo clutches have at least one slug (again, problem comparing across species).

I have long thought that Vitamin D plays a major role in egg fertility in snakes. I myself supplement the diet of my snakes with multiple vitamins, including Vitamin D. I have had a suspicion though that snakes have a greater requirement for Vitamin D than humans, maybe several fold higher. This is just a suspicion, and I don't know if Vitamin D requirement has ever been tested in snakes.

I do plan to boost the amounts of Vitamin D that my animals get next breeding season to see if fertility is improved (or for that matter, if weak spots on the eggs are reduced).

Bill, you and I have been talking about this. There may be other factors (chemicals) found in natural foods that snakes eat that may increase their health and fertility. I can't say anything more about this (and neither can you I remind you) until we are finished with our collaborative work.

Robert, as you noticed my comments on nutrition were general and not specific. I would never violate something started in confidence although I feel a responsibility to those attempting to breed and succeed. I have shared sensitive personal endeavors to get the next generation into thinking mode although their biggest hurdle will be more restrictions from our government. I realize that in time the nut we are trying to crack will benefit more than just you or I. I did not want to share my indoor-outdoor caging for selfish reasons but did so to open the door so to speak and ignite a spark for the next generation. I know this forum has been abrasive to you at times and for that I am truly sorry but not for you for those who have silenced someone who has in effect cracked the infertility problem with Indigo. We ALL have something to contribute as we draw from others “mentors” along the way for the collective knowledge we enjoy today. I value our relationship and for that reason alone I have been silent “which for me as you know it is hard” Call tonight if you can ………Bill

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"Life without risk is to merely exist."

Bill,

I thought you were the one who wanted to keep our little "nutritional supplement" project under wraps!

It is up to each individual how they want to treat others. The way I look at it, a person's level of respect or disrespect for others reflects directly on themselves more than anyone they are speaking of. Lately this forum has been pretty tame anyways.

A lot of people have tried giving their snakes direct sunlight but I don't know of any clear-cut results, i.e. egg fertility or number of offspring increased with sunlight compared to without. I am hoping you will give us all an answer. You need a couple dozen Eastern Indigos in your collection!

Robert.

You got me thinking, we focus on vitamin D but sunlight has a much broader spectrum then just D. We always humanize research we have become to ethnocentric in our approach. Snakes are snakes and humans are humans. The research on how much natural light is flawed. The science has been in "Gila Monsters for instance" how much time is spent in the burrow and wandering outside. They get verry little outside time but their snout is jet black "ALWAYS" how often is a reptile absorbing UV in the wild inside the mouth of the burrow? The only place wild raptors absorb UV is their cere,feet and eyes but if deprived they will go into spasms and eventualy die. How often does a serpent feel vibration and suck down into a burrow before we notice. Most of my studies sugest that they get sun in the burrow and quite possably nocturnal species that we do not expect...

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"Life without risk is to merely exist."

Well thought out! One of the advantages of the cylindrical body plan is that the animal can expose a small part of its body to benefit from sunlight while keeping the remainder well concealed.

JPD
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I am so not lesdysxic!

0.1 Creamsicle Cornsake "Yolanda"
1.0 Bairds Ratsnake "Steely Dan"
0.1 Desert Kingsnake "FATTY"
0.1 Black Rat "Roberta" RELEASED!!!

For me, the number one cause of egg loss during incubation is from imperfectly formed eggs. These eggs are fertile at laying but have one or more weak spots on the eggs. The weak spots are noticeable as sections of the egg where the color isn't as bright white as the rest. This color may vary from off-white or grayish, to yellow or brown.

Two things can happen to these eggs. The first problem occurs because on a moist incubation medium like I use, the eggs absorb water and become firm with an internal pressure as a result. If the weak spots are significant in size, or the shell is very thin there, the egg will simply blow open (leak). I have never had an egg I could save after it blew open (although Dean claims he saved one once by using electrical tape to wrap the egg).

Even if the eggs don't fail in this manner, the weak spots on the shell are places where mold can penetrate easier. If I find mold on an egg, I dust the egg there with dry 50% benomyl (available as a nursery item for plants). This has saved a lot of eggs for me and appears to have no effect on the developing hatchling.

I have wanted to try experimenting with proactively dusting the eggs at weak spots, and I will try this next year. It is better to prevent the mold from starting rather than to try to kill it after it has started, in my opinion.

I have experimented with spray miconazole applied to brushes, and allowed to dry before brushing the weak spots (spray miconazole has alcohol in it which might hurt the egg). In my hands, benomyl works significantly better.

Benomyl is extremely toxic to fish, but is relatively safe with most birds, and with snake eggs as I mentioned. Are snakes more related to birds or to fish? If you don't know, you should be able to guess from these results.

Robert.

>>Are snakes more related to birds or to fish? ...

If the current theories are correct, birds are Archosaurs, and more closely related to Corcodillians than snakes or fish.

Snakes are realy a type of lizard and more closely related to Archosaurs and Tetrapods then fish.

So it would seem that snakes and birds are more closely related to each other than either are to fish.

Cheers

John D
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I am so not lesdysxic!

0.1 Creamsicle Cornsake "Yolanda"
1.0 Bairds Ratsnake "Steely Dan"
0.1 Desert Kingsnake "FATTY"
0.1 Black Rat "Roberta" RELEASED!!!