Reptile & Amphibian Forums

This is my first time ever breeding snakes, even though I've got nearly 40 yrs experience with keeping them. I bred two regular burms & both are het for albino and either labyrinth or granite, one (can't remember what the guy I got them from said).

I wanted to observe the female naturally nest her eggs and she's been doing a great job. She laid them on April 21.

Its been quite a job maintaining the humidity level so the eggs won't collapse. The first week or so I ruined a few eggs by getting them wet while misting. At least, I think that's what caused them to start rotting.

Nearly all the eggs have collapsed to a point that they looked like they were dried up and wouldn't make it. The other day I made an incubator using an aquarium, water, aquarium heater, plexiglass cover for aquarium, plastic storage box & vermiculite. Got the temp on the inside of the storage box maintained at 90 degrees, plus/minus .5 degrees, for 24 hrs. and just moved the eggs into it.

There was one particular egg that was flat as a pancake, that I was sure to be bad even though it didn't show any rotting signs. I cut it open to get an idea of the condition of the rest of the eggs, all of which looked better than this one.

The preemie was cool and didn't have any signs of life (No movements, etc...) but yet it was in good health. My heart kinda sunk when I saw it, I felt bad that I had ended its life before it even really began. Live & learn, I reckon.

Anyway, the preemie had markings on its side but its back only had slight, fain, markings, kinda albinoish, if that's a word. It was weird looking.

Below are some photos of the preemie. I'm wondering if this preemie was a morph or is it just that the pigment on its back, its pattern, hadn't developed yet. What do you think?

Thanks!

Catch ya later!
HH

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It is said that 1 out of every 4 people are mentally unbalanced. Think of your 3 closest friends, if they're normal, then it's you.

Not sure if this is a morph or not, but I've seen a few early stage burmese, and none looked even close to this one. It will be very interesting to see what the rest of the clutch looks like when they hatch. If the clutch was laid on April 21st, with full term maternal incubation, they would have hatched on June 16th. The artificial incubation will usually extend the hatch date a few days due to the typically lower temps.

The water you sprayed on the eggs would have no adverse effects on them what so ever. They most likely went bad due to infertility or from congenital defects with the embryos. It is almost impossible to get burmese eggs too damp unless they are standing in a pool of water. I have used maternal incubation with burmese many times in the past, and would heavily spray the female once a day with water, allowing it to flow down through the egg mass. As you experienced, the challenge of maternal incubation is not too much humidity, it's keeping the humidity high enough to avoid dessicating the eggs. Good luck and let us know how it turns out.

Kelly

Thanks for taking a look & giving me your input, Kelly, I appreciate it.

Watch this preemie be the only one to have that pattern. (banging my head on the keyboard)

I didn't think it was due to the pigment on its back not having completely developed yet but wasn't sure. The side pattern seems too well defined for that to be the case.

Kelly wrote; "As you experienced, the challenge of maternal incubation is not too much humidity, it's keeping the humidity high enough to avoid dessicating the eggs."

Yeah, but if I had known that misting didn't ruin the other eggs I would've left 'em in there with her and just kept on spraying her down. That's what I was doing at first, and then after about a week I noticed a few eggs on top of the clutch going bad, starting to smell. I assumed it was because the water ran down between her coils and ruined the eggs, especially since most of the ones that went bad were on top. Ever since then, for the last month and a half, I've been taking great care to mist all around her, trying not to get her wet.

Ahh, the price of ignorance! I read a lot of material on breeding, what little I could find, but knowledge alone can't teach you everything.

One last question and I'll leave you be, sport. What do you consider to be an acceptable temperature range (min./max.) using the aquarium incubator setup I'm using? Temps have held good so far but just in case they start fluctuating, I'd like to know.

Thanks, again! I'll be sure to let you know how things turn out.

Take care!
HH
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It is said that 1 out of every 4 people are mentally unbalanced. Think of your 3 closest friends, if they're normal, then it's you.

Because female burmese are so adept at maintaining the temperature of the egg mass so precisely, burmese eggs are best incubated within a narrow margin of temps just as the female would. For artificial incubation, anything between 89 and 91 F would be fine.

With maternal incubation, the female actually maintains the egg mass at approximately 92 F for the majority of the incubation period, and this is the highest naturally occurring maternal incubation temp of any python. I have verified this on several occasions by taking egg mass temps, during maternal incubation, with certified thermometers.

Trying to maintain an incubator setup at 92 F would only be recommended if you had a very precise, high dollar system that you could count on not to vary from this temp. Otherwise it is too risky and most people artificially incubate burmese at 90 F to be on the safe side, and allow for system variations in typical incubator temps.

Kelly

Thanks for the info. I should be good to go, then. I've been amazed that the temps in this aqaurium incubator setup have held so steady, averaging 90.5 for 3 days now. It only fluctuates plus/minus .5 degrees, even with the ambient temp of the room fluctuating 8 - 10 degrees.

Have a good one!
HH
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It is said that 1 out of every 4 people are mentally unbalanced. Think of your 3 closest friends, if they're normal, then it's you.

one thing I forgot to mention. Make sure you have an accurate thermometer or you can really get into trouble. Thanks again,

Kelly

most commercial and or home made incubators can be approx 2 degrees off in either direction, I would use 89-90 degrees to hopefully compensate for this phenomenon. They even tell you most of the time, under accuracy rating "plus / minus 2 " is usually the rating on most I have seen. Most also do not have ample means of humidity control that is necessary to properly incubate reptile eggs, which also needs to be compensated for. I prefer maternal incubation for Burmese & Reticulated Pythons, plus it's more interesting to witness the females behavior then merely peeking into an incubator. Both these species are usually extrememly attentive/good mothers.
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Thanks,

Frank Roberts
Roberts' Realm Of Reptile Research

Hi Frank!
Thanks for posting. I realize that witnessing a full life cycle may not be for every reptile keeper but I can now say without a doubt that you haven't lived until you've experienced mating, laying of eggs and maternal incubation (or the bearing of live young). Nature at its finest.

My female never struck at me while nesting but she lunged her body forward once, hitting the shield pretty hard, letting me know she didn't care much for my intrusion. She's always been as good as gold at being gentle, never striking or anything, but by golly, she was flat protective of them eggs. Ha!

Thanks for the "heads up" on thermometer accuracy. The one I'm using has a plus/minus 2-degrees accuracy rating. I've used two of the same model therms at the same time & they read within .4 degrees of each other.

This is the first time I've ever built an incubator of any kind so I just got lucky with it holding temps so good. It's been doing great, until late this afternoon, that is. For some reason the aquarium heater apparently hit a lull or something and the temp dropped down to 86.5 for almost 2 hrs while I was gone.

What are the odds the temp drop could harm the eggs?

Most definitely, if I breed again, I'll let her incubate full term. The only reason I pulled them this time was because I thought my misting was causing the eggs to go bad, but Kelly said that wasn't the cause. Now I know.

By the way, Frank, have you ever seen anything like my preemie?

Have a good one!
HH
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It is said that 1 out of every 4 people are mentally unbalanced. Think of your 3 closest friends, if they're normal, then it's you.

as far as the temp drop goes, I doubt you will have too much of a problem. In one of my first incubators that I built years ago before the days of the helix or even the good wafers, I'd have temp changes from 89 down to 82 then up to 92 in a day, every day and would still hatch out very high percentages of eggs from burms to retics to balls. You should be getting close to them hatching so keep us updated.
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Josh & Krysty Hutto
J&K Reptiles

Various Ball Pythons:::

1.0 striped vanilla
1.0 spider
1.2 Citrus Ghost and hets
1.2 Albino and hets
2.3 het Pied
0.6 50% poss het pied
1.1 Pastel (male has additional gene going on with him)
a bunch of normal female breeders
a bunch of normal female holdbacks and several rescued normal males

0.1 columbian boa, she's a feeding monster, controls my
over production of rats, lol
0.1 brazilian rainbow boa, another rat eating monster
1.1 corns

a BAD dog is MADE not bred, support the American Pit Bull Terrier as the greatest breed of dogs on Earth!!!!!

Thanks Josh! I'm glad to hear that.

Yeah, hopefully the end of this week or first of next I'll have some healthy babies. I'm getting more & more excited, anxious, ever day. LOL! Like a kid counting the days before Christmas.

I'll definitely update everyone, regardless of how things turn out.

Catch ya later!
HH
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Due to political correctness run amuck,
this ol' hillbilly is now referred to as an:
Appalachian American