Reptile & Amphibian Forums

this morning i figured my female black milk was bound up since 6 eggs arrived 3 days ago ,in the past i let nature take its coarse only to have them harden and remain inside ,since this egg was 1"from cloacai used my sm. ball tip probe w/ lube and went in .I actually"scraped" the outside of the egg and it still wouldnt budge so feeling i had the probe center on the end of the egg i popped it and squeezed the liquid out of the cloaca,cleaned her up a bit and put her back in her cage stll has 3 floating egg in line behind the popped egg,should i now let her do the rest?

Popping the egg was unfortunately one of the worst things you could've done as the contents are perfect bacteria culture medium. If the whole lot doesn't pass in the next day, this snake should be taken to the vet, the situation explained, and then dealt with. If everything does pass, the female should be monitored closely for the next few weeks. Discharge, lack of appetite, lethargy, swellings ect are all reason for immediate vet attention.

My one first hand experience with this turned out okay, but it involved manual chlorhexadine flushes of the cloaca under mild sedation. Things turned out well, but if the egg is ruptured in the shell gland, prior to exiting into the cloaca then problems are much more likely. Either way, risk of a lethal infection are high, thus the caution.

What you've done might be confused by others with a common procedure of using a needle to draw the contents out of the egg, and then removing the now smaller egg. The main differences are that the egg contents are removed, not spilled, and the rest of the egg is removed.

This was an innocent mistake, with good intentions, I hope all turns out well, but keep on top of things

Ian

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