I had my first Goini hatch out today and it is a freaking stunner. It has a dark dorsal stripe with wide light stripes on either side followed by thin broken dark stripes and then ending in wide light stripes touching the ventral scales. The belly is all black from just below the head and neck though the chin and neck region are white/cream. I love this thing and I am pretty sure it is a female to boot. Oh yeah the sucky part is it is the only hatchling this year out of that line. The last 2 successful hatchlings were also striped and both females. I held back one of those and she is gorgeous. But in three years I have only produced 3 stunning striped snakes out of a pair of striped adults. Each year something seems wrong with the fertility.
The first year I tried to breed this female she was a huge 18 month old snake and she tried to eat the male just about every time I introduced them. She had a huge ovulation that was very obvious but since I watch every introduction and never saw any breeding I knew I was doomed to failure. Even after I fed the female all she would eat the male was just plain scared of her because of the previous attempts at making him food. So year one I got no eggs. I also notice the swelling from the ova never fully absorbs.
The following year I pick up a second patternless male and this time I do the introductions right after the female has eaten. This year both the second and first male are observed copulating with the female many times. I get 18 "eggs" most of which are slugs some are hard little stones from lsat year that never got passed and there was also a whole bunch of cheesy stuff in the mix. I think this "cheese" is from the ova sitting in the ducts or which ever part ova would sit in over winter and some of the ova deteriorating. Out of the real eggs I end up with only 2 hatchlings both striped as mentioned above.
Last year I have another big ovulation but only one male to try to breed with because I sold off the extra male and no eggs. Again the ova swelling never went away.
This year the lone male is uninterested when the female seems ready and then finally gets it done late in the game. I get another large clutch of 14 but again most seem bad and more of the cheese and hard dried egg stones. The 4 eggs that look good each had a little cheese on them which I first leave alone and then wash off when maggots show up. The washing seems to kill three of the eggs and I end up with one stunner and a whole big bunch of frustration. I will get pics once she (hopefully) sheds out. It actually seems a little worse that this hatchling is nicer than the last ones out of this female.
On the bright side there doesn't seem to be any obvious swelling or ova in her now so maybe next year I can start fresh!!!!
Jason
