Reptile & Amphibian Forums

Over the years I have always pulled my Woma eggs and incubated them artificially, decent results with hatch rate BUT I have been interested to see what the female (who has a strong incubation instict) would do. SO, this year, I have taken another path - maternal incubation. I grabbed two fertile eggs to incubate artificially from a recent clutch and have left the remainder of the eggs (10 I blieve) in the nest box with the female. I posted some time ago on lowering temps and seeing what happened with maternal incubation so here we go...

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Cheers
Lateralis
"I would rather be precisely wrong than approximately right"
Marion "Doc" Ford

Very cool. Keep us posted. I was going to try that this year with mine.
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1.1 Indian Pythons, 1.1 Womas, 1.0 Sorong GTP, 1.0 Albino Green Burmese, 1.0 Australian Water Python, 1.0 Centralian Carpet Python, 1.0 Jungle Carpet Python, 1.1 Triple Het (Moonglow) Boas, 1.1 Peruvian Red-Tail Boas, 2.1 Hog Island Boas, 0.1 Pastel Salmon Boa, 0.1 50% poss Het for Alb. Boa, 0.0.1 North American Wood Turtle, 1.0 Hypo Alligator Snapper, 0.0.1 Concentric Diamondback Terrapin, 0.1.1 Leopard Tortoises, 0.0.1 Indian Star Tortoise,1, 0.0.1 Spectacled Caiman, 0.0.1 SpecXYacare Caiman, 1.0 Rhino Iguana

>>Very cool. Keep us posted. I was going to try that this year with mine.
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>>1.1 Indian Pythons, 1.1 Womas, 1.0 Sorong GTP, 1.0 Albino Green Burmese, 1.0 Australian Water Python, 1.0 Centralian Carpet Python, 1.0 Jungle Carpet Python, 1.1 Triple Het (Moonglow) Boas, 1.1 Peruvian Red-Tail Boas, 2.1 Hog Island Boas, 0.1 Pastel Salmon Boa, 0.1 50% poss Het for Alb. Boa, 0.0.1 North American Wood Turtle, 1.0 Hypo Alligator Snapper, 0.0.1 Concentric Diamondback Terrapin, 0.1.1 Leopard Tortoises, 0.0.1 Indian Star Tortoise,1, 0.0.1 Spectacled Caiman, 0.0.1 SpecXYacare Caiman, 1.0 Rhino Iguana
>>

So how do you have the egg box set up. I am interested in hearing more. Is it set on the heating pad or half on. I would love to get some more information about the technique. Todd
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www.hybridhaven.net

Will do fellows, the egg box was set up with damp coco husk and is parked half way under the heating element. Temps are staying around mid 80's, I have seen the female basking and returning to eggs so I may bring the heat up another degree or two. AH is around 80%, as far as I can tell the eggs are fertile with one nonfertile in the batch. The two I removed were both fertile.

Heres a nice girl from the clutch I hatched out in 06'

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Cheers
Lateralis
"I would rather be precisely wrong than approximately right"
Marion "Doc" Ford

I am thinking of trying this with my BHP this year. My concern is how to keep up the humidity in a large cage (6x3x1.5 feet). How are you keeping 80 percent humidity? How big is the cage? Thanks for starting this string.

>>I am thinking of trying this with my BHP this year. My concern is how to keep up the humidity in a large cage (6x3x1.5 feet). How are you keeping 80 percent humidity? How big is the cage? Thanks for starting this string.

I was wondering the same thing. I seem to remember had a larger than normal water bowl. And the female would soak and than rewrap around the eggs to provide humidity. I think they mentioned she could always raise the humidity, but lowering it would be hard.
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www.hybridhaven.net

the nest box is about half full of coco peat, I have placed some wet moss in one side as well to help maintain AH. Temps are in the mid 80's. So far so good, things appear to be allright. I spray the nest box if I see the AH has dropped below 80% and am keeping two large tubs of water in her cage as well. The cage is a 4x2x2 boaphile type affair with circular vents along the top rear edge of cage. I have sealed all but one of hte vents to hold the AH better. I'll keep the forum posted on results...
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Cheers
Lateralis
"I would rather be precisely wrong than approximately right"
Marion "Doc" Ford

This is the setup I have been using since the late 1970's. It will keep the ambient humidity at about 90% with no problem at all. The plastic boxes contain towels which stick above the surface of the water and act as a wick system. It is heated from below the cage bottom using Flexwatt. It can be scaled for about any size python, although a 4 X 4 foot cage is as large as I have used it with, and that size will work with 16 to 18 footers. Those larger cages were 4 X 8, but with the nest box at one end, a partition is slid in to cut the cage size in half after she lays. The cage below is a 3 X 6 with a partition in place to make it 3 X 3. The smaller the interior air volume, the easier it is to maintain the higher humidity. Vents are kept to a minimum. The nest box is lined with moist, long-fibered sphagnum. The key is to keep the nest box substrate temps in the mid-80's and being careful not to let it get above about 88. Always use quality temp and humidity monitoring equipment. I have had outstanding success with this setup and never had any desiccation problems, or health problems with the females.

Kelly

Thank you very much for your input. Do you find that you can breed the females every year or do you skip a year?

Maternally incubating female pythons typically lose about 30 to 35% of their pre-ovulation weight by the time they hatch their eggs. I know some people who breed female pythons several years in succession, but they need to power feed these females in order to recover the required body mass to insure ovulation the following season. Additionally, it is quite common for female pythons to produce smaller clutches each year when bred annually like this. I feel this is an unnecessary and unnatural physiological burden on these females. Field data has shown that most female pythons in their natural habitat typically breed every other year, and sometimes every third year with the larger species during leaner years when food is less available. In captivity, I prefer every other year, as this gives sufficient time for the female to recover and is not taxing her to put the weight back on over a short 7 to 8 month period as occurs with annual breeding. I feel it is much healthier for the females in the long run.

Kelly

Thanks for a thorough explanation. I am pretty certain that I have two gravid BHP and I have been told that it is very difficult to hatch their eggs artificially. So, I plan to let them hatch their own eggs and see if that gets any to hatch. I will use your method of increasing the humidity in the cage. What I find interesting is that you have no top to the egg laying box. I would think that the female would prefer a top.

Do they ovulate each year and you choose not to breed them? Or do they legitimately skip a year on their own?

Now I will be the first one to shout out that I am new to breeding pythons (but not new to colubrids) but I have found that if a female is supported properly she will try to reproduce, and if she is going to spend the metabolic energy making ovum, then why not fertilize them?

Now if they don't ovulate, thats a different story. Then they are telling you one of two things...either they need better conditions or they are really just not meant to. Which one it is, I don't know. If you could point me towards those studies that you mentioned about wild pythons only breeding every other year I would love to read them. It is something I have looked into a few times but never found anything very convincing.

My own experience with colubrids is proving true again with my pygmy pythons. Last year I bred a 22 month old female who produced 6 perfect eggs. I incubated the eggs artificially and fed her well. She just dropped another perfect clutch of 7 eggs last week.

From the pictures, it appears that you used artificial incubation. Kelly and I are discussing maternal incubation which keeps the female off feed for a long time. Plus, using much energy to maintain a high incubating temperature. Kelly is saying that it would be better to breed every other year to give the female an energy break. I certainly agree. In artificial incubation, females will eat within a couple of weeks or sooner after the eggs are removed. Congratulations on hatching out the python eggs.

Yes I did use artificial incubation, in fact I directly *
said so because I recognize there is a big difference. However Kelly didn't specify how "the people he knew" where incubating.

I also have never tried maternal incubation (being that I have only bred a handful of pythons) so I can't say if my opinion holds true in that situation - but I suspect it might.

My females all regain their prebreeding weight within a few weeks of laying - some even sooner. Is this not the case if they incubate on their own?

"My females all regain their prebreeding weight within a few weeks of laying - some even sooner. Is this not the case if they incubate on their own?"

No. During maternal incubation they rely heavily on their fat reserves, depleting them, taking a heavy toll on their bodies because of their constant twitching to keep the eggs warm enough.

I'd say that the toll on the snake from incubating the eggs, alone, is probably at least three times greater than the toll from the point of mating to egg laying.

Have a good one!
HH
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Due to political correctness run amuck,
this ol' hillbilly is now referred to as an:
Appalachian American

www.natures-signature.com

I've incubated several clutches of eggs by MI.
All of my females would eat while they were on the eggs.
I simply put a thawed rat just outside of the nest box and they eat...if they need it.

As far as breeding females every year....As long as they have the body weight you're cool.
I know of several breeders (including myself) that have tried to give their females off... only to have them lay infertile's anyway.

Cheers.
D.

Thats exactly what I would figure would happen if they were in good shape. What a waste...

Anyone have experience w/ 2 fertile clutches in a row maternally incubated?
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"He who would stifle debate rather than engage in it, does so at the expense of his integrity and credibility"

Mike Curtin

Yes, I've done 3 years in a row with some Carpets. And, I know others that have as well.
But...as I said....I would feed them on the eggs.
Cheers and happy herping.
D.