Reptile & Amphibian Forums

Well, this was the bad ending to a horrible breeding season. I manually hatched my last Pueblan Milksnake egg since it was long overdue. The baby was a beautiful Halloween that looked very much like it's daddy, but it was horribly deformed. Severely kinked all over, and an underdeveloped head. It was sort of alive when I pulled it from the egg, but it didn't live much longer.

This has just been a terrible year for me. I've had at least 100 eggs, but only 15 of them were fertile. Of the 15, I've had 2 fatally deformed, 3 kinked tails, and 8 non or extremely stubborn feeders. The remaining 2 were just fine from the start. And now it looks like my "gravid" BRB may not be gravid after all.

Wish me better luck for next year.

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Aubrey Ross

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www.SlipstreamSerpents.com

Sorry to hear about all the bad luck. That's a real bummer. Especially knowing all the anticipation that goes into expecting babies. Hopefully next year goes much smoother and you can make up for this one with a great hatch rate. Things do seem to even out over time.

Thank you, I appreciate it. You are right, the prospect of next year is what is keeping me from getting too bummed out.
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Aubrey Ross

©
www.SlipstreamSerpents.com

Hey Aubrey, not much can be said except there's always next year!! That's the really rough part of breeding, not everything goes as planned. I know you already have but think back on your husbandry, temps, humidity, feeding looking for anything you could/would do differently for next year.

The bad years are what weeds out the non-committed breeders!!! Those of that do it for the love of the hobby will never be stopped by failure(s). Failures are an opportunity to learn!!! If it were easy and no challenge, would not be worth the effort.

BTW, I've heard fetal tones in both Savannah and Daisey!!!
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Thanks,

Dave Colling

www.rainbows-r-us-reptiles.com

0.1 Wife (WC and still very fiesty)
0.2 kids (CBB, a big part of our selective breeding program)

LOL, to many snakes to list, last count:
26.49 BRB
20.21 BCI
And those are only the breeders

lots.lots.lots feeder mice and rats

Thanks Dave. I definetely have looked into my husbandry and incubation techniques, and will try tweaking a few things to see if that makes a difference next year. Hopefully I'll have more babies than I know what to do with... that'd make up for it! lol

I am so glad to hear that you got some little pitter patters coming from Daisey and Savannah!!! WOOO!!
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Aubrey Ross

©
www.SlipstreamSerpents.com

Aww, damn. That just ices a really sh*t cake for you, I'm truly sorry.

Its sounds like you're having some kind of neutral tube / notochord developmental issues early on in gestation. I've had similar issues in litters from older dogs and ferrets, very similar looking heads (some more graphic) on the dead ones with kinked tails on the live ones and some mental defects. I have no idea how it would translate to reptile eggs, but maybe some googling on neutral tube defects would help you figure out if there's a external cause to it. Hopefully someone with more experience as it relates to reptiles will chime in, it may help me on my quest too.

I feel your pain. There's almost nothing more discouraging than a bad breeding season no matter what species.
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Julie

Surrounded by a bunch of BRB, some Ridleyi, a few Grey Banded Kings, Australian Cattle Dogs, a Belgian Malinois, assorted Mustelids and an incredibly tolerant male human.

"That just ices a really sh*t cake for you"

You got me laughing on that one, LOL!!

Well, I can tell you I know nothing about what a nuetral tube thingy is, but I do appreciate the insight.

From what I have heard, high incubation temps seem to be the most likely cause of kinks and deformaties in reptiles. The thing is, though, as I have been using the same temps to incubate reptile eggs for years, and have never gotten deformaties. Although this was my first year using my new home-made incubator... I wonder if it allowed some temp spikes. I'll have to look into it.
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Aubrey Ross

©
www.SlipstreamSerpents.com

Aubrey,
...As has already been posted look at ALL the variables in your husbandry to try to figure out the problem. I have been in similar situations after years with lots of slugs and lower percentages of healthy babies. It was always difficult trying to figure out if my temperatures were either too low or too high or I cooled them for too short a time or for too long etc.
...It does sound like mostly your problems have to do with incubating eggs. I have had my share of failures their also. I have opened hundreds of good eggs and hundreds of failed eggs over the years just to learn about the developement of baby snakes while in the egg. Your similar bad results with different species is probably key to finding the problem. First thing I would look at is your incubation medium. After that look at incubation medium moisture content and probably lastly at incubation temperatures. Temperatures are the one item of incubation that is probably easiest to measure and so the assumption would be that it would not be the problem but look at how temperature is maintained and also measured in your incubator. I have heard of incubators that were very expensive and sophisticated looking with really lousy thermostats.
....BRBs that should be gravid and look and act gravid when they are not are so common that you probably have nothing to worry about there. Try more males in the breeding attempts next year and fiddle with temperature a little and you may get the females gravid next year.
Better luck for next year,
Jeff

>>Well, this was the bad ending to a horrible breeding season. I manually hatched my last Pueblan Milksnake egg since it was long overdue. The baby was a beautiful Halloween that looked very much like it's daddy, but it was horribly deformed. Severely kinked all over, and an underdeveloped head. It was sort of alive when I pulled it from the egg, but it didn't live much longer.
>>
>>This has just been a terrible year for me. I've had at least 100 eggs, but only 15 of them were fertile. Of the 15, I've had 2 fatally deformed, 3 kinked tails, and 8 non or extremely stubborn feeders. The remaining 2 were just fine from the start. And now it looks like my "gravid" BRB may not be gravid after all.
>>
>>Wish me better luck for next year.
>>
>>
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>>-----
>>Aubrey Ross
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>>©
>>www.SlipstreamSerpents.com

Thank you Jeff. I have been wondering if it was my incubator, as this was the first year I have used this particular one. I made one out of an old fridge, and wired it up with FlexWatt controlled by a Helix. I also wired up a small fan to circulate the air to help prevent hot spots. You would think a fridge would be well insulated as to not allow temp spikes, but I may have to look into that possibility. I'll be incubating a few degrees lower next year. I'd rather wait longer to have eggs hatch if it means healthier babies!

As for the low fertility rate... I'll be trying a slightly lower brumation temp this year. I think that may have been my problem there.

If I have great success next year after tweaking a few possible issues... then I will have my answer.
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Aubrey Ross

©
www.SlipstreamSerpents.com

Aubrey,

Sorry to hear this. I wish I could offer some advice, but I have
no experience at all with baby snakes. Keep your head up, though, hopefully things will get better.

Thanks,
Ed

>>Well, this was the bad ending to a horrible breeding season. I manually hatched my last Pueblan Milksnake egg since it was long overdue. The baby was a beautiful Halloween that looked very much like it's daddy, but it was horribly deformed. Severely kinked all over, and an underdeveloped head. It was sort of alive when I pulled it from the egg, but it didn't live much longer.
>>
>>This has just been a terrible year for me. I've had at least 100 eggs, but only 15 of them were fertile. Of the 15, I've had 2 fatally deformed, 3 kinked tails, and 8 non or extremely stubborn feeders. The remaining 2 were just fine from the start. And now it looks like my "gravid" BRB may not be gravid after all.
>>
>>Wish me better luck for next year.
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>-----
>>Aubrey Ross
>>
>>©
>>www.SlipstreamSerpents.com

Thank Ed, I appreciate it.

Jack looks very happy in that picture.
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Aubrey Ross

©
www.SlipstreamSerpents.com

I'm sorry that you've had such a rough year with your litters.
I've never tried breeding snakes and the whole process sounds incredibly complicated! But I'm betting that you'll pinpoint the problem and next year will yield a bonanza of babies.
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Renee
1.0 BRB (Loki)
2.0 amel & anery corns (Foxfire & Daguerre)
0.1 blood python (Duchess, arriving later this month)
1.1 Cats (Nightshade & Cuzzy)

Thank you Renee, I sure hope you are right! Breeding colubrids really isn't very complicated, and last year was no sweat getting healthy babies. I guess this year was meant to be a learning experience.
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Aubrey Ross

©
www.SlipstreamSerpents.com

Sorry to hear all of this Aubrey. I kno whow hard it is to put so much energy into something and then not have it work out. Last year I had my heart set on breeding chondros for the first time. Everything went perfectly except for one thing.... No eggs! At that point I had to tell myself that the real joy of keeping these animals is keeping these animals. Breeding is extra. You're doing fine by your snakes if your adults are happy and healthy.

5 or 6 years ago I had real good results breeding panther chameleons. I decided to try again three years ago and it was a dismal failure. I had tons and tons of eggs and not one hatched. They would go full term and then just start to die on me one by one. Fully developed babies in the egg. I have no clue what I did wrong.

This chameleon failure got me to think a little bit about the animals I keep. I decided that three species was too much for me. Especially since all their requirements were quite different. Now, I only focus on chondros and Brazilians. There are some very cool animals out there (I still think about those cal-king pics you posted). But, I know I need to limit myself.

People have said it already.... There's always next year. One little piece of advice I might offer about the Brazilians is to leave them together for a long time. If we're not carefully clued in to them then we might not know exactly where, in their reproductive cycle, they're at.
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Mike Lockwood
www.tooscaley.com

Thanks for the words of encouragement, Mike. I really appreciate it.

That must have been a big bummer to slowly lose your Chameleon eggs, especially since their incubation takes so long.

Even though this was a disappointing year, I'm taking it all as a learning experience. It is an opportunity for me to perfect my techniques, and hope I get better results in the future.
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Aubrey Ross

©
www.SlipstreamSerpents.com

I dread the day I have to deal with this kind of thing, but it's nature I suppose. There will be more opportunities to produce more and sometimes you just gotta shake it off. Sorry you had to go through this. Keep your head up!

Thanks for the kind words. I'm definetely hoping for a better season in 2009.
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Aubrey Ross

©
www.SlipstreamSerpents.com

It's the culprit IMO. (maybe not but most likely)

Also listen closely to what Jeff said.

I do not believe the problem to be related to your snakes genes.
(i.e. breeding snakes into the third or greater generation)

Also did you have low fertility in your snakes eggs upon deposition ? Or just poor hatch rates ?

If you want my opinion maybe you could make me a post of all your breeding's,species, eggs fertile or unfertile, and outcome of incubation. Including hibernation temps, temps before and after hibernation.

Also what success or failure rate have you had in the past, before the new incubator ?

Or any other history you can provide. (detail orientated)
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=========================================================
Roberts Realm Of Reptile Research
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Thanks,

I opened my mouth and out flowed a melody black.

Well, I doubt the incubator was the main culprit, perhaps secondary. I had only about a 15% fertility rate. I did have a weird brumation cycle, which I was forced to shorten, so I bet that had a lot to do with it. So I plan to not mess up brumation this year, and drop the temp in the incubator a few degrees for the 2009 batches of eggs. If I get better results, then I'll know for sure what I did wrong.
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Aubrey Ross

©
www.SlipstreamSerpents.com