Reptile & Amphibian Forums

Recently, I had a snake experience dystocia. Her is an image of the snake, a four- year old captive bred Christmas Mountain alterna:

On June 23, she had laid three eggs and retained a single egg. I have not had very good luck aspirating the contents of the egg and massaging out the shell of the egg. In recent years, snakes that experienced egg binding would be left in their cages to pass the eggs on their own. I have never had a snake not pass their eggs (up to a month later). Unfortunately, this snake retained the egg for over five weeks. Using a suggestion from John Fraser, I soaked the snake in a clean cage with approximately one inch of warm water on the bottom. The snake passed the egg within 24 hours as evidenced by this photograph!

So if you have a snake retaining an egg, you may want to give John’s strategy a try! I know the usual protocol should be a trip to the vet, but you may want to try this first....

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G. Merker

WOW, that's great news Gerry! Glad you could save that fine looking female!

~ Mike Russo

"I have not had very good luck aspirating the contents of the egg and massaging out the shell of the egg."

When I was taught about egg aspiration I was told to use a larger gauge needle, loop the coil containing the egg around my thumb (so as to push the egg against the body wall), insert the needle between the ventral and dorsal scales, withdraw roughly two thirds of the contents of the egg, maintain negative pressure when removing the needle (this was stressed), and never attempt to massage the aspirated egg out (also stressed). The negative pressure on withdrawal and avoidance of massaging is a direct attempt to avoid expelling egg contents into either the oviduct or the body cavity which will very frequently result in septicemia and death. Every time I've had to use aspiration and employed it the way it was outlined to me, it has worked wonderfully. The aspirated eggs are usually passed sometime over the next 2-3 days.

In any case, I'm glad the soak worked for her! Does she still have another one down by her vent or is that just perspective and water refraction?

Oh no, she did not have another egg in her. That was just distension from the egg she passed! She now looks totally normal and should breed again next year....

My problem with aspirating was not the actual procedure; just the female would usually not breed for me during the following year. The year after, most females I performed the procedure on would breed again. I found the same end result when my veterinarian would surgically remove the egg.....just my two cents! G
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G. Merker

That's good to hear! I'm glad she got the egg out. She's beautiful and it would have been a shame to lose her to a bound egg. I'm also glad to hear that your experience with aspiration wasn't as bad as I inferred it to be from your first post. How are her other three eggs doing?

Well, only one hatched. All three were fertile....it was her first clutch. I am hoping for a better hatch rate next year....thanks for the comments....G
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G. Merker

Through the years as an alterna breeder and veterinarian, I have found that there are numerous ways to manage an egg-bound snake, including some of those mentioned in this thread. From a different perspective, however, sometimes prevention is our best ally. During the 90s when Dan J was producing 100s of baby alternas, he consistently had problems with egg retention. I did numerous surgeries on some of his prime breeders whenever a more conservative approach failed to yield acceptable results. Through trial and error (not just with Dan`s animals), we came to the conclusion that diet plays a huge role in the incidence of egg retention. In summary, an alterna fed primarily a lizard diet was much less likely to have these problems. Next best was live mice that had been fed a high quality rodent chow. After this, frozen/thawed mice that had been on a good diet were probably best and alternas that were fed F/T mice that had been on a poor quality diet fared worst of all. These observations were made by Dan and I, and I have observed quite a few (maybe a dozen) examples of alterna collections through the years where this trend was duplicated.
I realize that this is not a scientific study backed by appropriate, statisically sound methods, but I do believe that there is too much emprical evidence to completely dismiss these observations. Just some "food for thought" - pardon the pun.....
David Doherty

Great post Doc..

I also find that my Alterna egg shells are very thick compared to other colubrid eggs?? I know that we have had several discussions here about high rates of Alterna hatchlings dying fully formed in their eggs.. I would be willing to bet that is related to diet as well.

I know Gerry wrote a great article in the July of 1996 Reptiles magazine with long term data comparing seasons with and without calcium supplementation which showed much better results with supplementation.. So, maybe that plays a part as well??

Either way feeding a natural died makes a lot of sense and I would be willing to give it a try or even do 1/2 lizards 1/2 rodents, but I have no idea where to find bulk frozen lizards?? If anyone has a source please send me a P/M.

~ Mike Russo

So for someone that doesn't have access to lizards, what would you recommend feeding adults? I fed this particular female live large fuzzies and small hoppers. I figured the calcium from a belly full of milk with aid with egg production as well. Any other tips? Thanks for the info.

Brandon Osborne
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www.brandonosbornereptiles.com

I may be wrong, but I believe the calcium content of adult mice is higher than that of young ones. Sometimes adult colubrids fed on young rodents start feeling "rubbery" (possible MBD?) in the musculoskeletal department. Baby mice are probably higher in fat but lower in calcium. I'd imagine the more-developed bones of adults yield a more calcium-rich food item. Again, I'd be interested in hearing what others say.

Cheers,

Dusty R.

Suboc.com

You may be right. The bad part is, she wants nothing to do with adult mice. I could barely get her to take hoppers. I wonder though, how much calcium from adults is wasted compaired to that of young ones, whose calcium should be easier to absorbe. Just something I've thought about. I didn't know about the MBD though. Thanks for the tip. Now to get her eggs out and feeding again.

Thanks
Brandon Osborne
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www.brandonosbornereptiles.com

I have aspirated eggs on two females (a cal king and a lajitas female). I kept negative pressure when removing the needle and left the females, both passed their eggs in a day or two, and are doing great.
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South Texas Herps

Good to know. I have aspirated eggs in the past. It's always better to try the less invasive methods first. I also use warm soaks for constipation in my GTPs and ETBs.

I had a female lay 5 eggs on 5/31 and became eggbound with 7 eggs left. I aspirated within a week and have been soaking her once a week for the last 2 months. There are still 2 eggs left and she is getting very thin. She fed about 2-3 weeks ago, but regurged 2 days later. As much as I love graybands and want more, this is steering me away from them a bit. I am hearing this is a common problem. Is it? It is going on 3 months and she isn't showing signs of improvement. What can I do?

Thanks
Brandon Osborne
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www.brandonosbornereptiles.com

Brandon,

The alterna in my post above is the first gray-banded kingsnake I have had retaining an egg in about three years. It sounds like diet may be responsible in part for egg retention. I also heard that too small of an enclosure may cause egg retention. Whatever the cause, there are several strategies that may be helpful. Don't give up on these animals because of one bad experience! Take care, G
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G. Merker

Egg retention is an infrequent occurance with alterna. I've had to deal with it seven or eight times in the last 20 years... and that's with a fairly large number of captives. It's sort of like prolapse in chondros... it's rare, but it's good to know how to deal with it if it happens.