Reptile & Amphibian Forums

I bred my mexican black king for the second time this year. Last, year she laid 9 slugs, but I think I missed the ovulation and did not get the male to her in time. This year, I made sure to leave them together for some time. Well the time comes for her to lay and she lays 3 eggs then nothing. I have to aspirate a couple of different times and soak her in warm water repeatedly and she finally clears all but the last 2 eggs. I aspirated them on Sat. and am waiting until she passes them. In total the entire process is at just under 2 weeks. I did manage to get a few mouse hoppers down her. Of the three that she did lay without help all but one are definitely bad. This is the only one that looks halfway decent.

On a brighter note, my leucistic texas rat was bred to a het leucistic texas and produced these eggs. It looks like all but 3 are viable.

Good job on aspirating them. But about 2 years ago I gave up on aspiratiing and just let them pass on their own. I found out aspirating does not always save the eggs and sometimes it will stress the female out enough to not make her want to lay.

I had one female that never passed her eggs and two years later was gravid and laid eggs even though the old ones are still in there.
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You may want to try a nice big, deep lay box filled with coir fiber or moss so the snake can feel very secure. When I tried that, the snake laid eggs sooner than usual after her shed, as if she felt more satisfied with the lay site than in previous years. Worth a try.
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Mark

...read my "Tip of the Hat" post below.
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Diego

SWCHR

I will try this next year. The problem this year appeared to be that the eggs were REALLY big for her. I wonder if they were almost to big to pass? One of the eggs that I aspirated I took out ~11 cc of liquid and that was about half the egg, she dropped that one within 30 mins of aspirating.

She passed the last two eggs! Now to get food down her for her to recoup after the laying stress. I think I am going to treat her with a broad spectrum antibiotic (probably batryl) just in case the aspiration caused an infection.