Reptile & Amphibian Forums

Hi Everyone, I Need some advice. Not to long ago I picked up a large female albino Sonora gopher. She is probably all of 5' maybe more. About a month ago I picked up a pair of young animals. An albino male and het. female. They are 3 years old and a little over 3'. I decided to throw the male albino in with the female albino to see if there was a chance for anything to happen. Well, she didn't seem to take to him, but he was very interested in her, so I let them be for a week or so, then took him out. Well, I went in tonight to feed, and I found three eggs in with the female and her back end is blown up like a balloon. I had no Idea she took and was not expecting anything due to her reaction when I introduced them. So it has been approximately 2-3 hours since I found the first three eggs (which look great) and she still has not layed the rest. I am a little worried. How long should I wait before I panic and assume something is wrong? I have bred snakes before, but her back end seems unusually blown up like everything moved down at once. Any advice would be a huge help. Thanks and happy fathers day everyone!!

I got some suggestions when I posted this on my facebook. While I know nothing on this topic, perhaps some of this could be helpful for you...

Cindy,
If it has only been a couple of hours, I would not start to worry yet. Leave her overnight, and hopefully, she will lay the rest of the eggs.
There is always the possibility of a infertal (and non calcified) egg mass that is blocking her laying the rest of the eggs. Masses like that tend to be large and fairly dense, and sometimes can block thing up.
You might want to gently palpate the area in front of the vent and see if you feel well defigned egg shapes, or, a random larger, and perhaps spongier mass. If you feel something that does not seem egglike, I would suggest that you get her to a vet tomorrow for a X ray.
Good Luck with her....

and

Also, a light squirt of mineral or vegatable oil into the vent might help things along. Sometimes, the eggs are just a bit too big, and have to be gently pushed out one at at time.
Had to help out a ratsnake with that problem once, but the eggs all hatched, and the female snake got through the process without any damage.
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Cindy
PHFaust

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There ya' go! I haven't tried the oil, but waiting overnight to let her try it her way seems best, if nothing in the morning, I would seek out a very good HERP vet.
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Todd Hughes

Well, it' is the following morning about 8:00am and I have been up every couple hours to check on her and she still has not laid the rest of her eggs. I will give the oil a try and see what I can do and if that doesn't work, then around 9:00 am I will start calling vets...Thanks for the help!

I don't have a reptile vet anywhere near me. I do have a book on reptile medicine and surgery and it says to treat Dystocias with Oxytocin and in some cases an injection of calcium will increase the chances of success, but on average it only works 50% of the time.

Has anyone ever tride this? My local vet is willing to give the injection and at this point I don't see how I have a choice. Again, any help is appreciated.

I would ask your vet to call a herp vet and get more instructions, but you need to do something, those eggs will go bad inside her soon and may make it worse, at this point I would try palpating the eggs out, just me, but if the vet doesn't know what they are doing, I would try to do it myself, if I had no herp vet nearby. Let the vet try I say if you don't want to do it yourself.
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Todd Hughes