Reptile & Amphibian Forums

Last year I bread my 2 alb banana females to a striped chocolate male that prooved out to be het for alb. These 2 females happen to be sisters, Dora and Queen. Dora's eggs did fine and wile not all hatched the ones that did were great, all healthy.

My question is with what happened with Queen's eggs. Her eggs all had very thin soft shells and were not the nice white that her sister's were, but rather were a dark cream in color. They were not slugs as they candled fertile, lots of veins. But they all died eventually.

I figured that Queen was deficient in calcium. This suprissed me as I had been giving both of them calcium suplements before breeding and egg laying.

I want to know if any of you have had experience with this problem. Will giving her more of the suplement solve it? Is there a way to save the eggs if I breed her next year and the eggs have bad shells again? Should I not breed her?

Any info will be apreciated.
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1 BP
4 Cal Kings 3 alb 1 het
3 Alb Corn
1 Rev Alb Nelsons

Well,...unfortunately it is impossible to say exactly what caused that. We've all seen this, and many other things go wrong with eggs at one time or another. I don't think it was because the snake was deficient of calcium, although there is always that possibility. The fact is, snakes have large clutched of eggs because of the fact that many things can(and do) go wrong with the eggs themselves, not to mention even when hatched they still have many obstacles to overcome to even make it to adulthood and are able to continue the cycle of reproduction themselves.

It all comes down to this,...many things related to animals are not well understood by us at all, and one other fact with virtually all animals is that, without a better term is.....stuff happens. Everyone who has bred snakes before for any amount of time will sometimes experiences entire bad clutches(for whatever reason), some infertility, shell issues, strange discoloration, etc..., so in other words, there's always next year.LOL!

Things can also work out fine with the very same pairing later on, there's just no absolute answers many times.

good luck!, ~Doug
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"Better to be silent and thought a fool, than to open mouth and remove any doubt!"

I don't know if the eggs were incubated with the right temps, humidity, substrate type, etc..so this is always another likely possibility too, who really knows?.

best regards, ~Doug
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"Better to be silent and thought a fool, than to open mouth and remove any doubt!"

I used the same set up for Queen's eggs as I did for Dora's eggs. Dora's eggs did OK.
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1 BP
4 Cal Kings 3 alb 1 het
3 Alb Corn
1 Rev Alb Nelsons

Okay,..yeah, I had a couple similar problems this year with a few snakes too. Oh well, "stuff" happens I guess..LOL!

best regards, ~Doug
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"Better to be silent and thought a fool, than to open mouth and remove any doubt!"

Amanda,
What was your feeding regiment with the female out of brumation or at the beginning of the season prior to breeding and up to egg laying?
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John Lassiter

"Poor planning and procrastination on your part does not constitute an emergency on my part....."

>>... Is there a way to save the eggs if I breed her next year and the eggs have bad shells again? Should I not breed her?

ditto doug's comments.

perhaps they were not fertilized, as just one possibility, and without that triggering event the eggs didn't proceed to normal development. I know infertile eggs ARE sometimes laid with normal shells, but i think any number of events during the female's "season" could cause the process to "abort", as it were--to stop the development that otherwise might have occurred. so i think it's very reasonable to try again next year and hope for better results. (without re-reading your post, has she laid good eggs before? with this male or a different one? did the male used with her this year produce fertile eggs with any other females this year?)

As I said befor the eggs were fertile. I saw lots of veins in them when I candled.

There was no problem with Jack's fertility, I used him with Dora too and got good babys.

I did not get her hooked up with a male this year. But she did lay a few slugs this year any way. They were not pretty, but that is to be expected of slugs.

I generly feed my girls 5 or 6 weenlings a week plus the calcium supplement befor breeding and egg laying. I offer more if they appear to still be hungry. On this diet they get plenty fat.
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1 BP
4 Cal Kings 3 alb 1 het
3 Alb Corn
1 Rev Alb Nelsons