Reptile & Amphibian Forums

Opened up a drawer this morning to find this female munching down her newly-laid clutch!

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Brad Chambers
WWW.HCU-TX.ORG

Breeder of:
Green Tree Pythons
Jungle Carpet Pythons
Pastel, Pinstripe, FIRE, Piebald, Clown, Lavender Albino, Leucistic, and Spider Ball Pythons
Striped Colombian Boa Constrictors
Kenyan, Rufescens, and Conicus Sand Boas
Red Phase Western Hognose Snakes
Spider Western Hognose Snakes
Albino Western Hognose Snakes
Locality Trans-Pecos Mexican Hognose Snakes
Southern Hognose Snakes
Eastern Hognose Snakes
Tricolor Hognose Snakes
Hypo Checkered Garter Snakes
Eastern Blackneck Garter Snakes
Stillwater Hypo Bullsnakes
Patternless Bullsnakes
S. GA Eastern Kingsnakes
Locality Desert Kingsnakes
Albino Desert Kingsnakes
Hypo Desert Kingsnakes
Mexican Black Kingsnakes
Desert Phase, Striped Desert, Newport, and Coastal California Kingsnakes
Locality Mexican Milksnakes
Spotted Mexican Milksnakes
Tangerine Mexican Milksnakes
Locality Alterna
Abbott Okeetee Cornsnakes
Mexican Baird's Ratsnakes
Cape Housesnakes
Tangerine Albino African Fat -Tailed Geckos
Locality Spotted Turtles

I've never had it happen to me, but I have heard of it happening from different breeders.

Cool pic though!

Kerby...
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OWCH. that had to hurt
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We wouldn't have 6 and a half billion people if you had to be beautiful to get laid.
6.6 African House snakes
3.2 reticulated pythons
.1 corn snake
4.2 Florida Kings
1.2 speckled kings
1.2 ball pythons
0.0.1 Argentine boa

What a great behavior. There is so much we do not understand. For instance, pythons are known to remove infertile and dead eggs and coil around eggs that are viable.

Varanids commonly consume infertiles if there are both viable and infertiles in a clutch.

The problem with seeing these behaviors is, we commonly do not support them in ways that will express "natural behaviors"

For instance, I have photograghed varanids, moving eggs. That is, laying them in one place and moving them to another to nest. I have had pythons do this also. So much to learn, so little time. Cheers

FR, those behaviors noted sound overly simplistic. To say a snake eats infertile eggs but doesnt eat infertile eggs simply isnt true. I had Goini kings housed together last year, both were eating as they were being laid. That Cal king egg looks good to me. While its easy to explain why they eat infertile eggs, what possible explanation could explain eating fertile eggs besides being simply hungry?

Jeff, I really think you have issues with reading comprehension. Frank never said that they only eat infertiles and leave fertiles alone. In fact he offered no absolutes, quite the contrary, he made mention multiple times that we have a lot to learn. He commented on some observations he has with his animals. He did say that his VARANIDS will eat the infertiles of an otherwise healthy clutch...and that pythons will seperate infertiles from viable eggs.

No Nate, Jeff has no problem with reading comprehension unless FR writes it. I don't see FR writing anywhere that snakes won't eat fertile eggs nor that the king eggs were infertile. Come on Jeff, sheath the fangs!!!!

Pat

I can read, I know what he said. I asked because he implied that they could differentiate between fertile and infertile. I asked because he may have knowledge as to when this doesnt happen. And I asked, given what I've seen hatch out of UGLY eggs the last few years here and on this forum, how an egg can be eaten and THEN be declared infertile instead of maybe candling or verifying the infertility somehow before they are eaten? Frank has seen alot so I ask these questions. And when he says we "dont support" correctly, maybe he can tell us if he ever saw this in his animals. Captive or "wild". If you guys want to get knowledge from him dont let him slide with a "interesting behavior" line! I press him with 10 questions hoping he answers 1 by accident.

"To say a snake eats infertile eggs but doesnt eat infertile eggs simply isnt true."

Sounds like you were claiming he said that to me...

I don't need to press FR for info, he gives it graciously and often.

My wife actually came up with this theory. She saw this post and asked me about the ackie eggs I had recently die. And wondered that maybe a female would eat "fertile" eggs that won't hatch due to poor nesting or other unknown issues. Not saying that this particular clutch had poor nesting. But eating them because they are hungry does make sense. Ask Frank I try to eat my kid all the time.

Is because you play silly games, like the 10 to get 1. If you want to talk about something, the one question to answer, Then ask it.

If I think your fooling with me. Then I fool with you. Thats pretty simple. I really have no idea what most think but if I am attacked, I attack back, if I think your trying to corner me, I will corner you. Etc etc etc. Thats only human nature. So playing silly games only gets you more silly games. And no sir, I am not above that, why should I be?

In the case of colubrid eggs. They are very easy to tell if fertile or infertile. In fact, there are many stages.

First, ova, ova are enlarged follicules that have dropped from the ovaries. These can be absorbed or passed. These are often laid one or two a day, a day or two after shedding. Sometimes they are nested, but mostly not. These were never fertilized nor has the shell developed. Soft, slimey, never inflated, smaller then normal, did not absorb water.

Dead eggs. These are ova that passed thru the oviduct and shelled, then either died in the female right away or the sperm was non mobile or dead. Soft, never inflated, do not stick together, but have a tread pattern.

Fertile eggs are full, non slimey, stick together, have a tread pattern. Fertile eggs can and do perish if held to long, they appear normal but are non viable.

Whats interesting is, most think if an egg is fertile, it will hatch. Or if sperm is alive and present, the eggs will be fertile. The reality is, sperm can die at any given time and eggs can die at any given time.

Sperm requires a proper enviornment to survive. Dehydration, infection, scaring, proper temps, etc, can all cause sperm to perish.

After the eggs are fertilized, The zygote can perish for the same reasons as the sperm. Causing a dead fertile egg.

This is a very brief overview, no where near complete. This is plainly visible if you LOOK and observe and test.

Yes, reptiles seem to have the knowledge as to what they are carrying, They behave differently with each type of condition.

They also seem to know which eggs will hatch and which will not.

The problem is, if you keep snakes where nothing normal is allowed(you do it all) you will learn absolutely nothing. You can do it for many years and see nothing and learn nothing.

Its that old saying, you keep doing the same things, expecting a different result. As the saying indicates, only a fool will do that.

If you want to learn more, then you have to venture out(of your sweaterbox) and let the animals do something different. For instance, a great goal is, non interference. If you can create a set up where you add food and remove babies or eggs, then you will start to see the animals doing things they were designed to do.

The thing is Jerry, all you need is faith, the animals do all this in nature without our help, PERIOD. They have been doing it for tens of thousands of years. And they have all manner of roadblocks, like predators, droughts, floods, inconsisitant weather, a constantly changing enviornment, etc

But most here think they will fail unless you do it for them. Thats fine Jerry, but it will only teach you about you, and not about the animals. Cheers

Frank, the reason we havent gotten along in the past is that you say one thing say, 2 years ago, and you say something today that completely contradicts what you said earlier without qualification. I know you do different things, and you have inspired even ME to try something different..bigger cages, temp ranges etc. But like Tony I had worse results than when I did it my way. Coincidences? Maybe. Scientists dont measure happiness within specimens, we measure results. Now my sample size sucks I admit, so I put your sample size in question. Is all your info anecdotal or do you keep records? From your records you would be able to tell if your methods were anecdotal or not. For the record, I am not Jerry. Thanks, Jeff.

not infertile, sorry

I am sorry, but I do not understand why you say what you do. Have you simply not witnessed it or just pigeonhole/dismissed what you saw.

This type event has been recorded my many others. In the case of pythons, its very easy to tell what an infertile looks like. The barkers time lapsed a nesting childrens python popping out bad eggs.

In my case, I first realized what I was seeing with Womas and blackheadeds. They would lay eggs, move a certain percentage and coil around them. The others would be dicarded, and most were FERTILE, as when they are laid, they have a fairly large embryo. But those eggs that were discarded, never hatched. I also cut open dicarded eggs and found dead embryos. The snakes do know what is viable and what is not. DO THEY DO THIS IN ALL CASES, no they rarely do this in captivity as nothing in captivity is normal or recognizable to them. Even with bad conditions, we do witness a window into their natural behavior.

With kings, they can and do consume infertiles or dead eggs. But they also can consume a whole clutch. These events may not be related. Where the eggs fertile and dead, did you ever check. Live eggs have oxygenated blood, dead eggs do not. Most recently deposited colubrid eggs have a well developed embryo. So its easy to check.

The problem is, 99% of the people who witness this event interfere with the process. They do not allow the animals to finish what they do. Then also do not investigate what they saw.

Also, having marginal/inferior conditions can indeed cause insanity(consuming ones own recruiting effort) without question, to consume ones own eggs cannot be considered normal, it has to be something wrong. As their lifes task is to recruit.

It appears to me, that some folks, like you perhaps, keep animals in a very controlled way and then deny these animals have any behaviors they do not express in DRAWERS.

Basic cages, paper towels, water bowl and a hide, is not the way to observe the vast majority of their behaviors. Keeping them solitary, introducing a male after the female has produced ova, then removing the male, is also not the way to observe behaviors. This is mechanical human intervention. Its about us, not about the snakes.

Take egg laying, As I have mentioned many times, how many wild clutches are laid in the light????? like in a moss box. How many? In nature they lay their eggs in very specific places. In some cases, in very reliable conditions, like a certain type of place that has a certain set of conditions(species specific)(what would they be?) Do you, duplicate the conditions they choose in the wild? In not, why would you expect anything normal to that animal. Do you have them in anything close to what they would lay in, if given a choice(the type of conditions a wild snake would nest in. We all know if denied any suitable place, they will lay in the water bowl. If given anything better they will use that. But what are the conditions they would pick above all others?

For instance, some populations of L.thayeri, lay eggs in earth burrows, in very repeatable specific conditions. Some populations of L.pyromelana, lay in rock crevices, communally. This is from field observations. Nesting seems to be population specific. You cannot test this in a shoebox. To test these behaviors, you must include the conditions that population would naturally pick.

Another behavior, ritualized combat, is a very interesting behavior, it can be duplicated in captivity, but in most cases, by introducing two males, you get a whole basket of behaviors. Some simply eat the other male. Others bite the crap out of another male. Other times they simply ignore each other. "Ritualized combat" requires a unique set of conditions and a unique set of individual animals to duplicate. Such is behavior.

In this case, WHAT HAVE YOU SEEN? snakes eating their own eggs? what on earth would cause that? Snakes removing bad eggs? what would the benefit be to have such a behavior? cheers

FR, I want to apologize if it looks like I'm badgering, you know me. My followup was based on what looked like viable eggs and included what happened to my Goini last season. My adults were kept together in a large cage, many options, well fed. I happened to come in while both were chowin on em, I palpated 3 eggs from the males stomach and candled them and found them to be fertile. For stress reasons I obviously didnt do the same to the female. Now they didnt hatch, I'd suspect going into a snakes belly and back again cant be good on an egg. If I have seen it you must have seen it right?? What gives??
Knowing this I ask you again, have you known snakes to eat viable fertile eggs as well as all this periphery behavior already noted?? If so, under what context? And what is your opinon on THAT part of the subject?? I mean if you claim snakes are smart enough to do all this discarding of infertiles how do you justify the fertiles? Are these "dumb" ones? And some of that other info seems subjective and anecdotal. You mention discarded python eggs with embryos in them...could they not have hatched because the female didnt incubate them?? Do the same females hatch 100% of incubated eggs?? Could the snakes be wrong??

I will definitely say that the eggs consumed in this case were apparently fertile. I cleaned off the rest of the clutch as best i could and set them up for incubation. We produce literally thousands of eggs each year, and this is the first time I've personally encountered this. That plus the fact I've never seen a picture of it happening led me to run for my Nikon.
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Brad Chambers
WWW.HCU-TX.ORG

Breeder of:
Green Tree Pythons
Jungle Carpet Pythons
Pastel, Pinstripe, FIRE, Piebald, Clown, Lavender Albino, Leucistic, and Spider Ball Pythons
Striped Colombian Boa Constrictors
Kenyan, Rufescens, and Conicus Sand Boas
Red Phase Western Hognose Snakes
Spider Western Hognose Snakes
Albino Western Hognose Snakes
Locality Trans-Pecos Mexican Hognose Snakes
Southern Hognose Snakes
Eastern Hognose Snakes
Tricolor Hognose Snakes
Hypo Checkered Garter Snakes
Eastern Blackneck Garter Snakes
Stillwater Hypo Bullsnakes
Patternless Bullsnakes
S. GA Eastern Kingsnakes
Locality Desert Kingsnakes
Albino Desert Kingsnakes
Hypo Desert Kingsnakes
Mexican Black Kingsnakes
Desert Phase, Striped Desert, Newport, and Coastal California Kingsnakes
Locality Mexican Milksnakes
Spotted Mexican Milksnakes
Tangerine Mexican Milksnakes
Locality Alterna
Abbott Okeetee Cornsnakes
Mexican Baird's Ratsnakes
Cape Housesnakes
Tangerine Albino African Fat -Tailed Geckos
Locality Spotted Turtles

Do you suppose that it is possible that despite "thinking" that you gave plenty of options that your nesting was still inappropriate, and rather than loosing the energy to produce the eggs they are "recycled" for the next opportunity?

goini are large snakes, how large of a cage did you give this pair? What does plenty of options mean to you? Where do you think that goini nest in nature? Have you ever found them in nature? What was the habitat like?
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"Relax, Don't Worry, Have a Homebrew!" Charlie Papazian

Well considering they are both CB and were raised and even bred prior in sweater boxes the cage was more than adequate. About 60"x 30w x 20" high, aspen, hide boxes, laying boxes on both the warm and cool side. Very well fed. No other stimuli, so I have no idea what would cause something like this. My contrarian statements are also pointed to make us think...because it happens to both fertile and infertile eggs we can no longer assume intelligence in this regard. Right?

when they were bred prior to, was that in a traditional by the playbook sense? Was the male removed? Leaving them together adds a social dynamic to nesting? What works oneday does not always work the next with behavior, so simple variables are not the only differentiating factors. I have had good eggs eaten when the nesting was too wet, I think at least.
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"Relax, Don't Worry, Have a Homebrew!" Charlie Papazian

First of all, captive hatched does mean something, but not that much. These snakes still have an inherent knowledge of where they are suppose to nest in nature. Consider, without successful hatching, they would be domed quickly. So nesting is one very very important part of the existence of reptiles. Also, not only must the eggs hatch, but the offspring must hatch in an area that will support their success. They neonates must also survive. In nature, nests are placed in very particular places, they are not just scattered about.

Next, just because your nesting worked once or fifty times means its right. It only means it works until problems occur. IF you look at your nesting setup, it will have nothing in common with where those snakes nested in nature. With the exception of humidity.

For me, its a huge problem because I know the difference between a good nesting and a poor nesting. And sir, its not one degree, there are hundreds of degrees of poor nesting. Not it worked or not.

For instance, wild eggs are clumped up, that is, in a tight ball. The females curl with their vents on the inside and heads on the outside and deposit their eggs as they slowly circle around. This places the eggs in a tight ball and it creates a space between the eggs and the substrate.

In captivity, you often see eggs scattered all over a box. That is wrong. That means the female DUMPED her eggs. Not nested them. To you thats fine as long as the eggs hatch, to me it means it stressed the beans out of the female.

As I have mentioned here, females can lay the day after they shed, which means, each additional day is another day of unneeded stress.

Females have a period of time, say from 1 to 10 days after the shed to deposit the eggs. After that, it can be harmful to their health. Without question it causes unneeded weight loss. The sooner they lay them, the better it is for the female.

Anyway, just because it worked for you, does not mean its normal to the female. It merely works in an artificial way.

Whats great about this forum is, its about working and working better. On the varanid forums, total failure is commonplace and normal. So its about working or not. Here we have the luxury of not worrying about total failure and discussing what works to what works better. Cheers

FR, I think your success with Varanids has led you to think snakes need like conditions. Results from even new keepers should dispell this. The creative process is interesting even for me the scientist, and I have and continue to try different things based on your suggestions. They say immitation is the most sincere form of flattery, but results pay the bills. Being non specific here, I might want a bored fat snake that produces more and bigger eggs than a "happy" one that gets big and forgoes breeding to do so. Given these standards it would be interesting to know if the biggest males in the wild get that way at the "expense" or reproduction. Wouldnt it?

Hope she has training not to rupture the viable eggs ,COOL pic sorry for loss

I just lost my first clutch of the season from a het Pewter Florida king. I will probably get more eaten as my main egg laying season is around the end of this month.

Last year i think i lost around 5 or 6 clutches.

I have a large collection so there is more opportunity for things like this to happen. I am not always around when they are laying but now I make it a point to remove eggs as they are being laid by the female.

This all really started about 6 years ago. before then I never had this happen. I have no idea why because the female are fat and well fed. Some even eat a couple days before. Other may refuse food for a couple weeks only to have them munch on their own eggs.

What else is weird is most females do not want to eat right after laying. They are exhuasted and i usually have to wait 2 days before they will eat.
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www.Bluerosy.com

Generally, if I catch a female laying eggs, I will pull the eggs out as she lays them. With my very first FL king clutch, I caught the female starting to chew on one of her eggs.

I've never actually lost any eggs like this, but a lot of other breeders I know have lost entire clutches of eggs because the female decided to eat them.

>>Generally, if I catch a female laying eggs, I will pull the eggs out as she lays them. With my very first FL king clutch, I caught the female starting to chew on one of her eggs.
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>>I've never actually lost any eggs like this, but a lot of other breeders I know have lost entire clutches of eggs because the female decided to eat them.

I've had it happen with Floridana and Californiae.......
Never seen a mexicana, Splendida or Holbrooki do it though.....
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John Lassiter
Poor planning and procrastination on your part does not constitute an emergency on my part...
www.coastalbendcaptivebreeding.com

Probably the reason I've never seen it in my kings in the past is that I've never been much into Florida kings. They are such gluttons for turtle eggs in the wild, I guess that must predispose them to egg cannibalism.
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Brad Chambers
WWW.HCU-TX.ORG

Breeder of:
Green Tree Pythons
Jungle Carpet Pythons
Pastel, Pinstripe, FIRE, Piebald, Clown, Lavender Albino, Leucistic, and Spider Ball Pythons
Striped Colombian Boa Constrictors
Kenyan, Rufescens, and Conicus Sand Boas
Red Phase Western Hognose Snakes
Spider Western Hognose Snakes
Albino Western Hognose Snakes
Locality Trans-Pecos Mexican Hognose Snakes
Southern Hognose Snakes
Eastern Hognose Snakes
Tricolor Hognose Snakes
Hypo Checkered Garter Snakes
Eastern Blackneck Garter Snakes
Stillwater Hypo Bullsnakes
Patternless Bullsnakes
S. GA Eastern Kingsnakes
Locality Desert Kingsnakes
Albino Desert Kingsnakes
Hypo Desert Kingsnakes
Mexican Black Kingsnakes
Desert Phase, Striped Desert, Newport, and Coastal California Kingsnakes
Locality Mexican Milksnakes
Spotted Mexican Milksnakes
Tangerine Mexican Milksnakes
Locality Alterna
Abbott Okeetee Cornsnakes
Mexican Baird's Ratsnakes
Cape Housesnakes
Tangerine Albino African Fat -Tailed Geckos
Locality Spotted Turtles

it's been a long long time ago since this happened but.....

I had a calligaster eat her eggs and regurge empty shells. I assume they were infertile but since I never got to see the innards of the eggs I don't know.

That's one I've never heard of before or since.
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Herp Conservation Unlimited
Conservation through captive propagation
Mexicana Group Directory
Photography by Joseph E. Forks

Maybe she knew the babies were not going to be pure locality animals so she sacrificed them? JK- I couldn't help myself
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King Snakes! Who can make a better mouse trap?
J Sierra

Hi Brad,

Sorry for the loss of that clutch. That female is a smoker! I've had that happen a couple of times with my oldest, adult GA females. In my cases, it was likely that I just didn't support the girls well enough and they were just hungry. I've had males do this as well, follow a laying female into the nest on laying day and swallow them like candy as the female dropped the clutch. That is why I don't keep male kings in with the girls once they start nesting anymore. I have found that my easterns, especially GAs often feact to possible food stimuli even when they are literally too stuffed with mice and chicks to move. I feel that this may be a result of my unconsciously conditioning them to eat whenever they have a chance. They may recall that I'm a bit stingy on food at times and just resolve to never miss an opportunity to eat, or however they work it out.

I have also had female pythons kick out dead/infertiles and slugs and had a huge female Kenyan sand boa that would consume any slugs she deposited. During relatively good years, she would pick through the litter and eat them as she encountered them and on years when she slugged out, she would consume up to 23 slugs in a sitting (I watched her and counted).

Anyway, I hope that girl gives you another clutch, and lets you keep 'em next time!

Will

>>Opened up a drawer this morning to find this female munching down her newly-laid eggs

great photo documenting behavior. we used to talk a lot about snakes sometimes failing to breed to fruition by "resorbing" or "absorbing" their clutches prior to deposition. it was an easy way to explain the phenomenon of a snake that is gravid by all indications--sometimes you can even count the eggs--and then suddenly she's not. I suggested several years ago on the milk forum that in at least some of those instances the females were laying and then eating, their eggs. a couple people wrote to say they'd found females doing that. yours is the first photo proof I can recall.