Reptile & Amphibian Forums

Anybody ever had their females lay and then eat the eggs?
I have one female who keep on doing it. I try to pull her eggs as the come out but that's not always possible.
Today I pulled the first five before I had to leave for work and now her egg lump are way to high up in her body!!! B$*#h
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Steve Perry
North Idaho.

I take mine to work with me,or just call the boss and tell him i have better things to do.

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Brent Bumgardner
bwbumgardner@aol.com
703.431.1776
Superconda Website

Thats crazy... I had no idea that hognose snakes ate eggs... Has this ever been documented before???

You should get pics if you ever catch her in the act... That could be some valuable information...

How many eggs do you think she ate this last time around???

I know a guy that got a female from another breeder that does that. His thoughts are that the other guy left her with the eggs too long and that's how she started doing it.

A little dated I suppose, but still factors in. At least 10 years ago, maybe even more, I first started liking Hogs. Had a friend who is a major player in snake breeding. He made it possible for me to afford a lot of things I never would have been able to. He had a big Hog collection even at that time, it was focused on albinos, they were rather rare then.

He told me then that it was definitely a concern and he had problems with it because, of course, the eggs were so valuable. He was hatching albinos when they first appeared. I completely remember him telling me that he had some females that would put their head near their vent and eat some of the eggs as they were laid. So it had nothing to do with leaving them together to long, some females just did it. He had a very large collection, so maybe that's why he saw it more, or maybe after years of captive breeding it doesn't show up as much. But without question, it happens. And I trust his info as rock solid.
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Brian Suter

www.serpenteer.com

I had a female lay a bunch on infertile eggs a couple weeks ago and watched her eat ~4 of them while she was still laying. Do you think the eggs she ate were viable?

-Chris
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Christopher E. Smith
Contact
Captive Bred Herps
Wildlife Research & Consulting Services, LLC

It happened with the larger female I had, too.
She laid 17 unfertile eggs and in the course of the day she ate them all.
I can imagine she ate them to recover some strenght after all the efforts for the "unsuccessfull" deposition. The same female laid up to 23 fertile eggs in other occasions and never ate them again, either both fertile and unfertile eggs.

Ciao,
Andrea

I just popped in here to share the story of one of my girls doing this just yesterday. I checked her in the morning and saw she slugged out so I figured I'd wait a little bit to make sure she was done, then check her and throw them out.... No hurry since they were all slugs. Well, I came back about 6 hours later after getting side tracked and they were all gone... a good 15 slugs.

It is quite common in snakes for females to eat the unfertilized ova. Just recently stories and pictures have popped up of female Boa Constrictor even eating dead young.
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Chris & Alliey
www.bloodyleopard.com
E-mail Us

Lol. By "Boss" do you mean your wife?!?!
I guess I could take them to work with me but, man, what a chore that would be.

I've had kenyans eat slugs and still borns, and a nelson milk male eat eggs (wasn't aware that the female was ready to lay and had left the male in way too long!) and now this is the second time that this female has done this. By the shape and size of the female before and after, I'm guessing that they were good eggs and at least five very evident lumps. She even ate two weaned mice four days before she layed. (I didn't think she was going to double)
Big bummer too, she is double het albino/hypo and the male is also. Oh, well I got five good ones this time and this was her second clutch this year.
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Steve Perry
North Idaho.

Had a female once that was eating her eggs and had one in her mouth. She let go as I pulled the tub open. Although her rear tooth had pierced the egg, tape was applied and it still hatched healthy. I have only ever had that one female eat eggs in the last 12 years. She was wc.
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Thank you,
Kevin Rhodes
http://www.freewebs.com/spreptile/index.htm
http://s212.photobucket.com/albums/cc314/lifesciences/?action=view¤t=09-09hognose001.jpg

I feel your pain. I got a female 100% het for lavender that eats
some of her eggs every year unless i get them out fast, and I to often have to go to work while she's laying...and I always have
a bad day at work!

I'd love to share the pain with you Dave, send me a few of those lavs and then we'll be even
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Steve Perry
North Idaho.