This happened a few nights ago, but I'm only just now getting a chance to catch up and write about it. Though pueblans are not en vogue right now, this was a very special animal to me. Beyond being one of the "higher dollar" campbelli morphs, she is actually the snake that reignited my childhood interest in milks. I really hate that she checked out so many years before her time.
"Dagny," as I came to call her, was produced in 2006 by Jerry Bedsole from his fourth generation of hypo apricot pueblans. He carried her and and a male in the same bag together to a show in 2008 where I purchased her, and to my surprise she laid her first clutch about a month thereafter. She laid a second clutch last year and has been a problem-free snake for the duration of her time with me, eagerly feeding on whatever I offered her. Although she's always been on the small side, she ate like a champ and always bounced back with weight gain after breeding. I resigned not to attempt any of the pueblan's double or triple clutch tricks, but did pair her this year with an awesome oreo produced by Jeff Sellers.
She went through the entire breeding routine without any incident. I added a nest box for her several days before her pre-lay shed, and I observed her moving in and out of the nest box after shedding. She spent a great deal of time in the nest box right around the period when I expected her to drop eggs, and when she hadn't deposited in what I would consider a "normal window of time," I chose to give her a few extra days because she seemed calm and resolved in the nest box, not agitated as I've always read about in egg-binding cases. The morning after I made this decision -- 13 days post-PLS -- I observed her in the nest box with her tail lifted like she was attempting to deposit. When I returned home from work that following afternoon, I found her in the EXACT same contorted position. I knew something was wrong and took her out to check her, but she was already stiff with rigor mortis. My next steps were a complete fool's errand, but I figured I had nothing to lose, so I decided to perform a necropsy to evaluate what went wrong and try to salvage the eggs.
The photomontage that follows documents this very off the cuff procedure. Although dystocia can be caused by a laundry list of factors (e.g. dehydration, inadequate heat, old age, obesity, etc.) my case doesn't seem to fit cleanly into any one paradigm. The necropsy was frustratingly inconclusive. It seems the eggs were just a little too large for her small body.
I don't even think the eggs are viable, but I'll keep them for a few weeks just to see what happens.
Although my necropsy wasn't conclusive, this whole ordeal has been a painful reminder that there's still so much we don't understand about the reproductive physiology of reptiles. We think we've figured them out because we've mastered the art of... introducing a male at the perfect time or something, but there's so much behind the scenes we're only just beginning to appreciate. Nature remains an open book.
Cheers,
Brad
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http://www.waffahousereptiles.com
