Reptile & Amphibian Forums

Rat snakes from the American West tend to lay larger, fewer eggs than those from the eastern United States. A good example is seen in my Hueco Canyon suboc eggs, laid yesterday. The photo compares them to a single yellow rat snake egg from my four-foot female. The suboc is about three feet long.

This is the Hueco Canyon female's first clutch, so not surprising it wasn't very many eggs. She produced four good eggs and three infertiles. Making eggs this size takes a lot out of a snake. She started eating the day after she laid her eggs so I hope she recovers well.

Suboc eggs incubate for a long time, and I anticipate hatching sometime around October 20, possibly as late as early November.

I was wondering why you expect them to take over 90 days to hatch. Over the years that I've bred them, they have hatched between 75 and 80 days at a temp range of 78 to 81 degrees.

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Randy Whittington

My suboc eggs have typically taken around 96 days to hatch. I don't incubate them at 78 and above although they do fine at those temps. I keep them at around 72-78. I generally incubate all eggs at lower temps than other breeders, usually no higher than 78 even with controlled temps. My corn and other rat snake eggs take 70-75 days unless I keep them warmer. There are no great advantages to incubating eggs at lower temps; I'm just content to wait a little longer before I have to feed all those hatchlings.

What a great gallery of suboc photos you posted. Beautiful animals and nice healthy eggs. Here's a shot of the mother of the eggs in the photo above.

Nice looking female you have there.
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Randy Whittington

Yeah, very nice snake. I love a nice, normal pattern suboc. That's a beauty.

Still waiting on a bunch of campbell eggs to hatch out; 82 days and counting. No incubator. Sitting on a high shelf, gunned temps around 73-75. Have a bunch of pecos eggs (see below post) that may go 90-100 days sitting on same shelf. I'd be surprised if they hatch in less than 80 days. When I did the incubator thing it still took over 80 - 85 days at 80 degrees.

The only snakes to go in the incubator are the BP's when I get them because of the 88- 89 requirement.

Mike

You could drop your temps on down to 70 and maybe you could get some christmas babies Mike.
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Randy Whittington