Reptile & Amphibian Forums

I'm not trying to sound stupid.
But what happens if she retains/binds the eggs?
How can this be avoided?
I'm new to this and want my snake to be in good heath. So I'm trying to collect as much information as possible.

Thanks
Shane

Hello,
From what I've read, egg binding can be prevented by waiting until the female is 3-4 years old and at least 5' long before breeding. As I understand it, egg binding is a life-threatening situation for the female, and may require massaging, deflating the retained eggs with a needle, inducing contractions with drugs, or even surgical removal of the eggs. Even if the female survives the procedure, she may be permanently unable to breed. I'd be interested to hear a first-hand account though, since I've heard that egg binding is (unfortunately) common with gaigeae due to the large size of their eggs.

Nate

ok, you wanted a first-hand account, so here you go....

My adult female is a proven breeder. I don't know her exact age, but she's at least 4 yrs old, but probably more like 5-6 yrs. She's a little over 5' in length. Earlier this year, she and my male copulated several times. Her girth was extremely large, so I believed her to be gravid. After what I thought was her prelay shed, I waited and waited and she never dropped any eggs. So I put her back with the male around early June. They copulated several times again. When she finally dropped her eggs, she layed 1 slug, followed by 19 eggs. Yes, 19! She did this the day before a planned 2 week vacation. When I came back, I found that most of the eggs were going bad, and worse still, she had 2 eggs still in her. These weren't evident when I left for vacation, but were obvious when I came back. I tried several times to massage them out, but by this time the yokes had hardened and she required surgery to get them out. The surgery went well and the vet believes she can breed again without problem. Of the 19 eggs, only 1 hatched, and another died fully developed in the egg.
Obviously the female was of the right size for breeding. I believe that the problem was a low sperm count from the male because of the late breeding. Either that, or they just didn't copulate enough times. This year I have another male that should be of the right size, so she's going to have a couple of mates.

Wow, that's a lot of eggs... too bad only one was fertile! That explains a lot though, I saw your classified ad the other day and wondered why you only had one hatchling available. At least you'll be able to breed her again in the future... if you don't mind my asking, where did you get her?

Nate

I had a double het ghost female get eggbound on me the year before last. I had her taken to the vet for operation. The egg was removed successfully and she healed up just fine. The following year bred just fine and laid 10 big fertile eggs. Good luck with yours.

matt Salyer
Fantasy Reptiles