In 2002, my healthy, five year old female gray-banded king bred for the first time with another gray-band. After the expected time frame, she laid 11 infertile eggs, one of which was broken. Another infertile egg remained in her cloaca. After 24 hours, I was able to get this infertile egg out of her by gently applying glycerin, thumb pressure along with the snakes contractions. 75 days later, with no subsequent matings, a swelling at her cloaca was found to be another infertile egg and the hard, dark remnants of what appeared to be two collapsed eggs. After waiting several days, these were again forced from her as described above. She continues to feed well, but I elected to not breed her in 2003. She is a quality snake and I am tempted to breed her in 2004, but do not want to lose the snake due to egg laying problems. I'm interested in what you think might have caused eggs from two different clutches of normal sized, infertile eggs to fail pass from her? Would you expect similar problems if she is bred again?
Thanks,
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Gray-band with previous egg laying problem
Replies (2)
From listening to a few grey band breeders over the years it does seem like this species may be a bit more prone to this type of dystocia. With an otherwise healthy snake the common theorized cause is a lack of muscle tone related to captivity. Sub-optimal calcium levels are another possibility as this affects both the shell structure and the contraction strength. Some breeders have noted a reduction of retained egg problems in grey bands after calcium supplementation was used. As for the infertility, you didn't mention if the pair was cooled or not but I understand that grey band fertility success is more dependent on this then with many other colubrids.
T.B
Thanks for the reply. She was cooled and I supplemented with calcium, based on my understanding of the importance of this with alterna. I had considered muscle tone when all but the last egg from the first clutch passed. When nothing from the second clutch passed I tended to discount this theory, but it may indeed be a muscular abnormality somewhere.
Thanks again,
Rick
